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Pokemon: The Origin of Species FAQ
Isn’t it unrealistic to have Red, Blue and Leaf so intelligent/mature for 11-12 year olds?
I’m actually of two minds on this. On the one hand, I’m perfectly fine saying that environmental pressures have made humans in the pokemon world a standard deviation more mature and intelligent than they would be in our world… any kids that didn’t treat pokemon like the deadly monsters they are would not have survived the dark ages before pokeballs were invented.
On the other hand, I honestly do believe that many kids, even in our world, are
more adult-like than most people give them credit for.↗︎︎
I especially believe that almost all kids, when raised in certain circumstances, can grow to be as mature as their environment dictates. There are child soldiers in war torn countries that are forced to fight at the age Red and Blue and Leaf are. Throughout history, boys in particularly military cultures have been trained to fight and kill since pre-adolescence.
Whether these are the healthiest or best ways to raise children is obviously a different question. But when humanity’s survival relies on training children to be soldiers, they’re sure as hell going to be more mature than the average 21st century western 11 year old.
As for intelligence, Red, Blue and Leaf are all gifted youngsters, even among their peers. Perhaps that doesn’t account for ALL their intelligence, but I work with kids, and every once in awhile I’ll meet an 11 or 12 year old who’s as intelligent and well spoken as their older siblings and parents. They’re not typical kids, but to me they’re realistic enough… and they’re not even
producing nuclear fusion in their garage at the age of 14.↗︎︎
Ok, but why are children still being allowed to become trainers at all?
So my options on this were basically to either retcon canon (games, manga, and shows) and make all trainers in the world like 16+, or try to rationalize the world as presented, despite upgrading its dangers to a realistic level.
I ultimately decided on the latter for a couple reasons: first, because I think it adds a lot to the themes of the story to make the pokemon journey one of childhood ambition and adventure, and second because I think that the pokemon world has sufficient history to justify their children being different from our own.
They still travel in a group to help increase safety, and CoRRNet is such a universal presence to help improve safety further. But at the end of the day, the in-universe reason for why kids are allowed to train monsters is that in-universe they
need
kids to, and
expect
kids to.
Their world went through thousands of years of dark ages where humanity survived by the skin of its teeth against these monsters, and over time learned to domesticate and train them. Their history is full of stories of heroes who, at a young age, managed to capture and raise dangerous pokemon that they then used for their villages/towns/tribes’ safety.
With the advance of the world’s technology, both in capturing pokemon and in training them, I don’t see why they would shift to suddenly having lower expectations of their children. In a sense that’s what we’ve done in our world, but that’s because we don’t have pressures on society not to. Their world is still one of an existential struggle against monsters, and they need as many soldiers ready to defend against them as they can get, as quickly as they can get them.
Why did you make pokemon have animal-level intelligence?
Okay, so here’s the thing.
I have yet to find any fanfic do pokemon with human level intelligence justice: not only do their characters take the enslavement of sapient beings for granted, but the pokemon inevitably end up acting just like animals who can speak English (or whatever language) anyway, rather than treating them like actual
people
who have wills and goals and plans of their own beyond “survive and kill” if wild or “serve my master” if caught (or “rebel for a bit then realize I just want to serve my master” if caught but unruly).
Which is basically why I took my cue from the games and made them animal level intelligence. Any story that actually treats them like people would
have
to be about the liberation and eventual equality of pokemon to be rational and, in my view, have likable characters. No humans working against those goals could really be “good” people. And that would be an awesome story to tell (kind of like the
Temeraire↗︎︎
series), but not one that I have an interest in writing, personally.
Some fics try to justify the pokemon world with the whole “pokemon just really love fighting/getting stronger, so they join trainers to do that,” but that still should totally upend the world of pokemon as most people know it. If such a thing were true, humans would not need to struggle to catch pokemon at all: they would instead be in a mutual partnership, where pokemon are actually competing to find the best trainers and join their teams.
This is what I mean by treating pokemon like people, with their own thoughts and feelings and rationally pursued goals. All the added justifications never alter the intrinsic dynamic that’s central to the pokemon world of the games and anime and manga: where people fight pokemon in the wild, who struggle
not
to get caught, and upon getting caught they suddenly are willing to die for their trainer/to get stronger. And they really, really should alter that dynamic, if pokemon were as intelligent as people.
Even if it’s a case of “So human, you have caught me fairly and thus proven your worth as a trainer…” What stops pokemon from just joining another trainer that beats theirs? The central conceit of pokemon (again as most people know/represent it) relies on pokemon being essentially
less than
people.
Whatever levels of intelligence might come between humans and animals doesn’t really interest me as possibilities, if it doesn’t change those essential dynamics. If they’re ultimately treated like animals anyway, they might as well just be animals, so that people now have to deal with that reality the way we would rather than have convenient “cheats” that don’t make consistent sense, and the story can explore all the ethical issues that exist between human-animal relations in our world.
If someone else has written a story where the pokemon
are
treated like they have human intelligence, though, and does it justice, I’d love to read it!
Why don’t people use guns? Or any weapons at all, like swords or bows?
So the simplest answer to the question of guns in the pokemon world is that they were just never invented. There aren’t any in the games, and they’re not really used in the anime, outside of appearing once in awhile without solving any actual problems that come up. But even if they were invented, they would not be all that useful.
Remember that pokemon are not regular animals: some breathe fire or shoot lightning. Others have skin as hard as rock or steel, or are made of poisonous slime, or are ghosts. Others are incredibly fast, and can attack from underground.
The idea of people using guns against them seems like it would work out okay in some situations and not at all in others. The same applies even more for swords or bows. In the pokemon world, the deadliest thing you can hold in your hand is a pokeball, because inside it is a monster that can be at least as powerful as the ones you face. Any trainer that decides to carry a sword into battle is just gimping themselves, because that’s one less hand they can use for swapping pokemon or applying medicine or catching enemy pokemon.
Shouldn’t Leaf be named Green? And why is she from Unova?
The first generation character names in pokemon are weird: Blue Oak was originally Green in Japan, and became Blue in the US release when they decided to make Red and Blue the two versions. Which left the third color to the female character introduced in FireRed and LeafGreen remakes, except
which
third color is the problem, since the “Rival” is either Green or Blue depending on Japanese or English version. So while the female character is also referred to as Blue or Green in the comics, for the games she goes by Leaf, which is far less ambiguous.
I made her from Unova because she’s not really a canon character in the games, just an alternative player avatar for Red, so I decided to make her a foreigner for storytelling reasons: it gives us an outsider’s perspective on the region, ignorant of local customs and information, and with a different set of values (partially encouraged through exposure to the early Team Plasma incarnation).
How is pokemon nativity decided?
I’m basically going off of the latest version of Kanto region available in the games, which is Heart Gold and Soul Silver. There might be some minor changes made for realism (like evolutions of pokemon being around, since there isn’t an artificial limit on what level they can be) or based on information from other media, but for the most part I’m sticking to what bulbapedia lists for each route and zone, including all their evolutionary stages.
Have you read [insert pokemon comic/fanfic]?
Probably not: the only pokemon fanfic I’ve read to “completion” was Game of Champions while writing chapter 11. I’ve never read any of the various manga stories, and other fanfic like Sun Soul and Traveler haven’t been able to maintain my interest beyond the first few chapters. More recently, I’ve enjoyed
Pokemon: The Line↗︎︎
too. New recommendations are always welcome, however!
Is [name of character] a reference to [show/story/real-life-person]?
Probably. I’m incredibly bad at naming characters, and leap gratefully at any lifeline my brain spits out, referential or not. Some are more intentional than others, and some are shoutouts to other Rationalist authors or readers whose feedback have helped me improve the story, but none have any deeper meaning or foreshadowing: the plot isn’t trying to be a puzzle only solvable by those who have access to the same reference pools, with the possible exception of pokemon itself.
How do the people in your story know what a lizard is, or a rat, or a bird?
Though a number of
amusing comics↗︎︎
have pointed out the confusion of a pokemon world native to words like “rat” or “dog” in the pokedex despite the lack of our world’s animals in the games, I’ve never found this particular detail to be problematic. “Dog” is not a specific animal: it’s a wide family of very closely related animals, more specific than canid but less specific than German Shepard. Houndour and Stoutland are dogs. There are no American Bald Eagles in Pokemon, or even Unovan Bald Eagles, but there are still eagles, such as Braviary and Staraptor, the latter of which could also be called a hawk depending on what features you focus on. The point is that ekans is a snake and onix is a snake, despite them both being very different creatures, because both share enough descriptive traits to be grouped under the category “snake.” It might make for a more colloquial and less scientific taxonomy in the pokemon world than in ours, but labels are just boxes that we draw around things that are similar enough to ease communication, and there’s no reason that would be less true in a world of wildly different magical beasts just because they also have other labels to use, like Fire Type and Rock Type.
Why don’t pokeballs in your world “shake” when catching, or pokemon try to fight their way out?
The main issue with the way the game and anime treats this is it makes no sense (as usual) for a pokemon to “fight” its way out while it’s nothing but a ball of energy inside. Furthermore, “damaging” a pokemon so it can get caught is also weird: does how “tired” or “hurt” it is translate to being made of “less energy” somehow?
So I scrapped the idea that any ball can hold any pokemon, and decided to put technical limits on them. The difficulty of capturing pokemon is in locking on and hitting the pokemon with the ball, which requires slowing it down through fatigue/injury or immobilizing it first. The only way hurting a pokemon can legitimately help the pokeball contain it is if it loses so much blood or so many body parts that its mass becomes low enough to meet the ball’s limits.
The way I see the tech working, they can hold virtually anything, but the more energy being contained, the more it wears out the internal matrix that safely suspends it. If you catch something too big, it overloads it very quickly. Kind of like how you can run X volts through a lightbulb for months, but if you try to shove 3X volts through it, you’ll blow it out in moments.
So stronger balls are capable of storing larger pokemon, or pokemon that transmute into larger amounts of energy, but unless you try to use a basic pokeball on a snorlax or something, the balls won’t break while trying to catch one.
Why is it so hard for people in your world to figure out type interactions?
Without health bars or messages popping up saying “Super Effective!” or similar, it’s very difficult to determine what, exactly, the effects of an attack on a certain pokemon are influenced by. This goes double for less obvious attacks, like Psychic or Ghost moves, which can deal ”damage” in ways other than physical trauma.
Are Fairy Type pokemon in the story, since it takes place before Gen VI?
So far, Fairy pokemon are considered a myth by people in the story. I don’t know if they will ever appear in its current plot, so pokemon like clefairy and jigglypuff will likely stay Normal Types.
For now my current idea for how it works is that the Fairy Type is an inactive gene in pokemon that have it. When Xerneas is close to awakening from its millenia long hibernation, its Fairy Aura will saturate the pokemon around it, activating their Fairy attributes and awakening their powers. They in turn would activate the Fairy pokemon they come in contact with, and so on.
Until then, all mono Fairy pokemon like snubbull just seem like Normal types if pure, and if they’re mixed types like gardevoir, they’re just considered their other type.
Why are Psychic and Ghost and some other attacks so different?
The answer to this requires going a bit into the mechanics of how I envision “damage” working realistically compared to the games.
Without the ability to distill the effects of all attacks into the raw numbers of “damage” to “HP,” attacks by physical, mental, and emotional means can manifest in many different ways. The damage they do is often based on their effects, like status conditions. A mental attack may cause “confusion,” like in the games, but it may also cause more specific status conditions, like “go catatonic with fear” or “become hyper-sensitive to stimulus.”
So in the games, the attack “Psybeam” does damage and has a chance of causing the status condition “confused,” which might give you a chance of hurting yourself further. But in the “real world,” the two things are one and the same: a Psybeam attack causes you to hurt yourself due to mental impairment, a more severe impairment than the weaker “Confusion” attack.
Ghost attacks are similar. Most don’t inflict status conditions, but the “damage” they do are the result of the effects they have. A pokemon or person can be incapacitated by crippling emotional anguish just as much as excessive physical trauma, and any physical damage they sustain in the meantime is secondary to that.
Why can’t pokeballs do X/Why can’t people do X with pokeball technology?
Pokeballs are so arbitrarily powerful that the temptation to include more features and failsafes and capabilities than those included in the games/anime, like wireless data backup and automatic registry, or cloning and replicators, have to be resisted. Since I need to draw the line of how powerful they are somewhere, I’m trying to stick to the games’ capabilities as much as possible, and even come up with various miscellaneous restrictions (battery life, mass limits, “lock on” requirement) to explain why people in the games and anime don’t, for example, fly over wild pokemon dropping dozens of pokeballs on them repeatedly until they’re caught.
Otherwise, taken at face value with how they seem to work, the resulting munchkinry would be so powerful and so obvious that the only explanation for why people in the games and anime don’t use them that way and are still smart enough to tie their shoelaces in the morning is that pokeball-tech
can’t
be used that way, and it’s just up to our imagination, or in this case mine, to come up with reasons why.
For example, why don’t the characters in the anime use powerful slingshots to catch pokemon from far away? Either they’re pants-on-head levels of stupid, or there are restrictions disallowing them from being used that way. Since the games and anime don’t specify those restrictions, I need to make them up, and that may mean re-imagining some of the blatantly contradictory or nonsensical parts of canon.
Why do all pokemon come from eggs? (aka, “How do skitty and wailord breed?”)
I’m actually retconning this: it’s something I think falls under the “clearly a game conceit because the makers of Pokemon couldn’t be bothered to think out the complications of an alternative and to make it easier for children” classification of justified departures from canon.
On top of which, the idea that all pokemon come from eggs is contradicted in canon anyway: the pokedex is full of all sorts of nonsensical bullshit, but how much can we discount things like grimer as being born from sludge exposed to “x-rays from the moon?” It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they can be produced both by natural occurrences and from eggs, but it strikes me as simply a game convenience to have all pokemon that can reproduce do so in the same way mechanically.
Suffice to say, pokemon like gastly do not come from eggs in my world.
Why aren’t pokemon species always capitalized?
In my view, species names are non-capitalized when not referring to a specific pokemon the same way animals in our world are non-capitalized. There’s no reason to consider pokemon names proper nouns other than the convention set in the games.
What about the restriction of 6 pokeballs?
This is another thing that’s clearly a gaming conceit. It’ll be reinforced by official battle limits for League Sanctioned games, but realistically anyone can walk around with however many full-size pokeballs they want to carry.
Are Pokemon restricted to 4 moves?
Another gaming conceit that’s being ignored. The smarter the pokemon, and the better trained it is, the more moves it will be able to learn. But a trainer has to reinforce moves it learns, or else a pokemon might forget them after enough time.
How are you treating stat raising/lowering moves like Growl?
In my world, usually these are less “moves” as they are side effects of pokemon’s normal activities. If a bulbasaur “growls” at something, it might become more wary and less effective at attacking. If a pidgeot “screeches” at something, it might flinch and be more vulnerable to attacks. Other moves like Tail Whip I’ve changed to better fit their name and be more realistic. I have Charmander use the move as an attack because it makes sense for him to do so, and “Tail Whip” wasn’t called that in Japanese anyway: its direct translation is “Tail Wag,” which makes much more sense considering it’s not actually using your tail as a whipping attack, as I describe in the fiction, but rather “wagging” it as a sort of taunt, to make the opponent less cautious or whatever would translate to a “lower defense.” If I’m going to use the English attack names, I’m going to have them represent what they actually sound like: not what they were badly translated to and kept out of convention.
Do moves gain Same Type Attack Bonus? (If a pokemon uses an attack that shares a type with it, the damage is boosted by 1.5x)
The concept behind STAB in the games is fine in theory, and makes sense to me in many regards. But simply following the game’s mechanics without question, and then trying to rationalize that, doesn’t interest me as much as reconstructing and reframing the world in a rational manner. As such, perhaps a raticate has a stronger Tackle because it’s a normal pokemon that relies on nothing else, but there’s no really rational explanation for why a nidorino’s tackles would be any weaker, considering that’s how it uses the poison spike on its forehead anyway. Similarly, Bite is Dark Type move in the games starting in Generation 2 because that’s when Dark pokemon were introduced and they needed moves that were Dark, but there’s no reason to think raticate, whose entire strength is his powerful jaws and teeth, should have weaker Bites than a houndour, who can rely on his fire breathing as well. The way I’m implementing it, pokemon that use moves of Types they aren’t are going to be at a disadvantage for “natural” reasons. If you use a TM to hack a Rock pokemon’s biology to allow it to shoot fire out of its mouth, for example, it might be able to do it, but not as well as a Fire pokemon who naturally evolved to would.
Are the routes going to be progressively harder to traverse, like in the games?
Obviously there’s no rational reason for pokemon to be staggered in strength merely by what route they’re on. This is one of the previously mentioned game conceits: it always bothered me as a kid to wonder how trainers that start from other towns would have to go about their journeys surrounded by such strong pokemon.
The way I’m writing the world, the vast majority of wild pokemon directly around civilization are about the same average strength: all the incredibly dangerous ones have already been cleared out of the most traveled paths, and are kept away by the resident trainers and Rangers. There are no “levels,” and certain species are not just inherently always found at higher strengths than others, like in the games. While some species are on average stronger or more dangerous than others, location doesn’t dictate that.
Of course, there are outliers (like the nidorino that Pallet Town’s raticate Swift fought off), but the really powerful pokemon are found farther in the wild, rather than the well-traveled areas between towns or cities.
Why not just use fences?
A fence is pretty useless unless it’s defended. Pokemon aren’t like our animals. Even ignoring the ones that fly or burrow, some of them breathe fire, or are made of rocks, or can smash rocks with their fists. What fence can hold them? Eventually pokemon are going to get over or under or through it, and now the false sense of security leaves everyone traveling that path even more vulnerable.
Can you please, please, publish more often?
Believe me, I’m as eager to get more chapters out faster as anyone: there’s a lot of great story bouncing around in my head that I can’t wait to get on paper and have you all read. Unfortunately I have a full time job and a lot of other responsibilities and projects at the moment that make it hard to deliver on a consistently faster basis, and I don’t see much point in publishing a week earlier one month when I’ll probably take the entire next month to get the following chapter out anyway: I’d rather have a slow but steady publishing schedule that gives me room to make each chapter as high quality as I can with the time I can spare, and be as reliable as possible with it (3+ years without a missed deadline and counting!)
Is there anything that might help make writing easier/faster for you?
So, I’ve thought about this a lot and realized that the main thing that really drags out the writing process is the research.
Some chapters it’s not so bad, a few hours here and there throughout the month. Other times I’ll spend 5 hours in a week just to figure something out for one scene. And other times, I’ll spend 5 hours in a week just to figure out that I have to scrap the scene I had in mind and come up with a new one, because reality just doesn’t match the pokemon world enough for something to make sense (stupid reality).
As an example, for the chapter they encounter wigglytuff I spent maybe 3 hours learning about sound before I realized I would have to change the chapter’s main source of conflict completely. That’s 3 hours I would have saved if I had a Sound Expert I could just ask, but that’s just one example, and every chapter could require a different expert.
So I’ve thought about delegating research duties to readers. I have a few readers that I checked some of my Japanese with back when I was wasting time figuring out translations that weren’t terrible, but it’s a bit harder when it comes to all the various scientific topics that could come up at any given time.
On top of that, the few times when I have had someone in my readership or real life that I could directly ask a question, it doesn’t always save a significant amount of time. Some questions result in a quick “yes, that’s how it works” or “no, that’s stupid,” but for others I need to understand them well enough to incorporate the concept into the story properly, and not just on a surface level.
Having others help with proof reading and editing wouldn’t save a significant amount of time, as I do it in dribs and drabs when I have spare minutes that won’t be put toward anything more productive. Research is the real time sink, and maybe I’ll figure something out once my website is done and I can have an easier flow of communication with my readers (and my readers can with each other too). One idea I have is to put a blog post up about a question I have, and see if anyone knows the answer. We’ll see what works best, and maybe someday I can get chapters out a bit faster. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!
Pokemon Team Roster
Warning: potential spoilers can be inferred from this list if you are not up to date on the story. Updates paused during current arc, starting at chapter 62
In
Chapter 20 of The Origin of Species
, Red uses a mental flowchart to identify why he’s so upset at something Psychic Narud said to him. People have asked what it’s from, so here is a rough draft of that flowchart in its entirety. I came up with it as a way to help clients improve awareness of what upsets them and work through why, and you’re welcome to use it as you will.
Red’s Goal Factoring Sheet
Here’s the sheet from Red’s notebook where he tries Goal Factoring in chapter 45. This isn’t the best or cleanest representation of what Goal Factoring looks like, but I figured a visual would be useful to anyone interested in trying it themselves!
The Verres household’s second bedroom looks as though it belongs to two very different people. Or perhaps one person and one rampaging tauros.
The floor is littered with clothes. Used socks lie in unmatched pairs beside shoes, and half the chairs and bedposts have shirts or jackets hanging on them. The walls are completely obscured by maps, charts, and detailed pictures of pokemon biology and life cycles, most with writing scribbled on them in a tight, efficient script. The small cabinet beside the bed is overflowing with books and notepads, some spilled off onto the floor beside it.
Amidst this carnage, certain areas are pristine. Bookshelves line the walls, each filled with textbooks and novels that are all alphabetically organized. The work desk is completely clear of clutter, keyboard and mouse neatly placed an arm’s distance from each other. The wires and cables are carefully zip-tied and braced along the wall and desk. A can of sharpened pencils and capped pens sits against the wall, and a notebook rests beside it, open to a crisp, empty white page.
On the bed lies a boy, one leg and arm hanging over its side. On the wall above him there’s a calendar opened to June. Most of the boxes in the first half have notes written in them. One by one, X’s are drawn through each, right up to the highlighted square in the middle… afterward, the squares of the calendar are blank.
Today’s the day after which all earlier predictions cease.
As sunlight slowly fills the room through the drawn shades, a colorful alarm shaped like a chatot suddenly whirs to life. The lid over its round eyes slide open, it raises its head, and its beak yawns wide to emit-
Cacacacacacacacaacacaw!
The boy flails against the covers, sitting up and blinking through gummy eyes. He looks at the time and groans. It’s only seven…
Cacacacacacacacaacacaw!
He buries his face in his main pillow, right hand taking a second one to cover his head. His left swipes in the direction of the sound, seeking the snooze button on its head. It finds nothing.
Cacacacacacacacaacacaw!
The boy takes the pillow off his head and swings it down at the alarm. The tip of the pillow brushes the chatot’s beak, but the alarm is perched precariously on the end of the nightstand just out of reach. As if whoever decided where to place it had done so after measuring the length of the boy’s arm and a pillow.
Cacacacacacacacaacacaw!
He bolts back up with a scowl and staggers out of bed just long enough to hit the button and slump back onto the mattress. He sighs as his eyes slip closed-
“Hey Future Red, you awake?”
-and then snap open.
“Remember yet?”
the chatot asks in a young boy’s voice.
“You predicted having trouble sleeping last night, your last night that is, not mine, and set the alarm to be extra annoying just in case you’re unusually tired, since you can’t afford to oversleep today.”
That… does sound like something he would do, yes. Memories begin to seep through the cobwebs around his mind, and Red lowers the pillow and rubs at the gunk in his eyes so he could look at the calendar.
“Well if you’re listening to this you’re probably up now, but if not…”
Red scrambles for the alarm, too late-
CACACACACACACACACACACACACA-
Red slams the pillow down on the chatot with a muffled
bang
that knocks it to the floor, but he’s grinning. He remembers now.
Today’s the day.
With a rush of energy, Red stumbles to the bathroom to shower, the initial blast of cold water waking him the rest of the way. He brushes his teeth with one hand while washing his hair with the other, then dries up and opens his closet, where his traveling clothes are laid out carefully separate from the rest. Stain resistant, reinforced thread with protective mesh underwire, form fitting but light enough not to hamper movement. He pulls on the black shirt, red and white jacket, and denim pants, then opens the box of new, but broken-in, hiking shoes.
Only after he’s fully clothed does he permit himself to look at the clock, which reads…
7:32 AM.
Red slumps. The lab doesn’t open until eight. He checks his phone and sees no messages or missed calls.
Foot tapping with impatient energy, he decides to make breakfast to burn a half hour. He goes downstairs to the kitchen and begins preparing food. When the eggs start sizzling he hears his mom’s door open upstairs, and then feet treading down to join him.
“Morning Red.”
“Morning mom!”
She kisses his head and goes to the fridge. “Your alarm was unusually insistent today.”
Red grins. “Yeah, sorry. I set some failsafes.”
“Mhmm.” She pulls some milk out of the fridge, a winking cartoon miltank on the cover. “Any word from Blue or Professor Oak?”
“No.” Red slides some bread into the toaster, then turns the stove off and lifts the eggs onto a plate. When he asked his mother to teach him how to cook last year it was harder to reach the stove without standing on a stepping stool, but now he feels comfortable in the kitchen. He and Blue agreed that they should be ready for anything on their journey, which includes knowing how to cook their own food in the wild if needed. They worked their way there by learning to cook in a kitchen first, usually this one, with his mom as their teacher. “He said he would call when it’s ready.”
“Good then, at least we’ll have the morning together.” She smiles.
Red was actually thinking of bolting down his breakfast and heading to Blue’s for last minute coordination, but he shoves down his impatience and smiles back at her. His mother did her best to hide her worry over the past year, but he saw it all the same. Overly affectionate words, prolonged hugs, and above all, a haunted gaze he only ever picked up in his periphery, when she thought he was too absorbed in his work to notice.
He knew at those moments she was thinking of his father, and worrying that she would lose him too.
So he sets the table and puts out their breakfast, then eats with deliberate slowness. They make small talk, while under the table Red’s foot bounces, bounces, bounces, and his gaze flicks to the clock again and again to track the glacial sweep of its hands.
He’s buttering his third piece of toast when the house phone rings, and he surges out of his chair with a shout of “I’llgetit!” as he runs to the wall mount. His heart leaps as he sees the lab’s public number on the ID.
“Hello!”
“Er… hi?” The man on phone seems startled, and Red takes a deep breath to calm himself. “Is this the Verres residence?”
“Yes.” Red says, speaking slowly as iron bands tighten around his chest. “This—is—Red. How—may—I—help—you?”
“Oh, good morning Red, I didn’t recognize you there. Professor Oak would like you to come down at your earliest conven-”
“I’monmyway!” Red slams the phone onto its cradle. “It’s ready!” he yells to his mom as he runs upstairs, food forgotten.
On top of his dresser sits a large backpack, stuffed with everything from clothing to snackbars, carefully weighed to ensure he could jog with it at length without tiring. He had packed and repacked it the night before in preparation, but after having trouble sleeping he pulled the Kanto map out to study by lamp light, then a list of species types, then a half a dozen other things, until inevitably half the bag’s smaller side pockets were spread over his nightstand.
He quickly repacks everything, then slings it over his shoulder and goes to the door. He stops halfway out and looks back.
Red examines his books, his video games, his old toys, knowing it might be months at least before he sees any of it again. His gaze falls on his calendar, with all its empty squares ahead.
Red smiles and closes the door firmly behind him.
His mom is standing by the front door when he goes downstairs. He slows and stands before her, only having to lift his chin a little to meet her gaze.
“Got everything?”
There’s a slight hitch to her throat, there then gone, and suddenly Red’s throat feels clogged.
Don’t cry…
“I-I think so.”
“You’ll call when you get to Viridian?”
“Of course.”
“And every night after!”
Red shifts his weight. “Yeah.”
“If you need anymore underwear-”
“Mom!” He puts his hand on the doorknob, and she covers it with hers.
“Forgetting something?” She pulls his hat off the wall hook behind her and fits it snug over his dark hair. “There. Now you look ready for anything.”
Red tugs the cap’s crimson bill a bit lower. “Thanks, I thought it was in my bag.”
He reaches for the door again, pauses, and then he hugs her nearly as tight as she hugs him.
“Be careful, Red,” she whispers.
“I will, mom.”
By the time he reaches Pallet Town’s main street, Red’s eyes are mostly dry, and he’s walking with eager anticipation. The Pallet Lab becomes visible soon after, and upon turning onto its avenue he sees a familiar figure in a dark blue shirt and khakis on the other side of the street.
“Blue!” He waits for a car to pass and jogs across to join his childhood friend, whose own backpack bulges with its contents. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d already be inside with your grandpa.”
“I just woke up when they called,” Blue grumbles, rubbing one eye. “Couldn’t sleep last night, so I ended up working on my type chart for a couple hours.”
Red suppresses a sigh. A major difference that became clear between the two of them over the past year is that while Red’s interests in pokemon span multiple different levels, Blue is mostly just obsessed with battling.
Red once explained for five minutes to Blue how a researcher in Johto discovered that, after breeding a slowbro and a bayleef, the baby chikorita that hatched was able to heal those around it: a power no other chikorita had ever displayed, but that the slowbro father had learned. Blue’s only reaction had been to begin feverishly mapping out potential ability combinations to try for breeding competitive pokemon. He wasn’t the least bit interested in the implication that pokemon retained some intuitive, genetic grasp of how to use abilities they didn’t normally have. They argued about things like that all the time, and all Blue ever seems to care about is what makes pokemon stronger or changes to the type charts.
Making matters worse is the suspicion Red has gained over the years that the entire concept of pokemon “types” is majorly flawed…
“Let me see?”
Blue pulls out a square of folded paper and hands it to him. Red opens it and examines the hand-made grid.
On the top, from left to right, are seventeen color coded “types.” The same types are listed on the left from top to bottom, and where the various types intersect with eachother are X’s or checks, though most spaces are empty, and many have the smudges of erased marks. Most of them seem right, though Red doesn’t follow the competitive scene enough to tell what changes to the meta are new or outdated.
One change makes him curious. “What’s this?” Red points to the erased checkmark where Poison meets Grass. “You removed Plant’s weakness to Poison?”
“Yeah. I was watching matchups in the Indigo regionals, and started going back over a lot of the high profile matches. In most cases, Grass pokemon were able to hold their own.”
“Huh. Were you just looking at Indigo matches?”
“That’s where I’ll be competing, so yeah.”
Red scratches his hair beneath his cap. “Then your sample size might not have been big enough. Most of the Plant pokemon in Kanto have adapted to become poisonous. It helps them survive better.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me.”
Red frowns. “What if you come across a non-poisonous Plant type from another region?”
Blue shakes his head. “Theory versus practice, my friend. Doesn’t matter if a thousand Grass pokemon would lose to a thousand Poison, if the ones I’m going to be fighting with are exceptions. Besides, I can recognize all the natives anyway. This is just for quick reference.”
“Well if it’s for quick reference it should be accurate to the rule, not the exceptions.” Red takes a pencil from his pocket. “Here, just put the checkmark back with an asterisk-”
Blue grabs the paper from him and stuffs it back in his pocket. “Look, you do things your way, I’ll do things mine, alright?”
Red rolls his eyes. Thankfully Blue is smart enough to know the difference between anecdotal evidence and evidence from rigorous experimentation, but he still puts too much stock in observation vs theory. Sometimes all it takes is one carefully constructed and repeatable experiment to understand the truth behind a thousand different disputing observations. They’ve argued about it often, but Red doesn’t want to ruin this special day with it.
A couple years ago Professor Oak took note of Red’s grades at school, and gave him some books to read that were a bit more advanced than the standard curriculum. When Red returned to Oak’s lab within a week with all of them read and asking for more, the Professor contacted his school and mother and informed them that he would be engaging Red in an apprenticeship.
Ever since then, Blue and he began to grow a bit more distant. At first Red thought Blue was jealous, but his friend showed little interest in the scientific pursuits his grandfather and Red shared.
Instead, the more Red learned at the lab, the more he and Blue argued. It got worse a year ago when they began preparing for their journey, and came to a head last month, when Blue declared that he’d rather learn from experience than trust what’s in books, and that Red would waste his life reading rather than doing anything worth writing about. Red responded that maybe Blue was just too stupid to learn something until he had it beaten into him, and shortly after that one of them had thrown the first punch.
After Red’s mom pulled them apart, they hadn’t spoken to each other for two weeks, which was about how long it took for Red’s black eye to fade. It was only their coming adventure that put their fight behind them by unspoken consent.
They’re a few streets away from the lab when Red decides the silence has gone on long enough. “So, do you know what we’ll get yet?”
“No, he still wouldn’t tell me. Said it would be a surprise. Personally I think he just got them at the last minute.”
“Any ideas though?”
“You’d know better than me, with all the time you spend at the lab.”
Red shakes his head. “I really only deal with papers and reports… once in awhile I see some pokemon we’re experimenting with, but no record of all the ones there, and I rarely go to the ranch.”
They reach the plaza in front of the multistory lab. The building is white and silver and glass, easily the biggest in Pallet Town, and it never fails to impress upon Red how lucky he is to be working at the hub of Pokemon research in Kanto. When Professor Oak moved to Pallet Town to set the lab up, it almost literally put the place on the map. Red’s mother told him that by the time he and Blue were born, the town had grown twice as large as it was originally, and in the eleven years since then Red has seen it grow twice as large again.
They enter the air conditioned lab and walk together through the entrance hall, where sketches and diagrams of pokemon physiology are displayed along the walls. Red spots his favorite, a drawing of a dissected bulbasaur that’s hundreds of years old. The frail, carefully sealed parchment details how the plant material is rooted and merged with the reptilian body. It’s the first historical evidence of someone attempting a naturalistic study of pokemon, rather than the ubiquitous regard of them as supernatural and mythic creatures. It took generations for the rest of civilization to catch up with the unknown researcher’s perspective: that pokemon could be studied and understood. A perspective most honored by those like Samuel Oak, from the first generation of trainers dubbed “Pokemon Professor.”
Red and Blue enter the office space and begin to pass a number of scientists that they wave to. Most of them are in their twenties or thirties, and smile at the sight of the youngsters, knowing what they’re here for.
“Good luck, Blue!”
“Have fun you two!”
“Red! Come see me after, I’ve got something for you-”
The two adolescents grin and wave as they walk through the labs, mutually picking up the pace as each other’s excitement reignites their own. They’re practically jogging by the time they reach the main lab, an open, round room filled with desks and computers, with various scientists scattered around it in groups, and many doors leading off to the smaller areas.
“Good morning!” booms a voice at the center of the room.
Professor Oak stands beside a table, pokedex in one hand and a pokeball in the other. While he spends most of his days indoors now, the old man’s skin still holds a hint of the tan he carried most of his life, and though his hair is more silver than gray, his eyes sparkle with undiminished vitality and curiosity. His open white lab coat is heavy with various tools and electronic devices sticking out of its pockets.
“Hey gramps!”
“Morning Professor Oak!”
They run up to him as he puts the pokeball down and slips the pokedex into a pocket. Red can see three pokeballs on the table, each with a colored symbol above the button: a green leaf, an orange flame, and a blue water drop. His foot begins to tap in place again as excitement fills his chest and limbs with energy.
Professor Oak beams at them. “You guys look great. Filled with eagerness and prepared for anything. It almost makes me want to leave this all behind and come along. If I were ten years younger…” He sighs, and claps his hands together. “Well. Time to pass on the torch. But first, an introduction. Leaf?”
A foreign girl with long brown hair stands up from the computer she was sitting at. Red was so focused on the pokeballs he didn’t even notice her. She’s about his and Blue’s age, and seems similarly prepared for travel.
As she approaches, Red looks at the three pokeballs again and blinks. “You’re coming with us?”
She smiles. “Nice to meet you.”
“Leaf, this is my grandson Blue, and one of my students, Red. Boys, this is Leaf Juniper. She’s the granddaughter of an old friend of mine from Unova, and she recently came here to study Kanto pokemon.”
Red stares until Blue greets her, then mumbles his own after. He knows of Professor Juniper, of course, and that he has a daughter, Aurea, who also recently became a Professor, but he didn’t know he had a granddaughter. He never met someone from Unova before, and he hadn’t expected to be setting out with anyone but Blue…
“I thought you only finished making two new prototypes, professor?” Red asks. He knows it’s childish, but he doesn’t want to have to share his.
“I have. Leaf’s mother made her own pokedex based on my last design, so she’s trying to expand its listing for their international index.”
Professor Oak reaches into his white coat and pulled out two red, slim computers. Red takes his reverently and opens the cover. A pair of touch screens greet him, one a home screen with a bunch of apps, the other a white, blank index. The empty, numbered list calls to him, just begging to be filled with information.
“My latest design prototype, almost ready for mass production. I want you two to give it a field test by catching as many Pokemon as you can to add to our database. And here are the pokemon you’ll be using to start.” Oak gestures to the three red and white spheres. “It took me awhile, but I got a hold of a bulbasaur, squirtle, and charmander from the breeders.”
Yes!
Red barely stops himself from pumping a fist into the air, and Blue cracks his knuckles in anticipation. Such rare and strong starting pokemon had been almost beyond his hopes.
“They’ve been bred and raised to be among the most intelligent and obedient of their species, which will make training them easier than most wild pokemon you catch.” Professor Oak says as he picks up the leaf-imprinted pokeball. “Treat them well, train them properly, and they’ll be your friends and protectors until their last breath.”
The professor holds the lens button on its front level with the lens on the front of Red’s pokedex, and to his delight a bulbasaur suddenly appears on the main screen, sleeping in the simulated environment the pokeball creates for him: a lush, grassy clearing in the middle of a forest. Its name pops up at the top of the screen, and after a second of loading, Red sees the Pokemon’s vital stats get listed: height, weight, type, and more.
Professor Oak moves the ball away from Red’s pokedex and does the same thing to Blue’s and Leaf’s. The video on Red’s pokedex freezes as soon as the lens is no longer aligned, and the image shrinks and becomes stored with the entry as the space listed #001 fills.
“When you catch a new Pokemon, just hold it up to the lens like this, and the pokedex will identify it and record whatever information it can. Your pokedexes all have access to the sum total of knowledge we currently have about the various species, so if you see one in the wild that it recognizes, you’ll be able to research it. But it will only be able to actually gather new information from the ones you capture. The more you catch, even among the same species, the more data we have on them, so each capture you make has the potential to teach us more. Do your best to try to catch them all!”
Heart in his throat, Red begins to look over all the information the pokedex has on bulbasaur:
Bulbasaur: Seed Pokemon. It exists in a symbiotic relationship with a seed embedded in its back at birth, which sprouts and grows as it ages. The plant absorbs nutrients from bulbasaur’s body, while bulbasaur can photosynthesize light through the plant’s leaves. It can go for days without eating as long as it has enough sunlight and water, and the plant can survive without sunlight as long as bulbasaur can find food.
It goes on for several pages to describe all that has been learned about bulbasaur’s growth, mating habits, preferred environments, and more. After the professor finishes scanning bulbasaur to each of their pokedex, he does the same thing with charmander and squirtle.
“So, I’m going to give you all time to examine these pokemon, then you’ll get to choose which one you want.”
Red exchanges a look with Blue and Leaf. The Unovan smiles and gestures to the two boys.
“After you: I’m a guest here, and they’re all new to me anyway. I have no preference.”
“What about you, Red?” Blue asked. “Got a favorite?”
Red can only remember a handful of details about the rare pokemon, and looks at the most recent entry, #007:
Squirtle: Turtle Pokemon. Its shell is hard and smooth, providing great defense and allowing swift swimming beneath the water. Its skin absorbs moisture from the air to fill its water pouches, and when threatened, it can withdraw into its shell and shoot foam or water from its mouth in a powerful spray. It also has strong jaws for biting anything that gets too near.
A pretty straightforward water type, then. He moves on to #004:
Charmander: Lizard Pokemon. Charmander prefer rocky, mountainous terrain, and hatch from their eggs when their tails ignite and crack the shell. The flame on the end of their tail varies in strength and size based on their mood and health. It is said that Charmander dies if its flame goes out.
Red frowns.
It is said? “
Professor, this entry on charmander… it says that it dies if the flame on the end of its tail goes out. That can’t be right, can it?”
Professor Oak shrugs. “Based on what’s been observed, that’s the inference many have drawn.”
Hmm. The Professor had worded that rather oddly. “But if the flame varies based on their health, wouldn’t it be more logical to say that when they die, the fire goes out?”
“More logical?” Blue says. “Who cares if it sounds more logical? He just said that it’s been observed.”
“But that’s a fallacy of correlation and causation,” Red says. “Just because the two things happen at the same time, doesn’t mean one causes the other, or that we can tell which one causes which.”
Leaf surprises Red by nodding. “It’s like saying ‘Pidove flock in city parks because people there feed them.’ But pidove might be there anyway even if no one feeds them, because the parks are where the insects and berries they would normally eat are. So maybe people feed pidove in the parks because they like feeding pidove, and that’s where pidove happen to be because of the environment.”
Professor Oak examines the image of the charmander sleeping in its artificial cave, tail flame lighting its surroundings. “Well, charmander won’t go anywhere near water in quantities larger than a puddle, so short of forcing one to submerge, there’s just no way to tell for sure… and since that might kill the charmander, we obviously wouldn’t try that experiment.”
“Of course not, but… there has to be some other way of determining it.” Red picks up the charmander’s pokeball. Here’s a worthy first mystery to take on: he would find a way to prove one way or the other how charmander’s fire relates to their vitality, and begin earning his Pokemon Researcher license. “I’ve decided. If it’s okay with the other two, I want to study charmander.”
As Red suspected, Blue immediately picks up the Water type. “I choose squirtle.” He grins and spins the pokeball around on the tip of his finger before tossing it up a bit and catching it. Red wonders how long Blue practiced that. Either way it looks cool, and he has to stop himself from attempting it himself. He’ll try later in private.
“Well, I guess that leaves me with bulbasaur,” Leaf says happily as she picks it up. “I was lying earlier when I said I had no favorite. It has a certain symmetry, don’t you think?”
“It does indeed,” Professor Oak says with a smile. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a velvet bag, then carefully pours a handful of shrunken pokeballs into his palm and hands them out. “Press the button to expand or shrink its size. When you catch a new Pokemon, it will be atomized and compressed inside it, but you won’t be able to shrink it again. If you have too many to carry around comfortably, you can store them at any computer connected to the network, and withdraw them from a different one later.”
“Is the pokemon’s data kept in the ball?” Red asks.
“No, it transfers with the pokemon to the network.” Professor Oak points to the computer hard drive at the nearest PC. “That pokeball will still be programmed for it though, so best to hold onto it.” He hands out pamphlets that detail the pokeball’s functions, and another for the pokedex. “The balls are capable of basic verbal commands to release, withdraw, and nickname your pokemon, but the pokedex is how you interface with the pokemon themselves for virtual training while they’re in their balls.”
“So if we lose these balls or something happens to them, our pokemon are safe.” Leaf says.
“For the ones you have stored, yes, though it’s a hassle to get it rekeyed to another pokeball: you essentially have to release it and catch it again.”
Red examines his pokeball. He learned all this in bits and pieces over the months of working here, but it still fascinates him how amazing technology has become. He remembers seeing a picture of pokeball technology back when Professor Oak was his age, before there was an internet to rapidly transmit the pokemon from one place to another, let alone allow the balls to change their size. It looked like a big metal coconut.
“I know how eager you all are to get on your way, so let’s get your accounts set up,” Professor Oak says.
They walk to the nearest PC, and Blue smiles at Red. “So, care to try a battle when we leave? You know, as an ‘experiment,’ to see if the type charts are accurate.”
Red sighs. “I never said they’re all wrong… I know Water types are strong against Fire.”
Leaf looks at them curiously. “Was that ever in doubt?”
Blue puts his hand on Red’s shoulder. “Our Red thinks he knows better than everyone else how pokemon
really
work.”
Red shrugs off Blue’s hand. “I think the ‘typing’ method that all the battle trainers are obsessed over has problems, that’s all.”
“And he thinks this based on his many years of first-hand training and battling experience,” Blue confides to Leaf, who giggles.
Red feels his cheeks flush, but Professor Oak speaks up from the front of the group. “Red may very well be right about some of his ideas: no Professor I’ve met has claimed to be a hundred percent sure they understand how pokemon work. They’re mysterious creatures, and we’ve only recently had the technology to really study them thoroughly and scientifically.”
Leaf nods. “Mom is always talking about how often she gets something wrong before she gets it right. So are you journeying to become a Professor, Red?”
“For now I’d be satisfied with getting my Researcher license and filling the Kanto pokedex.” They arrive at the PC, and Professor Oak begins setting up their accounts. “But yeah, I’m going to become a Professor eventually and get my own lab.”
“Really?” Leaf looks interested rather than skeptical, which is a nice change of pace. Most people outside the lab don’t tend to take him seriously. But then, she is the granddaughter
and
daughter of Professors herself. “What will your lab focus on?”
“I want to study the origin of pokemon species.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
Now
she looks skeptical. “All of them? You mean…”
Red tries to ignore Blue’s smirk. “Yeah. I want to know where they all came from. What makes them so different from each other, and what makes us so different from them.”
The girl gives a low whistle. “You and the rest of the world. You don’t dream small, do you?”
Red smiles. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“None at all,” Professor Oak says as he registers Blue’s Trainer ID to the network.
Leaf smiles back. “Well, I’ll be happy to hear about your theories on pokemon types sometime.”
“And I’ll be happy to help prove them wrong,” Blue says with a grin, and spins his pokeball on a finger again. “Through battles.”
“Okay, trainers: first step is to bring out your pokeballs.”
Red, Blue and Leaf all stand at the front of a long room made of grey stone. Speakers and cameras are set in the ceiling behind them so Professor Oak and others can watch and instruct them. Waist high dividers run the length of the room between the three as they face the far end, where target pokedolls of various shapes and sizes on mechanical tracks stand facing them. Empty lanes stretch out to their sides.
Red feels sweat collecting under his hat, and rubs his palm against his pants for the third time, shifting his pokeball around to get a better grip on it. He’s about to meet his pokemon for the first time, and he doesn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of the other two. He wonders how many of the staff from the lab are on break to watch, and has to dry his palms again.
“When you call out its name and give it one of the commands to come out, there will be a two second delay. Throw it forward in as straight a line as you can, red side up, white side down, with a forward spin: the pokeball will open to release onto the ground, and the energy will send the ball in the opposite direction. You can release your pokemon from your hand, but the recoil is rather strong, and you need adequate empty space around you for the ball to open. Begin.”
Silence reigns in the long, empty hall, the only sound Red’s heartbeat in his ears, and then-
“Bulbasaur! I choose you!”
Leaf’s voice thunders through the room without echoing, the walls and ceiling shaped to break up sound. Red watches the ball sail forward in a spinning blur, and then there’s a flash of light. The pokeball shoots back toward Leaf, who shifts her hand a split second too late to catch it: her fingers brush the smooth metal and send it up over her head to clatter against the wall behind her.
In front of her is a four legged, teal reptile with a dark green bulb on its back. It blinks, sniffs, and begins to explore its surroundings.
“Squirtle! Go!”
Blue’s ball flies in a slower, straighter arc, so that when the light flashes out, he’s able to catch it as it sails back toward him.
“Go, Charmander!” Red yells, and throws his ball, aiming for a slow, easy underhand.
A flash of light, and then his ball comes back, faster than he’d thrown it, and at a slight angle. He stretches out his arm, but the ball hits the wall behind him with a crack that makes him wince. He’d never been the best at catching pokeballs in the practice lessons at school, no and his nervousness here is undoing all the practice he put in for his journey.
Then all his attention is on the three foot tall orange lizard in front of him, standing on its hind legs with a long tail held behind it for balance. A small flame burns steadily at its tip, barely noticeable under the strong lights.
“Charmander…”
The lizard turns at the sound of its name, and Red approaches it, kneeling down and letting it sniff his hands. He looks to the side to see Blue and Leaf doing the same with their Pokemon.
“When you and your pokemon feel comfortable with each other, feed them some berries.”
Red pulls out a plastic pouch and rolls some berries onto his palm. The charmander’s warm, rough tongue immediately snaps out and scoops them up, then it looks up at him as it chews, bright blue eyes meeting his while he runs his fingers over the soft scales of its head.
Red’s chest feels tight as he looks down at his first pokemon. As far back as he can remember he’d dreamed of forming a bond with his very own, a companion for life, something for him to take care of, that would defend him if needed. Together they’d be able to travel the world, like his father had…
Before he joined the Rangers, and his pokemon had been killed by a wild scyther.
Red shakes his head, driving the thought away, then gives the charmander one more scratch between its eyes, and stands. He knows the next part of the drill, and sure enough, the target pokedolls are sliding forward along their rails. The one in front of Red is shaped roughly like a beedrill.
“Charmander, battle.”
His pokemon goes rigid, and then it spins around. When it catches sight of the pokedoll, it growls, stepping in front of Red. Red feels a bit absurd for a second, being protected by a creature that barely reaches past his knees once it’s on all fours, but a glance at the sharp claws extending from its hands and feet does away with that. A closer glance also shows that the flame at the end of its tail is larger than it was a second ago, too.
By the time the foam-clad figure stops a few feet in front of his charmander, Red hears Blue and Leaf give their own pokemon the battle command. All three pokemon stand ready to defend their trainers. Red sees that the bulbasaur has two vines extended from under its bulb, held poised above it at the ready.
Oak’s voice breaks the silence. “Begin.”
“Charmander, scratch!”
“Squirtle, bite!”
“Bulbasaur, tackle!”
In a blink the charmander dashes forward and swipes at the pokedoll. Strips of foam fly off it, and the force of the blow spins it, an arm coming around to hit the charmander from the side.
Red’s pokemon hops back, dodging the counter attack and planting its feet in front at the ready.
Red grins. His pokemon is fast, and clearly well trained. Not that he had a hand in that of course, but it’s still good to know. Now to see what else it can do… He pulls out the sheet of paper Professor Oak had given him with his pokemon’s trained commands on it.
“Charmander, ember!”
The charmander’s flame doubles in size, and with a growl it spins, tail lashing out. Some of the fire detaches itself and sails onto the pokedoll. Its foam is clearly fire retardant, but the ember still melts into the material a bit before being snuffed out.
“Squirtle, watergun!”
“Bulbasaur, vinewhip!”
The blue turtle rears its head back, then spits a short jet of water at the pokedoll hard enough to spin it around. Leaf’s bulbasaur extends its vines far enough to whip the pokedoll with loud thuds
.
“Good,” Oak says. “Most pokemon are smart enough to learn a number of commands. As yours grow and become stronger, their abilities will expand, and you will be able to teach them more powerful and complex attacks. Over time the old commands will be forgotten if they are not reinforced. For now, keep practicing until your pokemon begin to show signs of tiring. Physical attacks tend to be less tiring than their more unique abilities. As their trainers, you will need to learn how to judge your pokemon’s health and withdraw them if they are too hurt or weary. Continue.”
“Bulbasaur, tackle!”
“Squirtle, watergun!”
“Charmander, ember!”
They continued drilling with their pokemon for another couple of minutes, trying out all sorts of different commands: run, guard, follow, dodge, and mixing attacks with all those and a dozen more before Red begins noticing the signs of weariness. The squirtle’s shots of water are smaller and less powerful. Bulbasaur moves slower, and his vines strike with less force. And charmander…
Red kneels down and rubs the lizard’s head. It looks up at him, pupils dilated, chest rising and falling with its harsh breaths. Red feeds it some more berries, looking at its tail flame with some concern. It’s definitely smaller than it had been before.
Red gets up to approach the target pokedoll, and Charmander growls from behind him. Red looks back and smiles as the lizard moves to stand between him and the pokedoll again. “It’s okay Charmander.” Red goes and retrieves the pokeball from where it hit the wall, and points its lens at his pokemon. “You did great. Return.” A red beam hits the charmander, spreading over it in a flash of light that returns to the pokeball faster than a blink.
Red approaches the pokedoll, fingers feeling the pits and holes where his charmander’s fire had melted the foam. What had his pokemon done, exactly, to use its tail flame as an attack? Fire needs something to burn, like wood or a candle wick. When he and Blue had practiced wilderness survival, they had found some materials better than others for catching fire and burning longer, but while bits of flaming debris sometimes fell off the burning material, the fire itself always clung to what it was on.
Not being able to burn the foam, Charmander’s embers guttered out. But what sustained it in the air along the way?
Fire isn’t something that can be thrown…
Red walks away from the pokedoll and pulls the pokeball back out, pointing it at the floor in front of him. “Charmander, go.”
He almost remembers Professor Oak’s caution about the recoil too late, and braces his arm just before the flash of light that brings Charmander out sends his arm snapping back. Red grimaces and rubs his elbow.
Note to self: work on upper body strength more to at least reach a threshold of summoning pokemon one handed.
Charmander stands waiting, exactly as he had before Red had withdrawn him, flame low and breathing hard. Red kneels beside it and feeds it more berries, then bends his head to examine the fire at the end of its tail.
No matter how hard he strains his eyes, he can’t make out what the fire is burning. It seems to simply flare from the end of its tail, blue at its base, then white and red above that. Red moves his hand above the fire until he feels its heat, then snatches it back.
“Bulbasaur, return.”
Red looks to the side to see Leaf smiling at her pokeball. He frowns, rubbing his elbow again. Why wasn’t there any recoil from withdrawing a pokemon like there is in releasing it?
Red looks back at the charmander’s tail flame.
One mystery at a time.
He pulls a pocket notebook out and detaches a sheet of it. He holds it over the flame.
“Rrrawwr.”
Red blinks and looks at the charmander, who’s watching over its shoulder as he burns the paper. Red smiles and rubs its head, and they watch together as he lifts the paper away so it can burn on its own. When it’s burned almost down to his fingers, he blows it out.
“Rawr?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do that to you.” Red feels along the burnt edge of the paper.
What else burns?
Wood, paper, cotton, cloth… none of which are at the end of the charmander’s tail. He knows some forms of gas are combustible, but you can’t throw burning gas either. Which leaves…
“Oil.” Red says. “You produce some kind of oil, don’t you Charmander? Maybe as a form of waste?”
Charmander just stares at him. Its breathing is lighter now, its pupils less dilated. It nuzzles his hand, and he scratches the soft scales under its jaw. Red laughs as its eyes slip half closed, and it begins to sway left and right, its tail bobbing in opposite directions.
“Squirtle, return.” A flash of light, and then Blue clips the pokeball to his belt and examines his own target pokedoll, a soaked nidorino.
“Professor Oak,” Leaf calls out. “What gender are our pokemon?”
“Bulbasaur and Charmander are males. Squirtle’s a female.”
“Professor,” Red says. “Is it okay if I perform a quick experiment?”
“You tell me, Red.”
Red runs through the checklist of guidelines for Safe and Ethical Pokemon Experimentation:
1) Will it cause harm to a human?
2) Will it cause permanent harm to a pokemon?
3) Will it damage potential relationships between the pokemon and humans?
4) Does it violate the trainer’s priority in deciding what is best for their pokemon?
As Red was the trainer in question, 4 was fine, and he had no intention of damaging his relationship with his charmander, so 3 was too. It wouldn’t harm the charmander either, so he was clear on 2, and as for 1…
“I might get burned a little, but I’ll be very careful,” Red says. “I’ve got a few burn remedies in my bag.”
“Then you may proceed with caution.”
Red smiles. “Thank you, Professor.” It’s the first time he’s being trusted to perform an experiment on his own. He rethinks what he has in mind to ensure he doesn’t screw it up, aware that not just Professor Oak, but also Red’s supervisor Dr. Madi and the other researchers he’s worked for are probably watching him.
Finally, Red takes his notebook out of his pocket and tears out a handful of paper. He places them on the floor in a pile, then goes over to the pokedoll and digs his fingers into one of the slashed lines in the foam. With a pull that sends a warning pain through his elbow, he rips a section of foam off the pokedoll.
Judging it big enough, he walks a few feet from the paper pile. “Charmander,” he says, and the lizard looks at him. He points to the paper with one finger. “Ember.”
The charmander looks at the paper pile, then back to him. “Rawr?”
“Ember,” he says again, jabbing with his finger.
Charmander looks back at the paper, then spins without warning. Flames lash out onto the paper pile, and Red rushes to slam the foam down on the small blaze.
When he lifts it up, there’s little but charred paper under the foam. He examines them, but feels and sees nothing.
“That proved what, exactly?” Blue asks, leaning on the wall dividing him from Red.
“That I didn’t do it fast enough, I think.”
“Well, hurry it up, then, so we can get going.”
Red takes his notebook out again and this time leaves the entire thing on the floor, then moves away and points at it. “Ember!”
This time Red slams the foam down within a second after the fire hits it. When he lifts it up, the notebook sticks to the foam. He peels it off and sees it still smoldering, the acrid fumes making his nose wrinkle. He dabs at the small flames with the edge of the foam until they go out, but when he runs his finger through the hole, it comes out dry.
“Dammit,” Red mutters.
“What’s the problem?” Leaf asks from beside Blue, folded arms hanging down the wall.
Red frowns at the fire on Charmander’s tail. “Are you aware of the scientific method?”
“Sure, grandpa and mom taught me. Ask a question, guess an answer, predict a relationship, test your prediction, analyze the results.”
Red smiles. “I was taught it a bit differently, but that’s the gist, yeah.”
“How did you learn it?”
“First comes the question: how does the charmander sustain the fire at the end of its tail? By asking that question, I’m committed to acquiring data to answer it.
“So that’s step two, which I did earlier: research. The pokedex is no help in this case, but I can observe to gain information too, and what I observed is how it does its ember attack.” Red points to the pokedoll. “The fire went through the air to hit that. Well, fire needs fuel to be sustained: it’s not a physical thing, like a piece of wood.
“Which leads to step three, my hypothesis: the fire is fueled by the steady release of some kind of oil, which it slings forward to hit whatever it wants to burn. But how to prove it without hurting the charmander? The hypothesis needs something I can test, a prediction: I thought if I can put out the fire fast enough, it’ll leave behind some of the oil that it uses to fuel it. This foam will put it out, and the notebook was there to give it something else to burn besides the oil.”
In the silence that follows, Blue, who seemed to have spaced out somewhere around step two, looks at Red. “And?”
Red sighs. “Step four was the test. Step five is to analyze the data and see if it supports the hypothesis…”
“And does it?”
Red looks mournfully at his ruined notebook. “Inconclusive.”
“So ‘no,'” Blue says with a smirk.
Leaf shrugs. “Well maybe the test wasn’t good enough. What if you don’t use the notebook? Have him ember onto the ground. Without something else to burn, the fire might not go through the oil as quickly.”
Red scratches his hair beneath his cap. “Does that make sense?”
“Maybe not, but if the fire jumps to the paper, then there’s more fire, which needs more fuel, right? And the best fuel is the oil. Or maybe the paper is absorbing the oil, so you can’t see it.”
Red nods. “Okay. I’ll try that then.” Red stuffs the notebook in his pocket and points to the ground. “Charmander.” The lizard looks at him. “Em-”
“Wait,” Blue says. Red and the lizard both look at him. “You should tell him to throw it farther.”
Red is about to ask why, then he gets it. “You think more oil will be produced?”
Blue shrugs. “It has to be, to go farther.”
Leaf looks thoughtful. “So Charmander knows how much oil to throw when its target is farther away?”
“Maybe not as a calculated measurement, but on an instinctual level or as a learned behavior, sure.” When Blue notices Red staring at him, he looks defensive. “What? You think only people who spend all day reading can know big words?”
“No, I just… well, you don’t use them normally.” And Red’s a bit impressed that Blue had thought of that. It’s so easy to recognize when Blue’s ignorance of science leads him to bad conclusions that Red often forgets that “ignorant” doesn’t mean “dumb,” even outside of his areas of expertise, like pokemon battling.
Blue rolls his eyes. “When you live with a professor you tend to pick some things up.”
“Right. Well, it’s a good idea.”
“Unfortunately it brings up another problem,” Leaf says. “If Charmander knows just how much oil to release to send his fire as far as he wants it to go, how would there be any substantial amount left where it lands?”
They’re all silent for a moment, then Red grimaces. “Ok, let’s hope I’m better at this than I am catching pokeballs.” He takes a few steps back from his charmander, then points at the pokedoll. “Charmander! Ember!”
The lizard stares at him, then looks at the pokedoll, then back to him. “Rawr!”
“I’ll be fine.” He takes a step to the side, moving farther out of the line of sight. “Go on. Ember!”
Charmander spins, and Red jumps at the flame, trying to hit it with the foam. It flies past him, and his charmander growls.
“Dammit.” Red steps to the side again. “Ember,” he says, pointing at the pokedoll.
His charmander doesn’t move, merely growling again. “Charmander, ember!”
Instead, the lizard walks in front of him, and only then flicks fire at the pokedoll.
“Aww, he doesn’t want to hurt you!” Leaf says. “That’s so sweet.”
Red frowns. “Yeah, great, only now I can’t test my prediction.”
“Oh, move aside.” Blue hoists himself over the divider and takes the foam from him. “At this rate we’ll be as old as gramps by the time we get out of here.”
Red steps back, and Charmander comes with him. Blue, standing to the side, lifts the foam, and Red points at the pokedoll from safely behind his pokemon. “Ember!”
Charmander flicks fire through the air, and Blue slaps the foam down on it, quenching it against the ground. “Ha!”
Red rushes forward, and when Blue lifts the foam, he kneels down and sees something glisten on the stone for the space of a heartbeat before it suddenly ignites. Red pumps his uninjured arm in the air with a whoop, and Blue crouches down to look too.
“What happened?” Leaf asks, joining them. The fire burns down to nothing, leaving a small scorch mark on the rock. “You see some oil?”
“Yep,” Red says with a grin. “Just before it burned away. It must catch fire when it gets air. Let’s do it again so you can see!”
“Hey!” Blue says. “I thought we were leaving Pallet sometime today?”
“But we have to see if it’s replicable!”
Professor Oak’s voice comes from behind them rather than the loudspeaker, making everyone jump. “Don’t worry, repeated experiments won’t be necessary.”
“Professor!” Red points at the scorch mark. “They produce oil to make the fire, that’s why it goes out when they die! At least, I think it is,” Red says, suddenly doubtful. “I guess this doesn’t conclusively prove that their lives
don’t
also rely on keeping their tails lit, but…”
Professor Oak is smiling at him. “I think I can clear that up. That was a very, ah,
innovative
experiment you pulled off. It took me much longer to isolate the oil, though I didn’t risk immolation to do it. Still, well done, all of you.”
Red blinks, then his heart sinks. “You already knew. That entry in the pokedex… it was one of your tests!”
The professor nods. “I changed the pokedex’s data to match what the rumors about charmander had been when I was your age. I wanted to see if any of you would notice the problem, ask the right questions, and figure it out… though I didn’t expect it to happen quite this quickly. Go ahead and check.”
Red pulls his pokedex out and navigates to charmander’s page, which now begins:
Charmander: The Lizard Pokemon. Charmander prefer rocky, mountainous terrain, and hatch from their eggs when their tails ignite and crack the shell. They secrete an oil from the end of their tail that combusts when exposed to the air. The flame varies in strength and size based on their mood and health: when agitated, they produce more, but when their vitals are low, the oil trickles to a near stop.
Red’s chest feels empty. “So I didn’t discover anything new.” Professor Oak and Red’s other teachers often gives Red incomplete scenarios or bits of data to solve hypothetical problems, but Red never suspected he would mess with the pokedex.
Blue elbows him. “You expected to get your Researcher license before even leaving the building?” he says, not unkindly. “At least give yourself a full twenty-four hours.”
“And it was still an original discovery,” Leaf says with a wry grin. “Just a few decades later than someone else made it.”
“She’s right, Red,” Professor Oak says. “You did a decent job of tackling your first problem scientifically.”
Red smiles. “Well, I had some help.”
“Remember, all of you, that no matter what the pokedex says,
it might be wrong.
Not a day goes by that we don’t learn something new, or learn that what we think we know is false. That’s why journeys like yours are so important: fresh eyes gathering new data will ensure we constantly update our knowledge and think in new ways. I have every confidence now that your journey will be one full of new discoveries.”
The three stand a bit taller, and Red feels his excited energy mirrored in the other’s expressions. He puts his pokedex away and heads for the door. “Come on, let’s get going. There are a ton of pokemon to study between here and Viridian City!”
Blue tosses the piece of pokedoll padding aside and follows. “Just as long as we actually end up catching some too.”
Pallet Town has no particular boundary, the buildings simply growing farther and farther apart until the roads fade to hardpacked dirt. Cars continue to pass the three travelers by on the main street, but once they reach the outer edges the majority of traffic is on foot or bicycle, cutting through the grass every which way to reach the various houses and stores around Pallet’s perimeter.
Red’s mother had told him that this was how the whole town was at first, just a collection of spaced out buildings with dirt roads between them. He looks back at the heart of the town now and smiles at its permanence, the Pokemon Lab sticking up bright and shining against the clear blue sky. A half hour later, they’re far from any houses, and the various paths meander over hills and between lakes, the foliage growing wild and free in every direction around them.
Conversation is light for the first couple hours. Occasionally Leaf asks a question about Kanto, and Blue or Red will answer, fully but without embellishment. Red doesn’t know how Blue sees it, but it feels awkward traveling with a stranger, especially after spending so long planning their journey together.
The first bit of excitement comes when a flock of pidgey fly by overhead. Too high for a pokeball to reach, Red and Blue still argue over whether his squirtle could hit one with a Water Gun. Leaf suggests they take measurements of its range, but Red objects that firing upward would be very different than firing horizontally even without taking into account the wind, while Blue says he doesn’t want to tire Squirtle out, and they continue their walk in silence again.
Finally Leaf turns to Red and says “So you mentioned finding fault with the common type charts, back at the lab. Would you mind explaining what you meant?”
“Oh. Uh, sure.” Ignoring Blue’s smirk, Red collects his thoughts. “So how much do you know about the history of ‘typing’?”
“Not a lot,” Leaf says. “I know it hasn’t always been around, but that it’s pretty universal.”
“Right. Professor Dawkins uses the ‘typing phenomenon’ as an example of a meme in
The Selfish Gene.
A meme is ‘an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person in cultures.’ Unlike a simple fad, memes are like genes in that they self-replicate and adapt to selective pressures.”
“Okay. But the meme of ‘typing’ must be useful if it’s so good at surviving and spreading, right?”
“Sure, at some level. But think of how everyone but professors incorrectly call pokemon metamorphosis ‘evolution’. Even some professors do it colloquially: it’s just too ingrained in the public consciousness. Just because an idea is popular and resilient doesn’t mean it’s correct.”
Leaf looks skeptical. “Ehh. I dunno. I mean sure to that last part, but that example seems like a semantic argument. Words change in meaning over time based on use. Maybe in a hundred years, ‘evolution’ will mean what we now call ‘metamorphosis’ and ‘metamorphosis’ will mean what we now call ‘evolution.'”
Red waves this off. “That’s just an example of how things can spread without being critically examined. The point is that ‘typing’ started in one culture, spread throughout it, and then moved on to every other culture from there. Normally when new ideas get introduced, there’s some pushback, some skepticism. It’s not immediately adopted as the norm.”
“But not the type system,” Leaf muses. “Because it was so useful.”
“Right! It’s such strong meme because of how interactive and efficient it is. It satisfies the need people have to classify things and fit them into boxes. People like to pick favorites, to identify with whatever type they feel an affinity with, to construct personality types out of them, all that sort of stuff. On top of all that, it satisfies our desire for fairness and balance. With the typing meme, every pokemon has an added layer of strengths and weaknesses, so virtually none are strictly superior to an other.”
“Because they
do
have strengths and weaknesses,” Blue says, sounding like he’s being pulled in despite himself. “I wouldn’t say that none are purely better, though, I mean I’d never use a corsola over an omastar.”
“Aren’t corsola able to regenerate? But I said ‘virtually’ none, that means almost none.”
“Corsola regenerate
slow,
it’s practically useless in battle, and I know what ‘virtually’ means, Red.”
“Then why did you bother–”
“So the battle scene added to all that meme power,” Leaf interrupts, causing Red to refocus on what he’d been saying.
“Exactly. The commercialization really sped up how far it spread, until
virtually
every region adopted the same system with little time to critically examine it.” He glances at Blue, who lets the comment pass unchallenged, back to looking exasperated by the conversation. “The metagame revolved around it, and creating or countering a balanced team meant studying established type interactions. Even minor differences got washed away over time in the face of popularity and conformity: here in Kanto, we used to call them ‘Plant’ types before ‘Grass’ caught on, even though it makes less sense.”
“He’s been calling them ‘Plant’ types ever since he learned that,” Blue says.
“Hey, I always thought it was stupid.”
“Sure you did.”
Leaf smiles. “Okay, so there’s probably room for error along the way. But no one claims that the typing system is
perfect,
it’s still being adapted based on what we observe.”
Blue nods. “That’s what I always say. But small changes aren’t enough for him.”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Red says. “At its core, the ‘type meme’ is too ingrained to allow fundamental shifts. The details adapt as we learn more, but the basics, that pokemon are of one or two types, that those types are weak or strong against other types, have persisted, even when they don’t always make much sense.”
Leaf is quiet for a moment. “So the whole idea of typing pokemon started in a certain culture, and spread as a concept from one to the next without necessarily being justified. You’re saying the ‘meme’ of pokemon types isn’t critically examined, but you’re not pointing out what it actually gets wrong.”
“Well, if you want specifics… my problem is with how it’s done and the rigidity of the interactions between the types. Like I said, I’m fine with calling my charmander a ‘Fire type’, and obviously he’s strong against ‘Plant types.’ But take those pidgey we saw earlier. What would you call those, if you saw them in Unova?”
“I didn’t get a good look, but probably Flying/Normal.”
“Right. So what does that mean, ‘Flying’?’ What does that mean, ‘Normal’?”
Blue sighs. “Just tell her what you think.”
“No, I like this,” Leaf says with a smile. “It’s how my mom likes to teach.” She thinks about it a moment. “So first off, there’s the obvious: they fly. Not all pokemon do, so it’s an important distinction. And ‘Normal’ means just… normal. You know, baseline. Nothing remarkable. I always figured Normal is what we a call a Pokemon when we can’t figure something else to call them.”
“Okay. So what does it mean to be a ‘Flying’ pokemon, in terms of its strengths and weaknesses to others?”
“Well, it’s strong against Fighting, Grass and Bug types… but weak to Rock, Electric and Ice attacks. Oh, and Ground attacks are pretty worthless against it.”
“What does all that have to do with it being Flying?”
Leaf blinks at him. “Well, birds eat plants and bugs, and Fighting Pokemon can’t really hit them. And since they’re in the air, being knocked down by a rock or lightning is extra painful when they hit the ground… and, well, cold makes it hard to fly…”
Red is nodding. “So let’s deconstruct that a bit. The first thing you said was that ‘birds eat plants and bugs’. Are all flying pokemon birds? Also, do birds actually eat plants, or just seeds and berries, which a
lot
of pokemon eat? The next things you listed were consequences of being in the air. So is all that part of what a pokemon is, or what it does? If a Flying type has a broken wing, what type is it?”
“So you’re saying that Flying isn’t a type? It’s just… what some pokemon do, so we lump that in with the typing meme? That seems to be splitting hairs a bit. Even if they don’t share universal traits, ‘Flying’ still seems a worthwhile classification.”
“Let’s shift focus a bit. Know any Fighting pokemon?”
“Sure, mienfoo.”
“Is it on your pokedex?”
Leaf pulls it out and shows it to them. A bipedal, weasel-looking pokemon appears, its movements and strikes very balanced and quick.
“Neat. So, are mienfoo Fighting/Normal?”
“No, just Fighting.”
“Why?”
“Because it just… isn’t. Why would it be Fighting/Normal? I’ve never even heard of a Fighting/Normal type.”
Red takes out his pokedex and shows her a machop. “What’s this look like to you?”
“Fighting.”
“Not Fighting/Normal?”
“No…”
“But not Fighting/Fire either, right? Or Fighting/Bug? Or Fighting/Electric?”
“I mean, it’s a normal looking Fighting type, but I guess it just doesn’t make sense to call it Fighting/Normal. It seems unnecessary to add it.”
“But not unnecessary to call a pidgey Flying/Normal?” Red switches the pokedex image to show poliwhirl. “What about this guy?”
Leaf examines the bipedal amphibian. “That looks Water… maybe Water/Fighting?”
Red switches it to poliwrath, its metamorphed, more muscular form. “And this?”
“Definitely Water/Fighting.”
“What tipped you off?”
“The physique. It’s clearly strong, so I just think it would be a Fighting type.”
“But also a Water type.”
“Well yeah, that’s obviously still a Water type.”
Red nods and puts his pokedex away. “Let’s say you found a new pokemon type.”
“A new
type
?”
“Yeah. How would you know?”
The three walk in silence, Pallet town a distant, vague shape behind them. Red pulls out his water bottle and takes a drink, the cool liquid refreshing under the hot sun. He offers some to Blue and Leaf, who take it in turns.
“I guess I would have to see it do something I’ve never seen before,” Leaf says at last.
“Okay. Like what?”
“Like… I don’t know. Control… wind? I guess that would be a Flying type, huh? But what if it doesn’t fly itself… hm… maybe if it controlled light. Or if I found a pokemon made of some new material? Though I’m not sure what… like a Glass type?”
Red smiles. “So basically, you would base it on what abilities it has, or what it’s made of?
“Yeah. When you put it like that, it seems obvious. But that’s pretty much the way things are, isn’t it?”
“But we don’t see it so clearly most of the time: we’re so used to thinking of types as intrinsic to a pokemon that we lump what it
does
in with what it
is.
”
“Okay. I mean I follow what you’re saying, I’m just not sure how that necessarily makes typing wrong. If the effects of what pokemon does and what it is are basically the same, what difference does it make?”
“That’s where the meme problem comes in. Did we invent the typing system ourselves?”
“No,” Leaf says slowly. “We inherited it whole-cloth from another culture.”
“So what’s the question you have to ask yourself now?”
Leaf is quiet for a minute as the three shift onto a well worn side path around a hill, the grass high as Red’s waist on either side. A berry bush grows beside it, and Blue and Red take a few handfuls to fill their pouches, handing some to Leaf.
She thanks them, then answers. “How much did people know about Pokemon when the meme of ‘typing’ them started?”
Blue groans. “You’ve walked right into his trap.”
Red is grinning. “Not just how much did people know about pokemon: how much did people know about
anything
? I’ve looked into it, and it turns out the answer is ‘not a lot’. The origins of typing are a bit murky, but it definitely started over three thousand years ago. Think about that for a minute: people were classifying types before we even knew about cells or basic chemistry. Some of the classifications adapted as time went on: ‘Lightning’ became ‘Electric’ around the time we managed to harness it. Others got simplified by popular usage: when pokemon like magnemite and klink started showing up from man-made objects, ‘Steel type’ became the norm, even though many metal pokemon don’t have steel in them, and not all metals have the same properties. It was the ‘Grass’ thing all over again. And that’s just the names! We still can’t agree on what a ‘Dragon type’ is. No matter how you cut it, the classification system just isn’t rational.”
“And you don’t think it might fix itself over time?” Leaf says.
Red shrugs. “At some point, given enough time and pressure, maybe,
maybe
we’ll start seeing people classifying some pokemon with three types instead of two. But even if we do, I bet those types are still based on the current illogical, contradictory system.”
“Contradictory how?”
“Think back to the fighting examples. Why is it acceptable to call some pokemon Fighting/Water, but others just Fighting, when we call every Flying pokemon that isn’t something else Flying/Normal?”
Just as she opens her mouth to respond, the grass to her side begins to rustle.
Everyone freezes, Blue’s hand already on his pokeball. “Careful,” he whispers. “Probably just a rattata, but they don’t normally attack three people traveling together… just walk quietly…” They begin to move again, slowly passing the shaking grass.
The rustling suddenly comes from the opposite side in front of them, and Red’s heart leaps in his throat as three shapes rush out at him and Leaf. He raises a hand to push her out of the way and is surprised to feel her palm against his. He turns a bit and sees the surprise mirrored on her face, and then they’re propelling each other in opposite directions as the rattata jump just where they’d been standing, teeth flashing and squealing in anger.
“Squirtle, go!”
“Come out, Bulbasaur!”
Two flashes of light, and Leaf and Blue’s pokemon are standing between them and the rattata. Another two had emerged from Blue’s direction, and dash at Squirtle from both sides.
“Squirtle, Withdraw!”
The blue turtle pops her head and limbs into her hard shell just as the two rodents tackle her. They knock Squirtle a few feet away, but she pops out of her shell unharmed a moment later, while both rattata appear a bit dazed from the impact.
“Water Gun!”
A brief jet of water smacks one of the rattata into the grass, then the other. It all happens so fast that Red barely has time to throw his own pokeball and yell “Charmander, I choose you!”
His fire lizard materializes a few feet before him, and Red snatches his pokeball out of the air as it rockets back to him, feeling a surge of adrenaline. His brief triumph is forgotten as Charmander rushes to intercept a rattata heading for Red. The two begin to bite and scratch at each other, and Red steps to the side so that the fight is between him and the other two rattata, forcing them to circle around.
“Charmander, Tail Whip!”
Charmander breaks away from the rattata, then whirls around and smacks it with the flame at the end of his tail. The rodent squeals in pain and scampers back.
“Bulbasaur, Tackle, then Vine Whip!”
Red glances to the side to see Leaf dealing with the other two rattata: Bulbasaur meets one of their tackles head-on, knocking the smaller pokemon backward and then using his vines to whip it into the second. Both go tumbling away, but the third that had fought Charmander jumps forward to bite down on the long plant, and Bulbasaur cries out in pain.
“Charmander, Scratch!” Red says, pointing at the rattata. He can’t risk using Ember so close to Bulbasaur, especially with all the grass around them…
Luckily the rattata releases its bite and backs off as soon as Charmander approaches, and a sudden jet of water from the side sends it tumbling head over paws.
The three trainers step back to back in a rough triangle, and their pokemon spread out to cover them from every angle as the rattata circle warily. Red does a quick count, dismayed to see eight of the purple furred rodents.
“We must have stepped near a nest,” he says as Charmander growls at an encroaching rattata, halting its advance.
“So close to the road?” Leaf asks.
“Might be new.”
“Squirtle, Water Gun! We need to keep moving till we’re past it then.” Blue tosses a berry at his pokemon after she finishes blasting away another rattata. Squirtle snaps it out of the air, munching and swallowing without taking her eyes off their enemies.
“On it. Charmander, Ember! Ember! Ember!”
Each command is punctuated by a point in a different direction, and Charmander whips his tail again and again to fling fiery oil onto the path ahead. The rattata there dive out of the way, and Red yells “Come on!” and runs for the opening.
Charmander dashes along at his heels, and he hears the others following behind. The rattata run along on both sides and behind them, some getting close enough to leap. Charmander intercepts one mid-air and smacks it away with his tail, while the other lands on Red’s shoulder, its teeth tearing through the protective mesh under his shirt to sink into his shoulder. He yells at the sharp pain that runs through his arm, and bashes its furry body with his fist until it falls off.
“Squirtle, Headbutt!”
“Bulbasaur, Tackle!”
Red keeps running, one hand held over his bleeding shoulder, heart pounding. He reminds himself to breathe as he runs, the months of physical training paying off as they begin to outrun the rodents. One makes a final leap onto Charmander, and both pokemon tumble to the ground, tearing into each other. Red stops and turns around. Leaf and Bulbasaur are right behind them, Blue and Squirtle a bit farther back.
“Bulbasaur, Vine Whip!”
The rattata is knocked off Charmander, who struggles to his feet, bleeding from multiple wounds. Red dashes forward as the rattata attacks Charmander again and kicks at the rodent to make it veer off, right into Bulbasaur’s tackle. The wild pokemon is knocked into a limp heap.
“Thanks,” Red says as Blue and Squirtle reach them, the rest of the rattata giving up the chase and disappearing back into the grass.
“You guys alright?” Blue asks, then hisses in sympathy as he sees Red’s blood-stained sleeve.
“Here, let’s get something on that,” Leaf says, reaching into her bag.
“Charmander first…” Red kneels before his trembling pokemon and reaches back to open a side pouch of his pack, pulling out a small bottle by feel. “You did great Charmander,” he murmurs. He sprays the lizard’s wounds, and feels a knot of tension release in him as the painkiller visibly kicks in: Charmander’s shaking stops, the lizard’s eyes slipping closed and his rapid breaths steadying. The medicine begins to coagulate Charmander’s wounds right before Red’s eyes, and after it finishes he stands and points his pokeball at the lizard. “Return!”
Only once Charmander is absorbed back into the ball does Red sit on the ground to catch his breath, resting back on his pack with his legs splayed in front of him. He watches Blue and Leaf pet and feed their own pokemon before withdrawing them, then lets them tend to his wound. Blue carefully bares Red’s bloody shoulder, and Leaf sprays her own potion onto the wound. The pain relief is immediate, and Red lets out a breath, feeling his whole body relax.
The other two sit, Leaf breathing hard while Blue rolls up his long sleeve to spray some potion onto scratch marks on his arm. There’s silence as everyone recuperates, and after a minute Red notices he’s smiling. When he catches Blue’s eye, he sees him smiling too. Their smiles turn to grins, and soon they’re both laughing until Red is clutching his sides and Blue is lying on his back, hands over his face.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Leaf says, though she’s grinning too.
“Nothing,” Blue gasps, wiping at one eye and sitting up. “That was just…”
“Totally awesome.” Red extends a fist, and Blue raps knuckles with his.
Leaf laughs. “You only say that because we made it through alright!”
“Well, yeah,” Red says, still feeling a ghost of the adrenaline rush, remembering the crystal clarity of his thoughts. “It’s just nice to finally know how you really handle that sort of situation, you know?”
Leaf nods. “You guys were great.”
Blue pats Squirtle’s pokeball. “All in a day’s work.”
“You were amazing too,” Red says. “How did you know Bulbasaur would act out two different commands consecutively?”
“I tried it back at the lab. Took a few attempts, but he picked up on it quick.”
“Nice!”
“Not everyone wasted their time making discoveries that weren’t discoveries,” Blue says, and ducks as Red throws a pebble at him.
Leaf giggles and turns to Red. “The look on your face-”
“-when we pushed each other? The look on
your
face!”
Blue grins. “You two looked like dancers whose music got cut off midstep!”
Everyone laughs again, and when it tapers off, they simply sit and listen to the wind over the fields. Red’s nerves still feel amped, and his hand twitches for his pokeball every time the wind rustles the grass particularly hard, in case more pokemon to rush out at them.
When his nerves calm a bit, Red remembers their duty. “Hey,” he says as he pulls out his phone and brings up the Coordinated Ranger Response Network site. “How far did we run, about?”
Blue looks up. “You contacting CoRRNet?”
“Yeah.”
Leaf tilts her head back and closes her eyes. “Say a sprinting speed of nineteen kilometers an hour, couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds of running, so nineteen by sixty by four would be about eighty meters.
Red opens a calculator app and checks her math, then adds “good with numbers” to his tally of Leaf’s skills as he inputs the rough location of the potential rattata nest. He flags it at the lowest priority, and a few moments later gets back an automated estimation of response time.
“Looks like there’s a pair of Rangers nearby, so they should deal with the nest before anyone else wanders past it.”
“Want to stick around till they get here?” Leaf asks.
“Nah, they’ll have it covered,” Blue says, stretching and sitting up. “We should get a move on.”
Movement at the corner of Red’s eye makes him turn. The rattata that Bulbasaur had knocked out is stirring. “Hey,” Red says, rising to his feet. “It’s waking up.”
“Is that the one that bit you?” Blue asks as he and Leaf also stand.
“No, it’s the one that got Charmander.”
“Well?” Leaf gestures. “Care to do the honors?”
Red glances at Blue, who smiles. “Go ahead, I’ll get the next one.”
“Hell yeah!” Red takes out one of his unregistered pokeballs as the rattata begins to get shakily to its feet, and with a press of the lens-button, expands it. “Pokeball, scan.” He holds the lens toward the rattata, and when the ball emits a chime, cocks it back, aims, and throws, muscle memory kicking in from hours of practice he and Blue had spent hitting cans with rocks.
The ball hits the rattata dead on, and sucks it in with a burst of light before rolling along the ground. The lens blinks red as it registers the pokemon inside, then fades.
“Nice job!”
“Congratulations Red!”
Red picks up his first caught pokemon and takes out his pokedex, lining up the lens on both. The screen shows the rattata resting in a grassy glade, its vital data listing beside it:
Rattata: Female. Height: 28 cm. Weight: 3.3 kg. Approximate age, 9 Months. Rattata’s large teeth grow continuously throughout its life, and must be worn down by gnawing. Hardy omnivores, rattata have been known to thrive in virtually any environment. Because it reproduces so quickly, a pair of rattata can quickly colonize an area.
Seeing that his new pokemon is a female sends a note of disquiet through Red’s triumph. He thinks back to what he’d said about them stumbling onto a nest. Had he just caught a mother?
His train of thought is interrupted by Blue’s hand clapping his good shoulder. “Come on, let’s get going. I want to find a pidgey!” His friend picks up his bag, and begins to jog ahead. Leaf smiles and follows, and Red clips his new pokemon to his belt and hurries to catch up.
Red throws a third time, letting go too soon and sending the pokeball slightly off target. Not that it matters: the small brown pokemon hops out of the way, wings flapping to send the ball farther out of reach. The gusts of wind send dirt into Red’s eyes, and he covers his face with an elbow while holding onto his cap’s bill to keep it on his head. When the wind stops, he looks up to see the small flock of pidgey swiftly departing.
Blue walks over, breathing hard. “Goddamn birds,” he mutters as he brushes dirt from his eyes, hair a windblown mess. His squirtle approaches from behind, staring after the departed pidgey for a moment before dropping onto all fours and investigating the grass around them.
“Squirtle manage to hit any of them?” Red asks as he walks around to reclaim his pokeballs and shrink them.
“A couple, but they recovered too fast, and then she ran out of water.” Blue pulls a bottle of it out and begins squirting some into the turtle’s open mouth.
Red hadn’t summoned Charmander, wanting to avoid further injury unless necessary. He looks over to where Leaf and Bulbasaur are and sees her pick up one of her own pokeballs before heading to them.
“No luck either, huh?” Red asks.
“Nope. I think we’re definitely going to need to wear them down first.”
“Which would be easy enough, if they’d stay still and fight,” Blue says.
Red sighs and sits in a patch of short grass, crossing his leg beneath him and drinking from Blue’s water bottle. The other two sit in a rough triangle, Blue rubbing Squirtle’s shell. “Pidgey aren’t as aggressive as rattata,” Red says. “Unless we find a nest and actually start messing with their eggs, they have no reason to stick around rather than just fly off if threatened.”
“Maybe we hold off on catching one for now?” Leaf says.
Blue shakes his head. “I want a Flying type before we reach Viridian Forest, unless you want to risk getting divebombed by some beedrill without a way to fight back.”
“What’s a beedrill?” Leaf asks, and Blue pulls out his pokedex. A large, winged black and yellow insect, all sharp stingers and pointed claws, appears on the screen. “Ugh, yeah, that might be a problem. So… ideas?”
“We could go to the Viridian City and get a net launcher, then come back,” Red says. It’s one of the items on his eventual wish-list of gear, and he’d looked at some prices online. “They cost five hundred dollars, but we can rent one for a hundred-thirty a day.”
Blue scratches his neck. “That’s not bad. How much do you have?”
“After buying all my gear, I’ve got $237 left. You?”
“I have about five hundred saved up.”
Leaf holds up her purse. “I brought four hundred for the trip. So we could all pool in to rent one for $43 each, or buy it for $167, give or take a dollar.”
“So it’s an option, though a pricey one,” Red says.
Blue nods. “I was hoping to save for critical supplies until I can get some winnings for extra cash, so let’s make that Plan B. Any other ideas?”
Leaf looks around at the tall grass, some of it as high as their shoulders while seated. “A trap of some kind? I can hide with Bulbasaur in some tall grass, try to grab one with vines if it gets close.”
“Might take hours of waiting,” Blue says. “What if we lure them? Dig a hole, make a false cover and put some berries on it?”
Red runs his fingers through the grass. “Even if they were heavy enough to break it, they’d just fly out before we got close. I like the berry idea though. Maybe combine it with Leaf’s? Bulbasaur sits under the trap?”
“Or better yet, we can find a berry bush to hide him in,” Leaf says.
They agree, and get up to look for a good spot. It isn’t hard to find berry bushes, but most are stripped of ripe fruit by wild pokemon. A few rattata and pidgey run from the trio as they walk through the tall grass, and eventually they find a berry laden bush with three rattata around it. They seem willing to stand and fight at first, until Leaf brings Bulbasaur out. They flee before Red can bring out Charmander, and Blue throws a pokeball at the retreating rodents, missing one by a hair.
“Not a word,” Blue says.
“It’s a lot easier when they’re knocked out,” Red offers with a grin.
“Okay Bulbasaur. In you go.” Leaf points at the berry bush. Her pokemon walks over to it and begins to feed. “No! Stop!” Bulbasaur hesitates a moment, then continues, and Leaf pulls a spray bottle out of her pocket and squirts a mist of water in Bulbasaur’s face, saying “Stop!” again. He recoils, blinking in surprise, and looks at his trainer with a mournful sound.
“I guess we didn’t think this through,” Blue says, balancing a spinning pokeball on one finger. “He’s going to just eat the berries when we move away.”
“Give me a bit, and he won’t,” Leaf says. “This is a good training opportunity.”
Blue looks skeptical. “You’re going to train him
not
to eat berries? Might want to make sure he’s full first.”
“It’s not too hard. I just have to reward him with something he wants more.”
Red turns to Leaf, impressed anew. “You’ve studied operant conditioning?” He’s starting to appreciate that Leaf had probably worked at least as hard to prepare for this journey as he and Blue
.
“That Pavlov thing?” Blue asks.
“That’s classical conditioning. Operant conditioning deals with positive and negative reinforcement.”
Blue stares blankly at him.
“I’m pretty sure we covered it in school together…”
“Oh?” Blue spins his pokeball again, arm moving slightly to keep it balanced. “I must have been sick that day.”
Red sighs as Leaf smiles and put her pack down to dig through it. “Okay, so Professor Skinner was studying behavior theory, and was focused on the way pokemon learn. He put rattata in a box which had a mechanism to release food, along with a lever, and a light display or speakers.”
“This is fascinating,” Blue says in a monotone.
“Do you want to know what she’s going to do, or not?”
“I was hoping for a ten second answer, not an hour long lecture.”
“It’s been twenty seconds, if that, and only counting your interruption.”
“What, I said it was fascinating, then you get all huffy-”
“
Anyway
,” Red continues, deciding to simplify. “He was able to train the pokemon to press the lever after seeing the right light display or hearing the right sound, but not when seeing or hearing the wrong one. The lever would only dispense food if they pressed it after the right signal. That was their reward, to
reinforce
the desired behavior. If they did it after the wrong one, they would get a small shock or something. That aversive stimulus was the
punishment.
”
Leaf finds and takes out a small box of PokePuffs. The round cakes are colorful, and their scent fills the air as soon as she opens the wrapping. Bulbasaur and Squirtle sniff, their gazes locking on the brown and orange pastry Leaf holds up.
“Ok, that’s starting to sound familiar,” Blue says. “It’s like how we link new commands with pokemon attacks.”
“Right, but the principle works with more than just battle commands,” Red says. “In fact, it works for pretty much anything, and even the least intelligent of pokemon respond to it to some degree.” Nor are humans exempt: Red had made the connection to his own learning not to touch a hot stove as a toddler before finding the studies that supported it. “According to behavior theory, pretty much all learned behavior is the result of reinforcements and associations.”
“So that water bottle, that’s the punishment,” Blue says. “And the PokePuff is the reward.”
“Right. The water bottle is a
positive punishment
, because it adds an experience to minimize a behavior. The pokepuff is a
positive reinforcement,
because it reinforces a behavior. ‘Positive’ and ‘Negative’ are used in a technical sense here, to mean add or subtract, and not to place a subjective judgement on what’s being added or subtracted. A
negative reinforcement
would be a positive experience for a pokemon, because it remove a noxious experience when doing a behavior, which encourages it to do that behavior again
.
”
Leaf positions Bulbasaur in front of the bush again, and waits until Bulbasaur begins to stretch his neck out for a berry, then says “Stop!” Bulbasaur hesitates again, and when he resumes reaching for a berry he gets another spray of mist. It takes another few repetitions of this until Bulbasaur stops reaching for berries on his own.
“Isn’t this going to make him stop eating berries altogether?” Blue asks.
“It could, with enough reinforcement,” Red admits. “But she can fine-tune it. Watch.”
Leaf offers Bulbasaur a berry from her hand, and after a moment he eats it. He doesn’t get squirted, and after she offers him another one he’s faster to eat it, which earns him a scratch behind his ear.
“The real behavior she’s trying to teach him doesn’t have to do with berries, but to respond to her saying ‘stop’,” Red explains. “He recognizes the word to some degree thanks to previous training, but isn’t used to hearing it when doing mundane things. He’s also learning not to eat berries unless it’s offered to him.”
Leaf stays still and silent for a long time, and Bulbasaur doesn’t reach for any berries. Finally he begins to stir and stretch his neck out for one, and when Leaf says “Stop!” he does so right away.
“Good boy!” Leaf breaks off a piece of the pokepuff and feeds it to him, then scratches him behind the ear. “Who’s a good bulbasaur? You are!”
Squirtle is watching the interaction attentively, and eventually walks over to Blue and looks up at him expectantly. “What?” Blue says, sounding defensive as he catches his ball to stop its spinning. “I don’t have any PokePuffs. I’ll pick some up in Viridian.”
Squirtle doesn’t seem particularly assured, and makes a gurgling sound, plodding off toward the berry bush to eat some. Bulbasaur watches Squirtle, but doesn’t join her, earning him another piece of Puff.
By the time the PokePuff is gone, Bulbasaur is obediently sitting in the middle of the berry bush without reaching for any of them. Part of it might be that he’s less hungry, but Red knows that PokePuffs are designed as treats, and aren’t particularly filling.
Leaf brushes her hands off on her pants. “Now we just need to train him to grab anyone that tries to eat the berries.” She eyes Squirtle, then Blue, and both trainers speak at the same time:
“Bulbasaur, Bind!”
“Squirtle, Withdraw!”
Bulbasaur’s vines wrap around Squirtle, but have trouble keeping a grip on the smooth shell.
“Bulbasaur, stop!”
“Squirtle, back up.” Blue slowly circles the berry bush with Squirtle, then points to a clump of berries. “Eat!”
“Bulbasaur, Bind!”
Squirtle dodges the vines and grabs a mouthful of berries, but has to jump back to avoid them again. When Bulbasaur moves forward to pursue, Leaf tells him to stop, and Bulbasaur does.
“Good job Squirtle!” Blue rubs the turtle’s smooth shell while Leaf feeds Bulbasaur part of a new PokePuff, then hands the rest to Blue to feed Squirtle. Red watches them for a moment, then unclips Charmander’s pokeball and looks at its smooth surface.
Inside, he knows Charmander’s physical state is suspended while his mind is busy with the pokeball’s virtual reality, a preprogrammed experience akin to dreaming. He pulls out his pokedex and aligns their lens so he can see what Charmander’s doing.
The screen displays a stadium. Charmander is facing down an assortment of pokemon, as Red, or rather the recording of him that had been programmed into the dex at Professor Oak’s lab, gives Charmander various commands. It won’t make the pokemon any stronger, but Red knows the virtual training will subconsciously help Charmander become even more used to his instructions and fighting in general.
He reclips Charmander to his belt and pulls out his new rattata’s ball, doing the same thing. Instead of the more advanced scenario Charmander is experiencing, the rattata isn’t facing any foes, but simply learning basic commands. Red watches her tackle a mannequin, then begin biting it as his virtual self instructs her to. This sort of virtual training doesn’t form as strong a bond as training in person, and there’s less room for creativity or learning for the trainer, but it’s a convenient method of allowing virtually anyone to capture and train pokemon of their own.
Red remembers learning about pokeball technology at school. Most of the students had just followed the lesson and taken notes at various levels of attention, but Red could barely listen and write at the same time, mind racing with possibilities. He’d finally raised his hand to interrupt the teacher, and asked why people couldn’t just go into a pokeball and learn everything through virtual lessons.
The class had gone silent, many kids turning to give Red a strange look.
People can’t go in pokeballs, dummy,
his classmate Becka had said. The teacher had reprimanded her, but then reiterated the well known point: pokeballs were for pokemon. They wouldn’t work on people.
Red had barely paid attention the rest of the day. He’d never really thought much about the distinction between people and pokemon, but in those moments it had seemed trivial to him. Surely some day, he’d thought, they would refine the technology to upload humans as data as well. His mind kept coming up with new things such a breakthrough would allow: near instant travel, protection from imminent danger, the ability to stay suspended the same age for decades and jump ahead in time…
Red smiles now, remembering his naïveté. It wasn’t until years later when he was reading one of the books Professor Oak had given him that he’d learned the truth: they
can
create pokeballs that work on people. The technology had been available from the very beginning. But the atomization and compression isn’t quite so simple for creatures with higher cognitive functions. The first humans who had volunteered to be stored in a pokeball and then reformed had emerged physically healthy, but severely brain damaged.
The book hadn’t elaborated further, and Red had done some independent research online to learn the full story. Over the years, the matter compression technology had continued to advance, and occasionally human testing was tried again. Criminals facing the death penalty were offered the choice of entering a pokeball instead: if they survived with their wits intact, their sentence would be lowered to mere life imprisonment.
Time and again, the results were the same: at best, a regression of mental state to a toddler’s level. At worst, permanent catatonia. Ultimately the decision was agreed by all levels of government: pokeballs were for pokemon. The creation or use of devices that would recognize and store humans became a felony of the greatest magnitude, allowing law enforcement to go all-out against anyone suspected of doing so. All further research on the topic was put to a halt.
Red sighs and puts his rattata’s pokeball away, the screen of the pokedex going still as the lenses unalign. As amazing as technology is, he can’t help but wonder what new things humanity could accomplish, if they were willing to take more risks…
“Alright, that should do it,” Leaf says. She feeds her pokemon the last bit of another puff through the bush’s branches, and gets to her feet. “Let’s get some distance and let Bulbasaur do his thing.”
They find a grassy knoll not too far from the bush and lie or crouch behind it, heads just high enough to watch the bush. Blue rolls three shrunken pokeballs around on his palm by flexing his fingers, while Leaf scans the skies. Red scans through his pokedex’s map, looking ahead at the locations they would soon travel to and refreshing his memory of the pokemon native to there.
Some mankey to the west of Viridian City, would be useful to catch one, though they’re rare… lots of weedle in the forest, not to mention kakuna and beedrill… better stock up on poison antidotes…
The sun continues to inch along the sky, and eventually Blue excuses himself to duck behind some trees. While he’s gone, Leaf turns to Red. “So what does it take to become a Professor in Kanto?”
Red scratches his chin where a blade of grass is tickling. “First, to become a registered Pokemon Researcher, I need to contribute an independent article based on my observations and experiences with one of my pokemon. I can submit it through the pokedex, but I have to wait for it to be peer reviewed to be accepted.”
“Can it be on anything?”
Red nods. “Pretty much. I just need to discover or verify something new. Once I’m a Researcher, I can advance by increasing my h-index.”
“That’s the relationship between number of papers published and the times you’ve been cited, right?”
“Yeah. So the more papers I publish, the more chances of being cited by others, but high quality research will likely shoot my score way up. Once I hit 20 I can become an Instructor. At 30 I can apply to become an Associate Professor, and work in the lab under Professor Oak.”
“And then? When do you get your own lab?”
Red shrugs. “Could take years. I need to demonstrate knowledge of every major species in the region to apply to become a Professor, and once I pass that test, my dissertation has to disprove or overturn a previous theory that has already been established.”
Leaf gives a low whistle. “Every species in the region. That’s a lot of work.”
“Yeah, but I can start making money for articles I contribute or review once I’m a Researcher, so it’s incrementally rewarding long before I reach the end.”
“Do you make a lot?”
“It depends on the discovery, but not generally. The rewards are structured more toward verifying and disproving than submitting.”
“And you weren’t able to do any as part of your apprenticeship? Get a head start on it?”
“My work in the lab involved a lot of paperwork and assistance of others in their research. So I got a chance to observe first hand the proper procedures and format and standards, which will help a lot in doing my own research and getting it accepted.”
“So to keep publishing papers, you’ll have to study and catch a
lot
of pokemon. More than Gym Leaders have, even.”
“Or spend a lot of time with a few dozen, yeah.” He smiles. “Discovering new species would put me on the fast track though, so let me know if you spot any.”
She grins. “For a cut of the funds, sure.”
“Sounds fair. I-”
“Look!”
Leaf points as a rattata approaches the berry bush. They watch as it inches closer… closer… then Leaf yells out “Bind!” as it begins nibbling at some berries.
Bulbasaur’s vines whip out and catch the startled rattata, holding it up off the ground to prevent it from running. Leaf and Red dash to the bush, where the squirming rodent is trying to twist around and bite the vines holding it.
“Bulbasaur, tackle!”
The vines slam the rattata down and unwind just as Bulbasaur rockets out from the bush and tackles it. It tumbles away in a daze, and Leaf’s pokeball quickly scans it, then flies through the air and snaps it up. The lens blinks red, then stills.
“Nice job,” Red says. “You trained him really well.”
“Thanks. I used to practice with my mom’s pokemon.” Leaf picks her new rattata up with a grin, then pulls her pokedex out and registers it. Once it’s programmed to her Trainer ID, she clips it to her belt, where it will begin the basic training program Red’s rattata is going through.
Red brushes his fingers over his own rattata’s ball. “At least one of us should nickname ours, in case we have them out at the same time.”
“Good idea. I’ll try to think of one.” Leaf crouches down to rub Bulbasaur’s head and feed him another pokepuff. “Good boy Bulbasaur! Such a good boy!”
They hear running from behind, and turn to see Blue, one hand holding up his pants as the other grips a pokeball. “What happened? Did I miss it?!” He looks around wildly, breathing hard.
Leaf and Red glance at each other before collapsing in laughter. Blue blinks at them, then scowls, cheeks darkening as he puts the pokeball away and finishes zipping and buttoning his pants. Eventually Red recovers enough to explain, and they retreat to the hill after Leaf instructs Bulbasaur to return to the bushes.
“So now I’m the only one without a second pokemon,” Blue grumbles as he settles down again.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get the pidgey for sure,” Leaf says.
Red grins. “Unless you have to go pee again. You did get the chance to finish, right?”
Leaf buries her laughter in her arms as Blue punches Red in his good shoulder, and the two begin to roll across the knoll scuffling. It’s only when Leaf catches her breath and tells them they’ll scare away the pokemon that they disengage and flop back down beside her. Red nurses a bruised rib where Blue’s knee had caught him, while Blue examines a tear in his sleeve.
The clouds drift across the sun, darkening the fields as wind sends ripples through the grass. Red checks the time, noting that they have another two hours of sun left. Plenty to reach Viridian City by nightfall, though only if the pidgey shows up within the next thirty minutes…
It takes ten, though it’s not alone. Leaf gives a small gasp, then points: three pidgey wheel in the distance, dipping and looping around each other, steadily making their way closer. Within moments they land and begin to hop over to the bush.
Blue curses, and Leaf bites her lower lip. Red’s hand falls to his pokeball. What would the other two pidgey do when Bulbasaur grabs the third? Run, or attack? The bushes would provide some cover, but outnumbered the way he is, Bulbasaur might be seriously hurt before they can reach him.
Red unclips Charmander’s pokeball, though he doesn’t release him yet, as the explosive sound might scare them away. “We’ll throw them,” he whispers to Leaf. “Bulbasaur will grab one, and when Charmander and Squirtle show up, the other two might run for it or get distracted.”
Blue nods, and Leaf takes a deep breath, eyes on the pidgey. They hop closer… another hop… and then one pecks at the bushes, grabbing a berry.
“Bind!”
Red leaps to his feet and throws as hard as he can, yelling “Charmander, go!” as Blue does the same with Squirtle. The pokeballs soar through the air as the three pidgey explode into action, flapping and chirping in alarm as one of them struggles against the vines holding it. Bulbasaur keeps his target from flying away, but the other two are already pecking his vines to free their companion.
The wrapped pidgey gets its second wing free and begins to flap, lifting itself a bit. Bulbasaur gets dragged from concealment as he tries to hold onto the pidgey, and the two free birds immediately shift focus to attack him with their beaks and talons.
Red and Blue’s pokeballs hit the ground, bounce, and light flashes as they discharge their contents, sailing back up into the air. Charmander and Squirtle seem a bit disoriented at first from the commotion five feet from them, but quickly shift into combat stances, Squirtle rising onto her hindlegs as Charmander’s claws extend.
“Charmander, Emb-Scratch!” Red yells as he runs, remembering just in time not to use a fire attack.
So inconvenient-
“Squirtle, Water Gun!”
Charmander leaps at the nearest Pidgey and begins to claw at it while Squirtle blasts at the other with a jet of water. For a second there Red had been worried Squirtle would hit Charmander, but the turtle continues to shoot jets of water at the unengaged bird as Charmander knocks away the lower one.
“Blue, I’m going to let it go! Be ready!” Leaf yells from behind them as they run toward the bush.
By the time they reach the scuffle, Blue has a pokeball in each hand, pressing their buttons to expand them and pointing their lens at the pidgeys. Precious seconds pass as he tries to keep them steady on the birds, shifting his arms slightly as the two free pidgey fly around and occasionally dive at their pokemon.
Gotta keep their wings busy.
“Charmander, Bite!” Charmander latches onto his opponent’s shoulder with his teeth. Stuck, the pidgey pecks at the lizard’s face, and Red’s heart leaps into his throat as he sees blood on its beak.
His eyes!
“Charmander, Tail Whip!”
Charmander’s tail coils around him and presses against the pidgey, causing it to trill and flail frantically to escape the flames rather than continue its assault. Squirtle keeps the third pidgey at bay with bursts of water every time it attempts to get close, while their target continues to drag Bulbasaur farther away as it tries to lift off. Bulbasaur’s feet leave the ground for a moment before he settles back down, digging his feet in and slamming the pidgey against the ground without much effect.
Hollow bones, doesn’t have much mass…
Finally a pair of
dings
sound. “Do it!” Blue yells.
“Bulbasaur, tackle!”
Bulbasaur draws his vines in and runs forward as he pulls the pidgey toward him. He releases it just as he hits, but the bird is already airborn, and barely flinches. The tackle does turn it around however, and its first few flaps aim it toward them instead of away.
Blue throws, then shifts the left ball to his right hand and throws again, aiming higher. The pidgey climbs over the first ball, only to be hit by the second.
“Yes!” Blue pumps his fist as the bird disappears in a flash of light. Charmander continues to struggle with the second pidgey, and Red can see both pokemon tiring.
“Leaf, I’m going to tell Charmander to back up,” he says, positioning himself behind the lizard. “Get a ball ready and catch that one!”
“Got it!” She runs forward until she’s just a few feet away and expands a ball, then aims its lens. “Can’t get a lock with Charmander so close!”
“Charmander, back!”
The red lizard releases his target and scampers toward Red, favoring a foreleg as blood runs down his face. The pidgey flaps its wings and tries to gain altitude, but Leaf’s ball pings its lock, and she throws it, hardly needing to aim from so close.
The ball hits the second pidgey and bounces off it before opening and sucking it inside as it falls. The third pidgey chirrups, then wheels around and flies away.
Red is already kneeling beside Charmander, a potion in one hand and a small towel in the other. “Hold still Charmander, you did so well,” he whispers, heart pounding as he wipes blood away from the lizard’s face. He notices his hand shaking, and takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself.
Stupid adrenaline, go away, need to focus…
Charmander’s eyes are closed, so he sprays the potion onto the wounds he can see. His pokemon slowly relaxes, and Red pulls out his water bottle, wetting his towel and gingerly wiping around the wounds.
One, two… three…
Three peck marks, and when Charmander opens his eyes, they’re undamaged. One particularly bad one had hit the lizard’s previous wound, and Red uses the rest of the potion on the spot, watching as the bloodflow slows and forms a dark scab, new pink flesh already shrinking the wound around the edges.
Red lets out a breath and gingerly hugs his charmander, careful of its tail. It snuggles against his chest, claws sharp, but not piercing his skin.
“How is he?” Blue says after a minute.
Red looks up at Blue. “He’s okay. Bulbasaur?”
“Same,” Leaf says, putting her potion bottle away. “They got him pretty bad though, and the plant on his back is shredded a bit. I’d like to get him to a pokemon center to make sure there’s no permanent damage.”
“Yeah.” Red slowly disentangles himself from Charmander and feeds him a handful of berries while Blue retrieves their pokeballs from the grass. He hands Red the one with the flame on it, and the three trainers withdraw their pokemon. Then Blue registers his new pidgey.
Red smiles, the elation of victory filling him now that he knows his pokemon is okay. “Nice catch man. For a second there I thought you’d grab two.”
Blue chuckles. “If Squirtle knocked down the third I’d have gone for it, but I wanted insurance against the first guy. Got a sense for how they dodge balls from our earlier suckfest. Who’s getting the second one?”
“She is,” Red says at the same time Leaf says “Red.” They look at each other.
“I just got a new pokemon,” Leaf says.
“So? I did too, a few hours ago.”
“Charmander’s the one that fought it.”
“I’d be happy to take it,” Blue offers.
Red ignores him. “You and Bulbasaur are the reason we got these guys at all.”
Leaf hesitates. “Are you sure?”
Red makes himself smile. He wants a flier, he can’t deny that, but pidgey are fairly common pokemon, and he’s sure he’ll get one eventually. There are other alternatives coming up soon anyway. “I’m sure. Go for it.”
Leaf grins and hugs him. “Thank you!”
Red blinks, an indistinct and uncomfortable feeling rising in his chest. “Um. It’s okay.”
What? “It’s okay?”
Leaf lets him go and collects the pokeball. As it downloads her Trainer ID, she presses a button on the pokedex. “Pokedex, Nickname: Crimson.”
“Pidgey nickname confirmed: Crimson,” the pokedex replies in a robotic, but somehow cheerful voice. “Uploading name recognition exercises. Estimated time to completion: fourteen minutes, thirty seven seconds.”
Leaf puts the pokedex and ball away and looks up at Red and Blue. “Still haven’t thought of one for rattata,” she says with a smile.
Red scratches his hair beneath his cap, then resettles it over his head, feeling vaguely embarrassed by the homage. “Well, we’ve got time to think of names on the way to Viridian.”
Should I name my rattata “Green?” No, that
‘s stupid
…
They collect their things and walk on as the sun slowly paints the sky red and gold.
“I’m fine mom,” Red says. “Not a scratch on me.”
Technically it’s a bite mark.
Red stands in Viridian City’s southern pokemon center, using his phone to call home as he waits in line. Blue and Leaf are ahead of him, and step forward as the nurse behind the counter gives the young man at the front of the line a receipt.
Red steps forward too, shifting his phone to his other ear so he can pull out his wallet.
“We got in ten minutes ago, maybe twenty, before it got dark,” he says. He turns to look out the front of the building’s glass walls, where the city lights illuminate the night.
“Good. How is your pokemon? Have you and Blue caught any new ones yet?”
“We did. I have a charmander and rattata, Blue has a squirtle and pidgey. Oh, and there’s a third person with us named Leaf. She’s the daughter of a professor from Unova.”
He can hear his mom’s smile over the phone. “I’m glad it’s not just you and Blue. Hopefully she’ll keep you two from fighting.”
Red makes a noncommittal sound and changes the subject as Leaf turns around at the sound of her name. “How about you, how was your day?”
“Just fine. I took a walk along the beach and had a meeting with the town council. Now I’m getting ready to meet Sam and Daisy for dinner.”
“Great! Tell them I said hi.” Red feels some relief that his mom won’t be spending his first night away alone.
“Just hi?” His mom’s voice is teasing. “Nothing else you want to say to Daisy?”
Red feels his cheeks flush, and tries to sound bored rather than whiny. “Mom, it’s been a year.”
Why
did he tell her that he liked Blue’s sister? “‘Hi’ will do, thanks.”
“Alright, alright, ‘hi’ it is. Anyway, I’ve got to go, sweetie. Give my love to Blue, and find a nice place to stay tonight. I love you Red.”
Red glances at his companions and turns casually to the side, voice lowering. “Love you too, mom, goodnight.” He ends the call and puts his phone away just as Blue steps up to the counter.
“Hello, new trainer?” the nurse says with a smile.
“Yeah, how did you know?” Blue unclips his pokeballs and puts them in the round indentations on the nurse’s tray.
“You’ve got the look. Young, a bit nervous, few pokemon. Mind if I see your ID?”
“Sure.” Blue takes out his wallet and hands her his trainer card.
“Thank you.” The nurse taps some keys on her computer. “Ah, Pallet Town. My sister lives there. And what is the nature of your pokemon’s injuries?”
“Nothing serious, just a couple wild encounters.”
“Are either of them poisoned or burned? Any untreated open wounds?”
“No, just some scrapes and bruises. My squirtle might be more tired than anything.”
The nurse types a bit more, then her computer spits out a receipt. “Alright, your pokemon will be ready within the hour. We’ll send you a message when you can pick them up.”
When it’s Red’s turn, he feels a bit anxious as he hands his pokemon over and explains to the nurse their various injuries.
It’s strange how simply being ‘mine’ makes these pokemon mean so much to me, even the rattata.
Something to do with the effort he’d put into acquiring her, maybe?
Red pulls his notebook out of his pack as he crosses the clean tiles to the bench Leaf and Blue are on. After sitting beside them, he opens it to a new page, dates it, then writes:
Observation: I’m feeling remarkably attached to my pokemon after such a short time with them.
Question 1: Is this usual?
Question 2: Does it affect my objectivity when regarding them in other ways?
Reminder 1: Look into research on-
“Hey Red, you hungry?”
He looks up at Leaf, blinking. Now that she mentions it, it’s hard to ignore his stomach’s complaints. All he’d had since breakfast were some snack bars on the road. “Yeah, starving.”
“We’ve got at least half an hour before our pokemon are ready,” Blue says. “Let’s go find some food.”
Red nods, and looks down at his notebook as the others get to their feet, trying to remember what he’d been writing.
-research on human connections with each other, with objects, and with pokemon.
Reminder 2: Survey others if possible, mark distinctions between pokemon gifted and pokemon caught.
Red frowns and puts the notebook away as he stands. It isn’t exactly what he’d wanted to write, but it’s enough to remind himself of his thought process later on.
The three leave the pokemon center and walk through the city. People on foot and bicycles throng the sidewalks, pooling at the ends of blocks to wait for lights to change before crossing streets. Every few minutes some large flying pokemon goes by overhead, its passengers’ legs dangling a dozen feet above the traffic, and occasionally people riding large pokemon pass them. Leaf points in delight as a flaming horse gallops by on the other side of the street, its rider seemingly unharmed by the pokemon’s fiery mane.
“What’s that?”
“Rapidash,” Red says. “Their hair glows like fire, but they can keep it from combusting into actual flames if trained to be ridden.”
Leaf turns her neck to watch it disappear around a corner. “So pretty…”
Blue snorts, and Leaf turns back with a cheery smile. “Keep laughing after I catch one,” she says. “The sound of hooves will be the last thing you ever hear.”
“Ha. You’ll have to get through Squirtle first.”
Red and Blue have both been to Viridian City before a few times, but it’s all new to Leaf, so they point out some of the more famous landmarks as they walk.
“There’s a supermarket that way that’s second biggest in Kanto. A lot of people stop by on their way to the Indigo Plateau, they sell
everything
a trainer might need.”
“See that big building near the center of the city? That’s the Trainer House, we’ll head there after our pokemon are taken care of.”
“There’s a huge lake over that way, but fishing in it’s usually prohibited.”
“Hey,” Leaf says as they reach an outdoor cafe and sit at a table. “What’s the Gym in this city?”
“The Earth Gym.”
“That’s Leader Giovanni’s, right? What’s he like?”
Blue grins. “Oh man, Giovanni is awesome
.
He was
ninet
een
when he became Champion, and he’s held his Gym for
decades.
He’s like fifty-something now.”
“He’s really philanthropic too,” Red adds. “Gives away millions to subsidize trainer activities and fund pokemon research.”
“Oh wow! Are you guys planning on challenging him?”
“Can’t,” Red says with a sigh. “He’s out of town, I checked yesterday. Won’t be back until next week.”
“We can still go to the gym and do some training,” Blue says. “Though I’d like to get to the forest by tomorrow if we can.”
Leaf nods. “If we have time, then?”
They agree, and a waitress comes by to take their order. Red sees a woman at another table, eating her steak and occasionally dropping bits of meat to the side for her growlithe to eat. He takes his notebook back out as they wait for their food.
“What’s that? Journal?” Leaf asks.
“Sort of. I like to write out my thoughts at the end of the day, helps keep track of questions I’ve had, remind myself to look into answering them or reflect on them in the future when I know more.”
“Did you just think of something?”
“Yeah,” he says, flipping back to the latest page and writing as he talks. “How do you guys feel about your pokemon so far?”
“Pretty good,” Blue says. “Haven’t had a chance to check out the pidgey, but seemed like a fighter. And my squirtle is great.”
Leaf nods. “Same, looking forward to getting to know Crimson and my rattata, but I couldn’t be happier with Bulbasaur. He’s everything I’d hoped my first pokemon would be… smart, versatile, tough.”
“Do you feel a… scratch that, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your ‘bond’ with your pokemon so far? One being you barely feel anything for them, ten being they matter to you as much as close friends or family.”
Blue shrugs. “I guess Squirtle a seven, the pidgey a four or five.”
“Bulbasaur a nine,” Leaf says slowly. “Rattata a… four, I guess? And Crimson a six, though that may be because of the nickname.”
“What about the process of capturing it?”
“Yeah, that definitely plays a part. In the struggle I feel like I got to know it a bit, and it’s got spirit, that’s for sure.”
Red doesn’t comment on her reasoning, just writing his questions down as well as their answers, trying to get a feel for what a good survey on this topic might look like. Gathering qualitative data is more important than quantitative for now, to help understand things well enough to begin formulating hypotheses. “So those numbers, four at the lowest, nine at the highest. Do they seem in any way odd to you guys?”
Leaf looks curious. “Not really. What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t get so attached to other people we just meet. Why are we all so attached to our pokemon already?”
“People talk about the bond between trainers and pokemon all the time,” Blue says. “This is what they mean. Humans and pokemon, we’re meant to work together like this. That’s why it feels so natural.”
Red looks at Leaf. “You feel that way too? Like it’s just that simple that you catch a pokemon and feel attached to them?”
Leaf shrugs. “I’ve been around my mom’s pokemon all my life, and I love them all… well most of them, she has this minccino that’s totally spoiled. But there’s definitely something special about having my own.”
Red finishes writing, then taps his pencil against the notebook a moment. “What about the other pokemon we saw today?”
“What about them?”
“Have you thought about them at all since? Do you think about the other rattata that we fought, or that third pidgey that got away?”
The other two are silent for a bit, then Blue shrugs. “Not really.”
“I have, a little. I kind of felt bad for the third pidgey, in case the ones we caught were its family. Why, have you been thinking of them?” Leaf asks.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Every so often I wonder about my rattata. If she was a mother whose children now lost her.”
Blue rolls his eyes, but Leaf’s expression is sympathetic. “That makes sense. Do you feel bad about it?”
“I don’t, actually,” he says, surprising himself with the realization even as he sees their brows rise. “I mean in an abstract way, sure, but I’m not about to go back and release her. And I’m a bit curious as to why. I care about my rattata, but not the ones I didn’t catch, even the ones affected by its capture. Is that odd?”
“Not at all,” Blue says. “Why would you care about the other pokemon? One of them bit you! And another scratched up my arm, not to mention the way they hurt our pokemon.”
Leaf opens her mouth to respond, but just then their food arrives. Red’s stomach growls, and he begins eating his sandwich.
“Like this food,” Red says, covering his mouth after a bit of bread flies out. “Woop, sorry.” He swallows. “I don’t really care about the pidgey whose meat I’m eating. But if I had a pidgey, and it was killed for its meat, I’d probably be upset. Is that hypocritical of me?”
Blue looks too interested in his food to respond, but Leaf finishes chewing and says “I’m not sure. There are others who think so though. You’re talking about the relationship between people and pokemon, the way we use pokemon for our own benefit. There’s a group of activists in Unova who talk about it all the time. Used to be smaller, but now they’ve even got members in the government.”
“Really? What do they want?”
“Oh, lots of things. Stricter requirements for trainer licensing, better treatment of wild pokemon, an end to pokemon testing-”
Red snorts. “What, would they rather we test on humans instead?”
Leaf meets his gaze. “When it’s to benefit humans? Is that so strange?”
“It’s idiotic,” he says. Her eyes narrow, and he rushes on. “I’m sorry, but it is. We would never have developed half the medicines we have today without pokemon testing, there’s just no way to replicate human test subjects quickly or reliably enough, even ignoring the moral issues of experimenting on them-”
“But it’s not a moral issue when we raise pokemon just to test out new chemicals that might hurt or kill them?”
Feeling like he’s just digging a deeper hole, Red looks to Blue for help, but his friend is merely watching with amusement as he eats. “Of course it is, but isn’t it also a moral imperative to develop medicines that’ll save as many people as we can? How do you balance the lives of a relatively few pokemon against all the people
and other pokemon
we help by doing so?”
“You’d probably feel different if you were one of the test subjects. Or if they wanted to use your charmander.”
“No,” he says adamantly. “I wouldn’t.”
Leaf stares at him. Even Blue looks surprised. “You really mean that?”
“I try to be self aware enough to keep from holding hypocritical beliefs. I don’t want to lose my charmander, even after just a day with him. It would be really sad, maybe heart breaking if I had him for a long while. But if for some reason there was an experiment that
had
to use my charmander, instead of one in the wild, to help people, or even other pokemon…”
“People you don’t even know?” Blue asks.
Red tries to find the words, frowning at the woman and her growlithe at the other table. “Look, it’s… see that woman there? Say her growlithe died. Who would be affected by it?”
“She would, and her family, if they’re close to her pokemon.”
“Right. For how long?”
Leaf raises a brow. “That… depends. I was really sad for a couple months after my mom’s purrloin died. She was too, but I took it much harder, because I was young. There are a lot of factors that go into it.”
“Okay, but around a couple months for both of you. Did you by chance get another one?”
“Yeah, she brought another one home a few months after the first died.”
“And that helped.”
Leaf nods. “That helped.”
“Have you ever lost a person? Your dad, maybe?”
Leaf notices Blue go still, and looks back at Red with some hesitation. “He doesn’t live with us anymore, but no, I’ve never lost a person.”
“Well take it from me: you’re sad for more than just a few months. And not just you: your family, your friends, everyone’s affected by the loss and its effect on you. For years. It’s… there’s like a crack in your life that doesn’t ever really go away.”
The girl from Unova is quiet for a bit as she chews her food. Eventually she says “I think I get it. You’re saying that as sad as a pokemon’s death might be, a person’s death… ripples outward more, and is much more affecting.”
“Yeah. That’s about right.” Red focuses on his sandwich, ignoring the ache in his chest with long practice, shoving the crippling, bitter despair back into the mental vault he’d built for it.
“I… can’t really argue with that without seeming untactful,” she says slowly. “But I think some people would take their pokemon’s loss as hard as another person’s.”
Red shrugs. “Sure. But that’s still one relationship severed. Most people have multiple, and each of those people have multiple more. That’s why for me, no pokemon’s life could ever be as important as a person’s. Even if the pokemon is mine, and the person is a complete stranger.”
“What if they’re a dick?” Blue says.
Red frowns at him. “They probably still have friends, family, someone cares about them.”
“What if they’re a murderer? What if they’re a serial killing psycho?”
“That’s… a different story…” Seeing Blue’s triumphant smile, Red sighs. “Okay, I’ll amend a bit: to me,
most
of the time, no pokemon’s life is as important as a random person’s, statistically speaking, since most people aren’t psychopathic murderers.”
Leaf watches Red for a bit, then nods slightly. “I believe you believe that. But I think you might feel differently once you’ve really bonded, spent a few months or years with your pokemon.”
Red opens his mouth, then reconsiders and takes a drink. Eventually he shrugs. “Yeah, maybe. And if so, I might reconsider my view of pokemon testing. But I don’t think it’s likely.”
There’s silence at the table as they eat for a bit, watching the occasional pokemon walk by beside or ridden by their trainer. A pidgeot lands at a store across the street, and its rider slides off its back, the car-sized bird disappearing in a flash of light as its trainer withdraws it.
After the atmosphere at the table seems a bit lighter, Blue speaks. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re both nuts.” He takes a swig of his mixed fruit juice. “Obviously we need to keep developing better medicine and technology, but I wouldn’t give up
my
pokemon for it. Let gramps and the other white coats catch their own rattata to test on.”
“Well,” Leaf says as she sprinkles some salt on her tomato slices. “Most people seem to agree with you. The group I was talking about doesn’t have a lot of support in Unova, and I’ve never heard much of similar sentiments in other regions.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Blue says as he leans back, chair tipped to balance on its hind legs as he munches on a riceball. He rests one foot on the table’s edge, ignoring or oblivious to the dirty look their server gives him as she passes by. “Start giving in to little changes, and who knows what else they’ll want?”
“Last I heard before I left, they were talking about restricting the use of pokeballs and outright banning all pokemon trainer battles.”
Blue practically chokes on his food, eyes wide as his chair slams forward. “Wh-what?” He coughs up some rice and reaches for his drink. “What are they-
chkugh-
nuts?”
Red thumps on Blue’s back as Leaf shrugs. “Lots of people think so, but I’m not one of them. I think pokemon battling for sport is cruel, especially outside of regulated tournaments. They’re living creatures, they have feelings, and making them fight when it’s not necessary is callous.”
Blue frowns at her, taking a drink to clear his throat. “Tournaments have so many rules that pokemon rarely get seriously injured. Besides, you’re not going to prepare your pokemon for a real fight if you always stop as soon as they get a little hurt. Would you rather them die against some wild pokemon because they weren’t prepared?”
Red watches them continue to argue, considering their points as he eats. He has to admit he agrees with Blue more than Leaf, though that might just be a cultural bias of his, as apparently a number of people think differently in Unova. He drinks some soda, then interjects, “Why do they want to restrict pokeball use?”
Leaf turns to him. “They say it’s cruel to keep them imprisoned. Stunts their minds, makes them too subservient, hard to reintegrate into the wild if they’re released.”
“Makes sense. But you use them anyway?”
Leaf nods. “I don’t think the stasis of the balls is harmful in and of itself, and it even helps them live longer, in a sense, to better match our lifespans. Besides, training pokemon the old-fashioned way isn’t always realistic or safe, especially when you plan on traveling and acquiring a lot of them.”
“Still, it seems to benefit people at the expense of pokemon. Doesn’t that go against the beliefs of that group you’re talking about?”
“I agree with them generally, but not all their specifics or methods.” She shrugs. “I just think there’s a better way to go about things than we are now.”
“I think a lot of people can agree to that, at least.”
“Yeah. They’ve been getting more radical the more people support them, but there’s still disagreement from within too.”
Red nods, still feeling a bit uncomfortable about inadvertently insulting her earlier. “Thanks for bringing it up, by the way. Professor Oak’s specialty is pokemon-human interactions, and I find the whole topic interesting. That Unova group is something for me to look into later.”
Leaf smiles. “No problem. What you were talking about reminded me of it anyway. It’s funny, I actually thought of them when I met you this morning: their leader Ghetsis also has red eyes.”
“Is that rare in Unova too?”
“Yeah, I’ve only seen a couple people with them.”
Blue stabs a mushroom with his fork and points it at Leaf. “So why are you a trainer?” He pops it in his mouth. “Red wants to be a professor, and I’m going to be the next Kanto Champion. What made you come here?”
“Well, I want to be a Coordinator someday, but I’m planning on doing a lot of traveling. I want to go to different regions and write a book on pokemon origin stories.”
“Like what Red wants to find out?” Blue asks.
“Not really,” Red and Leaf both say together. They exchange a smile, and Red gestures for her to go ahead. “From what Red said, he’s more interested in their biological origins, like my mom’s research.” Red nods. “I’m more interested in the mythology. The stories every region has about pokemon, particularly those venerated or worshiped specifically in the culture. I find it really fascinating the ways different regions view pokemon, and the relationship between humans and pokemon.”
“Well, whatever the reason, it’s good to have you along,” Blue says.
“And you came to the right place,” Red adds. “Kanto’s a pretty superstitious place.”
Blue snorts. “Compared to what?”
“Johto?”
“Heh. Fair enough.”
Leaf looks back and forth between them with obvious interest. “Why, what are some things people here believe?”
As Blue brings up some common myths and superstitions held by the region, Red is thinking over everything Leaf had said. He’d never paid much attention to the politics of other regions before, and he occasionally scribbles some thoughts in his notebook as he eats.
Will his view of pokemon as inferior to people ever change? He doesn’t think it’s likely. The entire basis for pokemon-human interactions stems from the basic need for people to defend themselves from them: it’s hard to see the species as having equal value when you’re willing to kill and capture them to defend yourself. Red’s father was a Ranger, someone who dedicated his life to helping keep people safe from wild pokemon. He was killed in the line of duty when some scyther attacked a farm.
Red wanted to be a Ranger too when he was younger, but that ambition cooled in the grief that followed, and his internship with Professor Oak opened up a new road. Still, it’s a sobering reminder that had humanity not domesticated pokemon, they would be at the mercy of them the way they are other forces of nature, like hurricanes or earthquakes.
Most people living in cities don’t need much protection day-to-day, but they do rely on others to handle the occasional major threats, like a rampaging tyranitar, or a migrating beedrill swarm. And while trainers put themselves in danger to stop such threats, it’s really the pokemon that are shouldering the most risk. The media likes to romanticize the partnership and brave sacrifice of those pokemon, but those who raise pokemon as pets and companions must be aware that it’s not entirely a conscious sacrifice: ultimately, many pokemon are used as tools, living weapons and shields.
Not that people shouldn’t still treat pokemon well, when possible. Red can’t stand hearing about pokemon abuse, and part of a trainer’s responsibility is to improve human-pokemon relations, learning more about how the two species can benefit each other. While many, like Blue, see that as secondary to the opportunities and prestige it imparts, to Red it’s at the core.
Ultimately though, what interests him most is why people feel the way they do,
think
the way they do, about pokemon, about everything. He’s not quite sure if he’s right to feel intrinsically superior to pokemon, and he makes a special note on his thoughts of the subject for future reflection.
“No! Do you really?” Leaf giggles into her hands.
Red looks up. “What?”
Blue is smirking. “
I
don’t, but yeah, a lot of people in Pallet swear by it.” He turns to Red. “I’m telling her about the shadow check.”
Red groans. “So much wasted milk. I haven’t once heard of someone actually finding a Dark pokemon hiding in shadows by splashing milk in them, but every sunset you’ll see some people toss a glass over the east side of their house. I think it’s become more of a good luck thing now, but it’s still pretty dumb.”
Leaf gets her laughter under control. “Oh, I have to see this tomorrow,” she says with a grin as she picks her fork back up. “Though I guess it’s not so different from some of the religious rituals back home.”
Eventually they finish eating and pay their bill. On the way back to the Pokemon Center, Blue’s phone chimes a message to let him know his pokemon are ready, and by the time they reach it Leaf and Red’s had done the same.
The line is small, and when Red reaches the front he hands his receipt over and accepts his pokeballs back with a smile. “Everything’s okay?”
The nurse smiles back, handing him a summary of his pokemon’s status. “They’re in good health. A minor concussion was corrected in your rattata, and charmander’s wounds were fully healed.”
“Thank you!”
“You’re quite welcome. Your pokeballs have also been recharged, and are in good working order. Have a good night.”
“You too.” Red steps away and waits for the other two to get their pokemon back too. He checks his charmander in the meantime through the pokedex, and is relieved to see him looking fully recovered from his wounds, without even any visible scarring. He clips Charmander back to his belt and sees Leaf approaching. “All good?”
“Yep. They put Bulbsasaur under some sunlamps, and said his bulb has fully regrown its damage.”
“Nice.” They wait for Blue, then head toward the entrance and they walk out into the night again.
The three make their way through the city toward the Trainer House, a lodging facility that caters specifically to trainers and their pokemon. There’s one in Pallet Town too, but Viridian’s is huge: fifteen stories tall and wide enough to take up a city block. It’s easy to find from pretty much anywhere, a massive red-brick building with solar panel foliage trimming, each artificial “leaf” hanging limp and dormant until morning.
The entrance hall and lobby are as different from the Pokemon Center’s as fire and water. There’s a deep brown rug beneath their feet rather than stark white tiles, amorphous couches scattered about rather than chairs set in orderly rows, and wooden tables instead of glass. Teenagers are draped over the various furniture, watching televisions or eating snacks, some with their pokemon beside them. Potted plants litter the room, bug and plant pokemon resting in their soil and among their roots and leaves. A few adult trainers move about too, most heading toward or coming from the elevators and doors around the room’s perimeter. Red doesn’t spot any who are his, Blue or Leaf’s age, and is reminded of how privileged he is to be able to set out on his journey so young.
Blue leads the way toward the reception desk, where they pass their trainer cards over and receive room assignments for the night. Red looks over the lobby, excitement and exhaustion warring in him.
“Normally it’d be great to meet all these trainers and see their pokemon,” Leaf says slowly, echoing his thoughts. “But I’m kind of tired.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” Red says, and Blue yawns in punctuation.
“I’m in 1321, West,” Leaf says, looking at her room assignment. “What about you guys?”
“1208,” Blue says, and Red holds his up to show the same. “East.”
Leaf smiles and tucks some hair behind her ear. “Well, I guess I’ll see you guys in the morning for breakfast then.”
They say goodnight, and make their way to the elevators on opposite sides of the lobby.
Red lies in bed, staring up at the bottom of Blue’s bunk. All around him are the sounds of a dozen other trainers close to Red and Blue’s age, shifting or snoring in their sleep. A quick glance toward the clock above the door shows him it’s almost midnight.
Red sighs and shifts on the unfamiliar mattress, trying to find a more comfortable position. He hasn’t been able to sleep. His mind keeps going over everything that happened on the first day of his journey… training with charmander, catching his rattata, helping Blue and Leaf catch pidgeys, their conversation during dinner. Every time he closes his eyes and tries to drift off, some new analysis or perspective of an event intrudes: how he should have acted, what he could have done differently.
The thought that has him in open-eyed wakefulness currently is that moment when he and Blue ran toward their pokemon after sending them ahead to help Leaf’s bulbasaur. He’d been about to order Charmander to Ember, but hadn’t because it was too risky with Bulbasaur so close, forcing him to rely on his less effective claws and teeth. A restriction like that is dangerous. They got lucky in avoiding serious injuries to Charmander or Bulbasaur, but Red still hasn’t thought of a better action he could have taken in that circumstance, and that’s making it hard to sleep.
I need to be more useful,
he thinks.
Charmander’s strong, but I can’t be so limited in how I use him that I’m relying on his fire. He
—
we—
need more utility. More versatility in combat.
Red reaches under the bed and pulls his pokedex out of his pants. Bringing it under the covers so the light doesn’t wake anyone, he looks up some known techniques charmanders can learn. He wishes for the dozenth time he’d known what pokemon Professor Oak would have for them so he could have researched them in-depth beforehand.
After about twenty minutes of reading, Red closes the pokedex. He slips back into his shirt and pants, then gathers his things and tiptoes out the door to find the training rooms.
Laura Verres ends the call with her son and puts her phone away, gaze distant and a slight furrow in her brow. After a moment the oven chimes, and she goes to extract the roast fearow she’d prepared. Some final garnishing, a light sheen of sauce, and she puts it on a serving platter. She lifts the plate carefully and places the whole thing in the bottom half of a dull metal box. After closing and latching the lid, she stands back and takes a Container from her pocket.
Resembling a plain grey pokeball but with more buttons and a small display screen on top, the Container takes a moment to scan the box as she points the lens at it. When the ball makes a
ding
sound, she lightly tosses it underhand. It approaches the box containing the roasted fearow, opens and draws in the whole thing, contents and all. The Container falls to the table with a metal
clink,
and begins to roll toward the edge.
She stops it before it falls and heads upstairs to change, absently tucking the ball in a nook near the front door along the way.
If she doesn’t let herself dwell on it, she can almost imagine that Red is just over at a friend’s house, or out camping with Blue. Less than a day, and the house already feels abandoned. Sounds seem to echo in the silence, the walls hollow and fragile. She knows it’s all in her mind, but she can’t help feeling like a caretaker, getting ready to cover the furniture, draw the curtains, and lock the door on her way out.
When Red had originally approached her about becoming a trainer, it had taken all her willpower to smile and be encouraging. She was so relieved to see his excitement about becoming a pokemon professor… so relieved to see him excited about anything. After Tom’s death, a listless depression had kept him lying in bed all day, reading book after book or simply staring at the ceiling.
Laura was willing to endure anything to keep him from returning to such despair. Tom had lived his life following his passions and doing what he felt was right, even if it was dangerous. She couldn’t let her fears stop Red from finding his own calling in life.
And now that he doesn’t need her at home, she can return to hers.
Once she’s ready, she goes back downstairs and puts the sphere containing the roast fearow into her purse, along with a canister of pokemon repellant. It’s a ten minute walk to the Oaks’ residence, and the breeze is cool as it comes from the bay to the south, tugging at her hair and dress. She passes a handful of neighbors along the way, most walking their pokemon.
“Hello Laura.” She turns to see Mrs. Kiri out with her raticate. The old pokemon’s fur is more gray than gold, and Laura smiles as he sniffs at her familiar scent and rubs against her ankles.
“Hello Ana, hello Swift.” She crouches down to scratch behind the veteran’s notched ear. Not so swift as he once was, Ana’s raticate is a town champion, having fought off a number of particularly vicious wild pokemon over the years. The rodent’s eyes slip half-closed, and he stretches beneath her touch.
“Going for a walk?” Ana asks.
“Off for dinner with the Oaks, actually.”
“Splendid. Tell them I say hi, and thank Daisy again for me would you? Swift’s leg is barely troubling him anymore.”
“I will. Have a good night!”
“You too.” The veteran trainer walks past, and a moment later her pokemon scurries after her, barely favoring the hind leg that had almost been bitten off by a nidorino. Laura watches them fade into the dark, then walks on, enjoying the night air. Though she’d grown up in Celadon, she rarely misses the crowds and excitement of cities anymore. A few years in Pallet and she’d grown to love the quiet nights and star filled skies of the small town. Adapting back to city life would take some getting used to.
Laura had been a writer and journalist before marrying. She still occasionally writes editorial pieces for the local paper, but it’s not the same as the in-depth reporting she used to do. Forming relationships with people at all levels in society, learning how to ask the right questions, find the important, hidden stories… It had been an exciting life, shining a light on corruption or an aspect of the human experience few considered.
And it’s how she met Tom. The Celadon Herald was doing a story on the Rangers, a deeper look into the kinds of men and women who dedicated their lives to patrolling the wilds and defending others. Each of them had been passionate and brave, but Tom had a quiet intensity to him that was hard to forget.
Laura waits at an intersection for a car to pass, then crosses the street, glancing at the pokemon lab in the distance. Its lights are mostly off, but it still stands out as the heart of the town. She would miss Pallet and her friends here, but she knows she’ll come back some day.
She arrives at the Oak residence, a simple two story house much like her own. Far less ostentatious than one might expect of the eminent pokemon expert in Kanto, but Laura knows that Sam would spend most nights at the lab if not for his granddaughter. She rings the bell, and the professor opens it a moment later.
“Laura, come on in!”
She smiles. “Hi Sam.” She hugs the man who has been like a second father to her, then follows him toward the dining room. She and Marian Oak had been inseparable since they were children. The loss of his daughter and son-in-law a few years after Blue’s birth had been a shared tragedy, and years later he and his grandchildren had been there for her and Red when Tom had died.
Blue’s older sister enters from the kitchen carrying some salad. “Hello, Daisy.”
“Hey Aunt Laura!” Daisy puts the bowl to the table. “You’re just in time, everything’s ready. Got the main course?”
“I do.” She takes out the Container and aims it at an empty area of the dining room floor. She braces her arm, then presses a button on the side. The silver sphere scans the space in front of it, then opens with an explosion of light and sound that ends with the box lying on the floor.
Daisy takes the top off, and breathes deep as the scent fills the room. “Mm. Smells delicious!” She lifts the plate and puts it on the table, steam still rising from the cooked meat. “Everyone hungry?”
The next few minutes are spent enthusiastically digging in, punctuated by the occasional compliment of a dish. Once everyone has finished their first serving and begins to slow down, Laura turns to Daisy. “Ana says hello, and thanks again.”
Daisy smiles. “Swift’s recovering alright?”
“I saw him on the way here. He looked great.”
“I’m glad. I’ve been putting off new clients to get Moonlight ready for the contest in a couple months, but I had to make an exception in his case.”
“Oh? How’s she doing?”
“I’ll bring her out and show you after we eat!”
Sam’s voice is proud as he spoons more rice onto his plate. “I think they’re going to reach Master Rank this year.”
Daisy snorts. “Maybe if you bribe the judges.”
“Daisy! I would never abuse my long and deep friendship with the heads of the Pokemon Coordinator Contest to
—
”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t try that innocent tone with me: I still remember when you just had a ‘friendly chat’ with Leader Erika on the week of my birthday, and what a surprise, she happens to be in town that day!”
“It’s hardly surprising if one of my old students wants to visit me now and again.”
“And the time when we went to Saffron for Blue’s birthday, where you chose the one hotel and room that the President of Silph happened to be staying next door to…”
“Well if you’re going to turn every coincidental
—
”
“
And
the time I got sick for a week and couldn’t go to school, and who should come to teach me at home but
Mistress Agatha
of the
Elite Four
…
Laura is grinning as Sam raises an indignant chin. “Surely a loving grandfather can speak of his worries and troubles to
—
”
“My
point
,” Daisy says, spearing a chunk of fearow with her fork. “Is that you seem to know just about everyone somehow, and if I ever find out that you’ve used your influence to give me an unfair advantage in the
region-wide
contest to
test my skills
as a pokemon coordinator, thus cheating me out of a fair assessment and cheating everyone else in the contest of theirs, I’ll wait till you’re sleeping one night and mail all your pokemon to Professor Elm. Pass the rice please.”
The professor
hmphs,
but passes the bowl with a slight smile. “Bring home even third place and people will come all the way from Johto to learn under you.”
“
Grandpa
—
”
“So, Laura!” Sam says, turning to her. “I’ve noticed pokedex registrations from Red, Blue and Leaf. It looks like all their preparation is paying off. Have you heard from them?”
“Yes, less than an hour ago. They’re doing fine, arrived in Viridian with at least one new pokemon each.”
“Fantastic.”
Daisy is watching Laura. “How are you holding up?”
Laura takes a drink, then puts on a smile. “Not bad. I’m thinking of going back to work, actually.”
Sam raises a brow. “Really? Is Tom’s pension…”
“No, that’s all fine. It’s for me, mostly.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Daisy says. “I always enjoy reading your articles. Is there something specific you want to write about?”
“A number of things, actually. I’ve never really stopped wanting to write about current events, I’ve just had a more limited ability to investigate them.”
“What do you think you’ll start with?”
“Something easy, I think. Maybe a look into those recent accusations of sexual harassment by employees at Silph.”
Daisy grins. “Oh yeah, no big deal, just going to start off by taking on the biggest company in Kanto.”
Laura scrapes the last bit of food from her plate. “Maybe I’ll throw in some pieces on gardening,” she says, and Daisy laughs. “In all seriousness though, it’s been hard to listen and watch what’s been going on in the region at times, and not do or say something about it.”
Daisy nods. “We’re pretty isolated here.”
“Not for long,” Sam says.
“What do you mean?”
Laura sips from her glass. “The town council is already thinking of incorporation, and after that it’s just a hop and a skip till we’re a proper city, with our own mayor and gym and everything.”
Daisy absorbs this for a moment. “That would be quite a big change…”
“That’s an understatement,” the professor says. He stands and begins clearing the table once it’s evident everyone is done eating. “You were only five when we first moved here, so you might not remember how different it is today compared to back then, but it’s barely recognizable as the same place. Incorporation would be an even bigger shift.”
“Is it because of the lab?”
“It’s been pulling people and money here for over a decade now, and there’s no sign that will stop anytime soon.”
Daisy and Laura join him in bringing things to the kitchen, and they carry the conversation to the kitchen, where Daisy begins to make some tea as Sam washes the dishes. Laura is waved off when she tries to help, so she and Daisy move to the living room. Daisy turns on the news, and the low volume and sound of running water in the kitchen are a soothing ambiance in the background as they talk.
“
—
reflect the noticeable drop in prices. Center administrators cite increased efficiency, mostly from the recently implemented standardized practices. When polled, over 80% support expanding the trainer subsidies. Licensing officials have yet to comment
—
“
“Is our center in that 80%?” Laura asks.
Daisy sighs as she pours them two cups of tea. “Some are, but not enough. Too few trainers pass through Pallet, and enough neighbors grumble about the tax as it is.”
“Until it’s their pokemon that’s hurt.”
“
—
reported that a swarm of tentacool have been spotted near Cinnabar Island, estimated to pass by the end of the week. Travelers should be aware that such swarms can move at surprising speeds, and are advised to use naval transport to and from the island until the danger is past.”
The screen shows a “cloud” of small red spheres bobbing in the ocean, each pair belonging to a separate poisonous jellyfish. Laura feels an involuntary shudder of revulsion. “So many…”
Daisy makes a face. “Hope they don’t come up here and ruin our beach. The surfing contest is next week.”
Mental images of some trainer and their pokemon caught in such a massive swarm makes Laura feel sick. Soon she’s seeing Red or Blue’s face in every scenario. She turns away from the television. “Weren’t you going to show me what Moonlight can do now?”
“Oh, right!” Daisy goes to the cubby by the door and brings back a great ball, its blue lid marked with a white sphere between its red ridges. With a hard throw, the ball zips through the air, appearing for a moment as though it will crash through a window: then it flies over the empty space of the living room, and discharges a clefairy onto the carpet.
Daisy catches the ball as it rockets back at her. “Hey there Moonlight! Come say hi to Aunt Laura!”
The pink, shy pokemon makes a light trilling sound, and flutters her small wings as she hops toward them, cuddling into Daisy’s arms. The teen brings her pokemon to Laura, who rubs the fluff of hair between the clefairy’s ears.
“
—
continues to enjoy its lowest crime rate since Leader Koga became head of the gym. Koga has commended the local police for their efforts, deflecting any implications that he might be partially responsible
—
“
Daisy strokes the pokemon’s tail, then smiles at Laura. “Remember that big debate grandpa was in last year, where the professors were all arguing theories on how the ‘Metronome’ ability works?”
“Vaguely. My main takeaway was that we still don’t quite understand how certain pokemon like clefairy get their energy. Wasn’t there something about the variation in their powers?”
“Right. Instead of just being able to manipulate electricity or temperature, clefairy, who don’t normally seem to be capable of such things, have been observed in rare circumstances displaying wildly different powers. People used to think it depended on the clefairy, but over years of consistent study they observed the same clefairy running the gamut of different abilities.”
“But it’s still completely random as far as we can tell?”
Daisy smiles. “Not
completely.
I think I’ve figured out how to influence what power they exhibit.”
Laura blinks. “How?”
“Come outside, I’ll show you. It’s about time for our practice session anyway.”
They leave their tea, and Daisy stops at the kitchen to grab a couple water bottles before they go out. Moonlight sings a brief, sweet melody, and flutters from Daisy’s arms into the wide grassy yard in front of the Oak residence. She begins an odd, hopping dance in a circle while gazing up at the moon.
“So most trainers, if they have a pokemon like clefairy, use the command ‘Metronome’ to try and trigger their mysterious powers. If the pokemon is trained well, they’ll go through the motions, but it’s a total gamble: no matter how well trained, it seems to do nothing as often as not, and even if it does something, there’s no way to prevent it from, say, shooting a bolt of lightning at a ground pokemon, or bathing a rock pokemon in fire.”
As Daisy talks, she begins to mimic Moonlight’s movements. Soon the pokemon and human are synchronized, hopping up and down from one foot to the other, fingers raised upward.
Laura grins, covering her mouth to hide it. Daisy looks utterly ridiculous, but the teen seems unselfconscious, completely absorbed in bonding with her pokemon. While not all pokemon coordinators are as good at battling as trainers, they do seem to have a better affinity on average with pokemon’s moods and behavior, which helps them enormously in the medical or training fields.
Once Laura is sure she won’t start giggling, she uncovers her mouth. “Is this what influences it? The dancing?”
“No, I’m just getting her in the mood… any second now…”
Moonlight starts to sing. Her voice is low, but haunting, the high, sweet tune carrying through the still night air.
And once she has the hang of the melody, Daisy begins to sing too.
Laura sucks in a breath, staring. She had heard Daisy sing before, but never like this. The teenager must have been practicing intensely: her tone and pitch are carefully controlled to match the pokemon’s, the two harmonizing beautifully.
And it doesn’t settle there: soon the melody shifts, Moonlight always leading at first. Daisy barely misses a note each time however, and eventually she begins the first shift herself, and the pokemon follows her, the two weaving a song of simple joy and hope and longing.
For what is surely only a couple minutes, but feels far longer, Laura merely watches and listens as the pokemon and human show the depth of their bond beneath the stars and moon. She feels as though she’s witnessing something primal and ancient, even as it’s new and incredible to her.
Abruptly, Daisy lowers one arm and points into the darkness. For the first time, a word enters the melody, and that word is “Met-ro-nome.” Each syllable seems carefully, delicately pronounced, so that it fits the music.
And in response, the clefairy’s arms begin to sway back and forth, and facing the direction her trainer is pointing, Moonlight opens her mouth wide… and emits a howling gale of wind.
When it dies down, the song is still going, and Daisy says it again, with the same deliberate focus: “Met-ro-nome.”
Moonlight completes its revolution in the small circle she and her trainer form, and then turns again and sways her fingers back and forth through the air. For a brief moment, nothing happens, and then, on the clefairy’s next hop, the ground suddenly bucks, and a cone of rock juts outward from the ground beneath the pokemon.
Again, the song continues, and again the word: “Met-ro-nome.”
The gust of wind returns, making the grass rustle and tear free.
Daisy has been maintaining the same song for almost a minute now, face glistening with sweat. A few seconds later: “Metr-ro-nome.”
A bolt of electricity briefly illuminates Moonlight and arcs off into the sky where Daisy is pointing.
Again: “Metr-ro-nome.” Nothing seems to happen.
Still the song, and again: “Metr-ro-nome.” The leaves of grass around Moonlight abruptly begins to grow, one inch, two, three inches, flowers blooming among them.
A few seconds of singing, and again: “Metr-ro-nome.” The gust of wind returns.
And again: “Metr-ro-nome.” For the second time in a row, the wind.
Suddenly Daisy’s dancing slows, and in the space of a blink Moonlight’s does too. The song continues for a few seconds more, dwindles, then peters off, both pokemon and human seeming to end near the same instant and coming to a standstill.
Daisy drops to the ground, and Moonlight falls back, her curling, fluffy tail lying limp. Both are breathing hard, eyes closed as they recover.
It takes Laura a moment to recover as well, and when she does she breaks into applause. “Oh Daisy! That was incredible! You too Moonlight, my goodness… how long have you been hiding such an amazing talent? You could be stars!”
Daisy smiles, voice a bit weak. “Thanks Aunt Laura.” She opens one of the water bottles, then helps Moonlight drink some before taking a swallow herself. “It took me a year to even match Moonlight’s melody. But did you see? She did it! Four times out of seven, the same ability! That’s got to be a record, and twice in a row at the end? I’ve been trying to get her to do that for a month! I’ve never heard of a clefairy doing that before, and neither has grandpa.”
Laura speaks slowly. “It’s the tone, isn’t it? The tone you pronounce the command in, how much emphasis on which syllables…”
Daisy nods. “In the wild, pokemon like clefairy and togepi only exhibit these surprising and random abilities on rare occasions, always while waving their arms and singing. Not always the same song, but not always completely different either. To an untrained ear, there seemed to be no correlation, and most people think that the arm waving is what’s important. Maybe it still is in its own way, I’m not sure.”
“But you found a tone that’s linked to a specific power,” Laura marvels. “Even more, you can duplicate it!” Her wonder is renewed by the significance of what she just saw. She can’t wait to tell Red, and again feels the pang of his absence. It takes her by surprise, and she realizes she had been completely absorbed in the music and dance, the first thing to have completely taken her mind off Red’s leaving all day.
Daisy breathes deep and takes a long drink from the second water bottle before letting Moonlight finish it off. The pokemon is looking somewhat recovered, and Daisy gets to her feet. “I’m sure others have considered it, but as far as I know no one’s practiced and experimented long enough to isolate one. Most trainers can get their pokemon to link the command with the action of swaying and singing, but volume, pitch, emphasis and lengths of which syllables and consonants… it’s hard to control so exactly, and the possibilities are endless. The slightest change seems to bring about a wholly different power.”
“Have you tried using a recording device?”
Daisy grins. “First thing grandpa rushed off to grab as soon as we thought of it. Didn’t work, which almost made me give up then and there. But it seems like we need to build up to it every time, get in sync enough to get it just right. Even when we record it in the middle of the song, it doesn’t come out the same when we play it. Grandpa says something about the sound is different, but we haven’t had time to consult with an acoustics expert yet. Maybe we’ll figure it out after the competition.”
Laura nods. “I’m sure you will. Either way, it’s still pretty amazing.” She grins, feeling a burst of pride for her oldest friend’s daughter, overriding even the sadness that Marian isn’t around to see what kind of woman Daisy is growing up to be. Eyes stinging with sudden moisture, Laura folds the teen into a hug, one hand brushing at her eyes. “Congratulations, Daisy.”
“Aunt Laura, I’m all sweaty!”
“I couldn’t care less. I think Sam’s right, with an act like that, I can’t imagine any other coordinator getting a higher score in August. You’ll reach Master Rank for sure.”
Daisy hugs her back, voice a bit embarrassed, but determined. “Well, we’ll be trying our hardest, in any case.” She picks her pokemon up, and they head back toward the house. Laura wonders briefly what the Oaks are going to do about the spike of rock sticking out of their lawn, and whether the back yard is full of similar oddities.
When they enter the house, Laura is prepared to call out to Sam about how amazing his granddaughter is when she sees the professor standing behind a chair in the living room, staring at the television. The words die in her throat at the grim set of Sam’s face. She turns to the television, a cold shiver racing up her spine.
“What happened grandpa?”
“Shh!”
“
—
unexpected at this time of year. The low precipitation supercell is sweeping northward, and Rangers insist that it’s too early to tell if this is a precursor to an attack. Nevertheless, CoRRNet representatives stress that everyone should periodically review their city’s evacuation and defensive procedures as a matter of course. The most recent standard response protocols can be found online, at
—
“
The tension in the room is palpable, and Moonlight makes a low trilling noise. “Where was it?” Laura asks, stomach cramping slightly with fear.
Sam pours himself a cup of tea, still watching the television until the news anchor shifts to another story. He finally sits down, face troubled. “Near Pewter.”
Fingers of ice brush her racing heart. Her hands grip the back of the couch, knuckles white. “Sam… that’s where Red and Blue are traveling, they’re going north after Viridian
—
”
“Don’t worry, Laura. The storm is headed for the mountains, and they’ll have plenty of warning if it changes direction.”
Her pulse begins to slow back down, and she lets out a low breath. Daisy is quiet, still staring at the screen. Thinking of her parents, no doubt.
The loss of Marian Oak and her husband James had almost broken the Verres household, resulting in the biggest fight she and Tom ever had. He refused to quit his position as a Ranger when she asked him to, insisting that tragedies like that were exactly why he was needed. His passion for helping people had always been one of the major reasons she loved him, but at that moment grief and fear had been stronger than love. All she could think of was that she would lose him. That Red would have to grow up without his father, like Blue and Daisy and so many others.
She had never wished so hard to be wrong about something. In the end, the universe took no mind.
“So, did I hear singing outside?” Sam says, breaking her dark thoughts. He’s watching his granddaughter, who still has a faraway look in her eyes.
“Yes,” Laura says, forcing some cheer into her voice. “Daisy showed me something remarkable.”
“Hm?” Daisy blinks at them and seems to come back to herself. “Oh! I was showing Aunt Laura…” She smiles and sits down with Moonlight in her lap. “You missed it grandpa, Moonlight did the wind gust twice in a row!”
“That’s great!” Sam grins, and the dark mood recedes from the room a bit. He pours a new cup of tea for Daisy and Laura and hands it to them. “Tell me all about it.”
Laura sits down as she and Daisy explain what had happened. The rush of cheer they had brought inside doesn’t completely return, and each of them glances at the television perhaps a bit more often than they normally would, but the news remains relatively mundane for the rest of the night, and their conversation eventually shifts on to other, similarly lighthearted things.
The three talk late into the night until silences and yawns begin to lengthen the switches between topics. It’s almost midnight by the time the second pot of tea is cool, and Laura decides to head home before she falls asleep here. It’s tempting to sleep in a house with other people in it, but she wants to spend the night at home, if for no other reason than to prove to herself that it’s not a big deal. She’ll have to get used to it soon enough.
“Thanks for everything, Sam, Daisy,” she says as the teen retrieves her serving plate and places it back in its box. Laura withdraws it back into the Container and tucks the silver sphere away before putting on her shoes and coat.
“Goodnight, Aunty,” Daisy says, hugging her. “Feel free to come by anytime if you get lonely.”
Laura smiles and kisses her hair. “I will.”
Sam waits by the door, his pokeball belt on. “I’m going to walk her home, Daisy. Be back soon.” Laura gives Moonlight a farewell rub, then follows him out the door.
The town is dark and still, most inhabitants long since gone to bed. Laura wonders if Red is asleep. She can almost feel the empty echoes from her house, waiting for her, the way it seemed after Tom’s death, when Red was little more than a ghost in his room. Tom was often gone for weeks at a time on duty, but even when she felt his absence like a physical ache, he was never more than a phone call away. Now she can’t even call him to talk about their day, to just hear his voice. At least she can still call Red in the morning.
“When do you plan on leaving, Laura?”
She looks at the professor. “Not for a couple weeks at least. I need to get my affairs in order and talk to some people, maybe find an apartment, depending on what I end up doing.”
Sam nods, and is quiet again for awhile. When he speaks again his voice is low, almost as if he doesn’t want to be heard, though there’s no one around. “I don’t mean to impose, but I have a favor to ask.”
“Don’t be silly. What is it?”
“In the course of your investigations, whatever they may be and wherever they may take you, would you mind terribly keeping an ear out for any mention of a Dr. Fuji?”
Laura blinks in surprise. She wasn’t expecting something like that. “Of course. Is he a medical doctor?” She reaches absently for her notepad before remembering that she isn’t carrying one, hasn’t for years.
“Yes, among other things. He was—is—a biologist who specialized in genetics, and an old friend of mine.”
“Did something happen to him?”
Sam sighs. “I don’t know. We kept in touch until about ten years ago, when his responses began to slow. I tried contacting him numerous times during a particularly large stretch of silence. His eventual reply was rather curt: some new project was taking a lot of his attention, the specifics of which he never mentioned.
“It was the last I or anyone I know heard from him. I resigned myself to thinking he simply… faded away. Withdrew. He lost his daughter, almost fifteen years ago. Shortly afterward his wife left him. It made him more absorbed by his work than ever, and I guess I just assumed he finally ran out of whatever kept him going. I tried to get in contact with him, help if I could, but no one seemed to know where he went.”
Laura is silent as they walk. “What changed?” she finally asks.
“A rumor. Not even that. A suspicion, grown from disconnected bits of information noticed over the years. Random remarks in online forums. Old news reports. Offhand comments. Whispers in the dark.”
“Whispers of what?”
“Other scientists and engineers from every region who similarly faded from the public, most within the same span of years. I don’t know if anyone else made such a connection, or if it’s mere coincidence. There are enough conspiracy theorists on the net to make me think I’m being paranoid.”
Laura shakes her head. “Maybe. Maybe not. You can’t really know without looking, and it’s hard to look without knowing what you’re looking for. What are your theories?”
“Hardly anything as substantial as a ‘theory.’ Not even a hypothesis, I’m afraid.”
Laura smiles. “What are your best completely unscientific guesses?”
Sam raises a hand, fingers moving to tick off each one. “First, some top secret government or company research project. Perhaps they’re all alive and well, and merely in deep seclusion. Many seemed to be those who had few tethers to keep them in public life.”
“Sounds reasonable. We know there are a number of projects that have been hidden from the public eye, and not all for questionable reasons.”
“Perhaps not, though Fuji’s studies tended toward pokemon research. Assuming that’s what the project is about, the name ‘Oak’ was apparently not fit to be included.”
Laura chuckles. “I always knew you’d get around to developing an ego some day.”
Sam smiles slightly. “My second guess is foreign interests have been poaching them for their own purposes, and none of their absences are related at all. I may simply be falling to confirmation bias, and forgetting all the data that doesn’t fit the pattern I’ve already formed in my head.”
“That second part should be fairly easy to figure out, with some research.”
He nods. “I’ve done some looking, but far from extensive. And the third possibility I’ve seriously contemplated is perhaps the most frightening, the thought which makes me wish to be wrong, dismiss my suspicions as crackpot.”
Laura frowns. “I know you love being wrong, but not without good reason.”
“I want to be wrong, Laura, because if I’m right it would mean my friend is very likely dead or imprisoned, as are all the others who faded so similarly.”
“How?”
“An organization,” Sam says, voice quiet. “One that operates between regions, could identify and hire, kidnap or coerce multiple researchers and technicians into secret work that they have no intention of allowing the public to be aware of.”
Laura doesn’t laugh. She’s never known Sam to joke about something like this, nor would he bring it up if he were really as unsure as he claims. The night suddenly seems chiller than it had a moment before. She draws her coat tighter around her as they approach the path to her house, and begin walking up toward the light hanging over her door.
When they reach it Laura turns to face Sam. His salt and pepper hair is somewhat disheveled, a bit like the perpetual mess of his grandson’s, and his blue eyes and face are lined from a long and exciting life. Even without his lab coat, Professor Oak still looks every inch the deeply kind, extraordinarily intelligent man she’d known since childhood.
“I know,” Sam says in the silence. “I’m being a paranoid fool. It’s almost a relief to hear how ridiculous it sounds out loud.”
When she meets his gaze, the usual spark of boundless curiosity and enthusiasm isn’t there. Despite his words, his expression holds no levity, and Laura realizes he is offering her an out. Playing down his beliefs and self-deprecating, so she can dismiss his suspicions as overly imaginative without offending.
But he doesn’t believe they are. He’s as serious as she’s ever seen him, through tragedies shared time and again.
“I’ll keep an ear to the ground,” Laura says at last. “If I can manage it, I’ll keep both.”
The Training House’s practice rooms are far fancier than the one at the Pallet Labs. Red passes by room after empty room, each different than the last. He’s curious to know if anyone else is up this late, and eventually finds one that’s occupied. He stops in front of the glass door to watch.
A young woman with long auburn hair is using a pair of flags to direct her butterfree, running around it to stay in its line of sight as it performs various aerial maneuvers. Training pokemon to respond to nonverbal cues has its advantages and disadvantages, and is largely a practice of competitive trainers: wild pokemon aren’t likely to get tipped off by shouted orders, after all. Red watches as the woman twirls her left flag once, and the butterfree releases a cloud of green powder. The trainer leaps safely out of the way as the butterfree flaps its wings, a gust of wind blowing the powder forward to envelop a wooden pokedoll shaped like a sandslash.
Red moves on, examining each room until he finds one with the symbols of a fan and fire over it. He enters the long rectangular room, its acoustics changing as the door slides back closed. Fire extinguishers are placed at each corner, and the floor and walls are made of a light grey, pitted stone. Looking up, he sees the sprinkler system and air vents ready to respond to any emergencies.
This should do nicely.
Red takes out his pokedex, and a clicker from his pack. Part of the training process is to associate a behavior with a conditioned reinforcer, the way Leaf had with the pokepuffs. Instead of having to use pokepuffs all the time though, Red wants to try out a feature of the pokedex. He quickly navigates to the right screen, then says, “Pokedex, establish audio reinforcement.”
“
Acknowledged. Record audio reinforcement when light turns green, then press Done.”
Red smiles. The voice of the pokedex is Daisy’s: it’s somewhat disguised by a digital filter, but the cadence of certain words gives it away to those that know her.
As soon the light beside the screen turns green, Red uses his clicker, emitting a sharp, loud
click-clak
upon press and depress of the button. Then he taps Done on the pokedex screen.
“
Audio reinforcement confirmed.”
It repeats the sound.
“Yes.” Red puts the clicker away and unclips Charmander’s pokeball, aligning the lens with the pokedex’s. “Upload.”
“
Uploading… upload complete. Please wait four minutes and seventeen seconds for virtual regimen to integrate. Remember to periodically reinforce association in tangible space before hands-on training.”
Red makes a note of the time, then reclips the pokeball and repeats the process with his rattata. Setting up a basic positive reinforcement like this should make it much easier to train his pokemon: the sound of the click will be so associated with a reward, that just hearing it will trigger a release of dopamine.
And he’s going to need all the help he can get. While looking up a charmander’s basic techniques in the pokedex, one in particular had drawn his attention:
Smokescreen: When threatened by large foes, charmander can alter the fuel for their tail flame to produce copious amounts of thick smog. While mild exposure is not toxic, this smoke irritates eyes and sinuses and helps charmander stay hidden. Charmander are especially prone to emitting smoke if threatened at night, when their tail flame makes it particularly hard to hide.
Training such a specific automatic response in bright lights won’t be easy, but the potential benefits are enormous. Smoke could be used to not just hide in and avoid attacks, but also to coordinate ambushes, herd wild pokemon, even set and limit zones of control on a battlefield.
As he waits for Charmander’s virtual training to be done, Red takes out his notebook and scribbles down thoughts on cooperative tactics to try out with the others. Blue or Leaf’s pidgey could use gusts to send smoke in the direction needed, the way that trainer’s butterfree had with its poison powder. The smoke would block Squirtle’s line of sight if used carelessly, but Bulbasaur could use his vines to drag enemies into it. They could even use it to switch pokemon without the opponent being aware…
Red eventually checks the time, gives it another thirty seconds just to be safe, then puts his notebook away and unclips Charmander’s pokeball. He cocks his arm back, then throws it, voice echoing as he says, “Charmander, go!”
The ball reaches the open space in the middle of the room and releases his pokemon in a flash before flying back. Red reaches for it, but the angle of the throw was a bit off, and he has to jump to try and catch it when it returns at an upward angle. He knocks it upward, then tries to catch it as it falls, fingers closing a fraction of a second too late. The ball bounces off his palm and across the floor with a metal
ding, ding, dinnnnggggg…
Charmander watches the ball roll by, then ignores it as it halts at the wall. He chirps and approaches as Red kneels down to pick the pokeball up, and Red rubs the lizard’s warm, leathery head.
“Hey there buddy. We’re going to try and learn something new tonight, okay?”
Charmander looks up at him and chirps again. Red smiles, wishing for a moment he could communicate with his pokemon intelligently. When he was younger he and Blue used to watch cartoons where the pokemon could talk to each other, and understood human speech directly, even if most couldn’t duplicate it.
It was amusing enough, if obviously for young kids: as he got older it became clear that the premise wasn’t particularly well thought out. Leaf’s perspective would have a lot more weight behind it, in Red’s mind, if pokemon were sapient enough for complex communication. Putting them in pokeballs would be a lot more morally ambiguous, for one thing, and for another if pokemon were sapient, working out a peaceful coexistence would be much more attainable without resorting to hunting and capturing them.
Barring such an idealistic fantasy though, it sure would be useful to have some latent psychic powers manifest right about now.
Red meets Charmander’s gaze directly and concentrates.
Raise your left arm. Raise your left arm Charmander.
He imagines the sensation of raising his arm, willing Charmander to pick up on it through the mysterious bond that everyone romanticizes.
Charmander’s gaze is locked in his, whole body completely still.
Raise your arm, come on, raise your arm.
Red’s own arm twitches as he focuses so hard on the muscle-memory, feeling lost in the depths of his pokemon’s gaze.
Raise your arm, come on, just a little…
Charmander blinks slowly… then wags his tail a bit and chirps, rubbing against Red’s palm.
“Worth a shot,” Red mutters, and stands. He’d just make do the old fashioned way.
Red had never met a psychic, but whatever advantage their powers might grant them, the beauty of pokemon training, from its ancient, crude form to the refined science it is today, is that it’s accessible to everyone. If it were something that only certain people could do, humanity would never have thrived in such a dangerous world. Society would have been stuck in feudal dynamics, where the majority were ruled by the whims of those few who could control the monsters in the wild and keep the rest of them safe.
Now, science and technology have leveled the playing field. Some people still have natural advantages over others, but in today’s world, anyone can learn the methodology, refine their skills, and harness the power of their own pokemon.
Professor Oak raised a dozen of his own pokemon by Red’s age, and by developing the pokedex, revolutionized the relationship between practical knowledge and cutting edge research, allowing both scientists and trainers to share information and help each other day to day. Elite Agatha was the first trainer who didn’t keep their mysterious affinity with Ghost-type pokemon secretive, and she opened a school at the age of thirteen to help teach others how to deal with and train them, even without psychic powers. And Leader Giovanni rose to the head of his Gym when he was just a few years older than Red, and used his position and status to help set up society’s trainer programs, so everyone has a chance to make their own way.
Limited only by their intelligence, imagination, and will, people and their pokemon are capable of extraordinary things together.
And if they’re smart and dedicated enough, even a child can change the world.
Red tugs the bill of his cap securely down. Time to get started.
He takes out a pokepuff and unwraps it, then takes his clicker back out. Watching Charmander, he points at a section of the stone ground and says “Ember!”
As soon as Charmander whips his tail around and releases some oil, Red presses the button, and the distinct
click-clak
is heard, echoing in the room.
His pokemon’s attention sharpens, and Red feeds him a bit of pokepuff. “Good boy.” After Charmander finishes, Red does it again, and again. Each time he feeds Charmander some puff, it reinforces the association between the click and a reward, tying the two together so that just hearing the click is enough to signal satisfaction and pleasure.
After the puff is all gone, Red goes to the end of the room and opens a closet in the wall. Inside are a number of training supplies, and he lifts out a large rhydon pokedoll with both arms. It’s made of the same flame retardant foam as the one from that morning’s training, and weighs about as much as his backpack. He brings it over to the left side of the door and sets it down in front of Charmander, who immediately becomes alert. Red steps behind his pokemon as Charmander’s tail blazes, and the fire lizard watches the sudden threat warily, claws extended.
Red gets an arcanine pokedoll and puts it to the right side of the door, using his body to hide it from Charmander as he walks past him. When he puts it down, Charmander suddenly chirps in alarm, and Red jumps back as his pokemon rushes forward to defend him, flicking some fire at the new threat.
“Stop!” Charmander goes still, and Red immediately clicks again. Red’s pokemon growls at the two large simulacrum, but stays his fire. “Good job Charmander. Now, Smokescreen. Smokescreen, Charmander.” Red’s finger hovers over the clicker button, waiting… waiting… “Smokescreen. Smokescreen. Smokescreen.”
No smoke comes. “Any second now Charmander,” Red mutters, and his pokemon’s head twitches. Red chides himself for confusing him, and wonders how long he should wait. He wants the behavior to be associated with the word, but just repeating “smokescreen” over and over is feeling a bit foolish.
Red studies Charmander’s aggressive stance. “Smokescreen. Charmander, smokescreen.” Charmander twitches, as if ready to act… but does nothing, still watching the threats and growling.
Ah
. Red grins. His pokemon is too brave to be scared.
Red slowly steps backward so Charmander doesn’t notice him leaving. When he reaches the closet, he turns and grabs a third pokedoll, this one is a wide, round graveler. He places it behind Charmander, so that the fire lizard is surrounded by arcanine, graveler, and rhydon simulacrum. His pokemon is too fixated on the first two threats to realize that he’s been surrounded, but once Red steps up beside him, Charmander repositions himself and sees it in his peripheral vision.
Charmander chirps in alarm, then turns frantically, first one way then the other, attempting to keep all the threats in sight. When he realizes he can’t, aggression turns to fear.
Red watches the fire lizard curl inward and begin to tremble, and feels a pang in his chest. He’s about to reassure his pokemon that everything’s okay… but Charmander needs to feel threatened to emit the smoke. Red crouches beside him and begins to tremble as well, breathing quickly so that his heart speeds up. “Smokescreen. Charmander, smokescreen. Smokescreen, smokescreen, smokescreen…”
Charmander continues to tremble, eyes darting around at the large figures looming over them. When he glances at Red again and sees his trainer curled up beside him, he begins trembling harder… and, with Red still repeating “Smokescreen,” it happens. The fire at the end of his tail becomes a bit dimmer, and black smoke begins to billow out.
The second he sees it, Red presses the clicker. Charmander’s head rises, and Red rubs his head. “Good boy!” He coughs as the smoke continues to come out, thick and heavy. It quickly blankets the area and makes it hard to see.
“Charmander, stop!” Charmander goes still, but the smoke keeps coming out.
Uh oh.
Red picks Charmander up and walks around, trailing the oily smoke from Charmander’s tail. He says “Stop,” every few seconds, checking to see if Charmander’s tail stops emitting smoke. Even outside of the main cloud, Red’s nose wrinkles when he inhales. He can see how the acrid stench would work as a deterrent, and suddenly realizes his clothing is going to need a thorough washing.
Eventually the pokedoll are almost completely obscured, and when Red says “Stop!” again, the smoke suddenly cuts off. Red presses the clicker. “Good job Charmander.” His eyes water, and he resists the urge to rub at them, peering around in the thick smoke.
That was fast.
Red walks over to the fan controls and puts Charmander down. The thick smog combined with his watering eyes makes it hard to see, and Red feels along the wall with his eyes closed, navigating for the right button by memory.
One, two… three… four!
The fans rev to life and begin sucking up the smog. Red’s clothing and hair whips about, and Charmander gives an alarmed
Rawr!
as his protective cover is quickly drawn away.
Charmander tenses as he watches the three pokedolls slowly come back into view. Red puts his finger over the clicker button, waiting. “Charmander, smokescreen. Smokescreen. Smokescre-”
Click-clak!
“Good boy!” Red watches the smog rise, thin and long as the fans immediately suck it away.
How long can he keep that up?
“Stop, Charmander.” Charmander glances at him, but then turns back to the pokedoll, growling quietly. Red wonders if the sound of the fans are distracting his pokemon, and turns them back off.
Unfortunately that just causes the smoke to quickly obscure Charmander again. Red curses quietly. He needs to be able to tell the moment Charmander feels safe enough to stop producing the smoke, so he can reinforce him stopping.
And now the smog is completely surrounding him.
Shit.
Red crouches down and picks Charmander back up with one arm, the lizard’s smooth hide warm to the touch. His pokemon startles, and pain suddenly lances through Red’s side and arm. The lizard’s claws have sunk in, mostly stopped by his clothes’ armor mesh, but the tips still piercing through. “OW! Ow, ow… it’s okay Charmander, it’s just me… ow…”
Red walks gingerly forward, ignoring the pain as best he can as he keeps the smoke cloud behind them, glancing back and saying “Stop” occasionally to see if Charmander complies. Charmander’s tail stops emitting the smoke shortly after they’re past the pokedolls, and Red clicks. “Good boy…” He looks back to see an obscuring cloud of black smoke filling the rest of the room once again.
Red sighs and puts Charmander down, wincing as the lizard’s claws exit his flesh. He can feel blood trickling down his skin from the pinpricks. Charmander looks at the bloodstains on his sleeve and makes a low crooning sound, stepping closer and licking at one.
“Ow, hey, it’s okay. My fault for making you so scared.” The smoke is still spreading toward them, and Red coughs as the foul taste fills his throat. He unclips Charmander’s pokeball and points it at him. “R-return,” he croaks. Charmander is hit by the beam, then vanishes in a flash of light.
Red reclips the pokeball and returns to the controls, holding his breath and closing his eyes along the way as he keeps a hand against the wall.
Would help if this place was voice activated,
he grumbles to himself as he turns the fans back on. Red takes a deep breath as the air clears for the second time, and a sudden dizziness makes him sink down to the floor.
Somewhat alarmed, Red takes off his pack and lifts his shirt to examine his injuries, wondering if he’s bleeding more than he’d realized. The wounds don’t look so bad though: he’s probably just losing his second wind. Red relaxes and digs out a potion from his bag to disinfect and coagulate the wounds. Some paper towels serve to wipe up the blood, and once he feels the tender scabs already forming beneath his fingers he puts his shirt back on.
The steady hum of the fans provide a soothing ambiance. Red rests his head against the cool wall as he takes deep breaths of clean air and considers the training so far.
The next step is to test and see if the click and command would get Charmander to produce smoke in reaction to a less obvious threat. If so, he would reinforce that, and then wean him off the threats altogether until he responds to just the command and click, and finally just the command alone. He has to work on the “Stop” command too: maybe such an internal activity isn’t so easy for Charmander to stop on command, or maybe it takes a few seconds for the smoke to stop being produced even after Charmander responds to the command. A delay like that would make it much harder to judge the progress of the training…
“Hey, you alright?”
Red snaps out of a light doze to see the auburn haired girl standing in the doorway. He hadn’t heard it open over the fans. “Hi. Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. Just tired.”
“Ah, okay. I was walking by and just saw a sprawled pair of legs.”
Red smiles. “Taking a quick rest. All finished with your pokemon?”
“Yeah, we’re headed to bed. Long day tomorrow.” She notices the spots of blood on his shirt. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Positive. Just scared my pokemon a bit, that’s all: he didn’t mean it.”
She nods. “We’ve all been there. It’s something of a rite of passage, and happens all the time when teaching something new. Just be glad it wasn’t more serious.”
Red remembers the ease with which she dodged away from her pokemon’s attack, and wonders how often she’d been too slow. “What about you, were you teaching your butterfree something new, or just practicing?”
There’s the briefest of pauses before she says “Just practicing,” and Red feels a stab of annoyance. Some of the biggest arguments he’d gotten into with Blue had been about competitive trainer’s habit of secrecy. Most are loath to share the methodology behind the amazing feats their pokemon perform, each unique insight or training strategy they reveal being one less advantage against potential rivals. It’s partly why they’re often looked down on by other trainers, especially academics, and why Gym Leaders are so respected in contrast for opening their doors to teach what helped them become so skilled.
“Sorry, that was rude of me,” Red says into the awkward silence. He rubs his eyes, still irritated from the smog. “Like I said, I’m a bit tired.”
She steps into the room and leans against the door as it closes. “It’s alright. Even at one in the morning it’s silly to expect complete privacy in a place with glass doors.”
“Ah shit, it’s already that late?” Red checks the time himself to see how far off she’s rounding from, and sees it’s 1:14 AM.
“You have an early morning too?”
“That was the plan.”
“Better head back up then.”
He considers it. Postponing the training until tomorrow probably wouldn’t hurt: they’re likely to spend most of it in the city anyway…
Eventually he shakes his head. “I want to finish up first.”
She raises a brow and folds her hands behind her back, resting against them. “Something big going on tomorrow?”
“Not really.”
“Why the rush then?”
Red considers the question a moment. “If I said ‘optimism bias,’ would you understand what that meant?”
“Not really,” she says. “I mean I know what optimism is, and I know what a bias is…”
Red scratches his hair beneath his hat, then takes it off and turns it between his hands as he organizes his thoughts. “Okay well, basically, studies in psychology have shown that people tend to be overly optimistic about things involving themselves.”
“Like what?”
“Like this training I was doing. Part of optimism bias is something called the ‘
planning fallacy↗︎︎
.’ Experiments show people usually underestimate the time and cost involved in a task they need to complete, and assume the best results.”
She smiles. “I’m a bit guilty of that myself.”
“We all are. Optimism bias affects more than just things we plan for: we also underestimate how dangerous life can be for ourselves. I walked here with a couple friends from Pallet Town yesterday, and within a few hours we were attacked by a large group of rattata.”
The girl’s eyes widen a bit. “How large?”
“Eight, I think.”
She whistles. “Good thing there were three of you.”
“Yeah. We knew that sort of thing could happen, even on the main roads where most dangerous pokemon have been cleared away or chased off. But it was still a shock to experience it, even as our training kicked in.”
“You didn’t use any repellant?”
“We didn’t think we’d need to. The odds of something dangerous happening our first day out just seemed so unlikely. But if someone had asked me whether someone
else
might have a dangerous encounter their first day of traveling, I’d say it doesn’t matter if it’s their first day or their hundredth, the statistics are the statistics.”
The young woman is quiet for a moment. One hand absently tucks some hair behind her ear as it’s displaced by the overhead fans. “What about Tier 3 threats? People worry about those all the time, even though the odds of them dying to one are really low compared to some more common dangers.”
Red nods. “There are some exceptions, mostly because of heuristics that fool our pattern seeking minds. We don’t tend to hear about every person that dies on the road because it happens fairly often, all things considered, and are quiet tragedies. Region-wide news rarely cover them, unless something unique was involved. But because Tier 3 threats are so rare and visually stunning, and so many people die all at once…”
“Yeah. It makes a big impression.”
“Right. And that’s doubled by the huge media exposure they get. In general, we just don’t consider ourselves subject to the same statistical probabilities everyone else is. If asked, we’d probably never say something so egotistical, but by and large, we get worried about things that likely won’t harm us, and it takes careful attention and diligence to consider what likely will.”
She looks thoughtful. “And we spend millions to try and stop Tier 3 threats…”
“It’s crazy. We could be spending that money to hire more rangers, get regular patrols for major roads. It would probably save more lives per dollar spent.” He sees her cover her mouth as she yawns, which sets off his own, jaw cracking. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to start soapboxing. I tend to talk a lot when I’m tired.”
She’s looking at him with a slight frown. “How old are you, anyway?”
“I’ll be twelve next month.”
“Just started training?”
He nods. “Got my first pokemon yesterday.”
“Yesterday? You don’t sound like most newbies.”
“Less stupid, I hope?”
She smiles. “Less dewy eyed. Stupid’s a bit harder to judge, but exhausting yourself to get a bit of extra training in isn’t particularly smart.”
Red grins. “Future Me might be irritated at Present Me for not getting enough sleep, but he can sleep in if he really needs to. I’d rather Future Me be a bit tired and irritated, even with the potential negatives that entails, than risk him being as unprepared for a dangerous situation as Past Me was.”
“Do you always refer to your future and past selves as different people?”
“Out loud? Only when I’m-”
“Tired,” they say together, and laugh.
Red stretches his arms, then covers a yawn and forces himself to his feet before exhaustion overtakes him completely. “Whatever tomorrow brings, I want to be ready for it, and once I’ve thought of a way to be, I can’t just ignore it. Leaving an optimization task unfinished is like leaving a splinter in my toe. It might not bother me constantly, but every time I’m reminded it’ll be just as frustrating as the first time, and if I’m in a situation where I need to run, I’ll really regret not just taking it out when I could.”
She watches him thoughtfully as he gets a crick out of his neck. “Well, I guess I’ll reserve judgement until we see how well that works for you.” She smiles and extends a hand. “I’m Amy.”
He shakes it. “Red. Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Good luck with the training, and hope you get some sleep eventually.”
He smiles. “Me too. Have a good night!”
She waves and closes the door behind her. Red turns off the fans, and the sudden silence is almost tangible.
First things first.
Red goes to the supply closet and digs past the remaining pokedoll to examine the other supplies. Rope, target posters, water canisters for a spray, a firesuit…
There
. Red pulls a gas mask from its hook and straps it onto his face.
It’s a clear plastic cover that seals everything from his forehead to his chin, and cleanses the air through filters on the sides. He breathes experimentally through it a few times, then takes it off so it dangles from his neck. He’d considered putting it on before, but didn’t want anything that might distort his voice and make it harder for Charmander to recognize commands. Now that he knows just how irritating the smog is though, it’s clearly the lesser of two evils: choking and coughing don’t make his speech particularly clear either.
Unfortunately that’s about all that’s useful in here. Red puts two of the pokedolls back in the closet, then leaves the training room to examine the others.
The door to the right of his has a symbol of a fist above it, and he enters out of curiosity. The walls are heavily padded, and the floor is a soft mat: firm beneath the feet, but absorbent to reduce injury from falls. He goes to the supply closet and sees the more intricate pokedoll that swivel when struck to deliver a counter blow, as well as punching bags, fighting gloves, helmets, and body padding.
Red returns to the hallway and keeps searching, checking each new type of room to see what they’re like. One has a swimming pool in it, another a soft dirt floor. Occasionally he finds something in their supply rooms that might be handy for training his charmander or rattata, but for the moment there’s nothing that suits his needs.
Frustrated, he goes to the end of the training rooms and follows the directory to the help desk. A blond guy that looks to be in his mid twenties is sitting with his feet propped up, watching a screen. Red glances at it and sees an ongoing Indigo League match. Considering the time it’s probably a recording, but the blond seems riveted.
The battling trainers are swapping pokemon so fast that it’s hard to follow what happens: a rapidash charges at a pinsir, which is replaced by a feraligatr. The rapidash is withdrawn before a blast of water can hit it, and a blink later there’s an umbreon in its place that shrugs off the deluge before it sends a pulse of darkness back. Feraligatr gets swapped for a hitmonlee that dashes through the darkness unfazed and leaps forward, foot outstretched. Umbreon vanishes in another flash of light just as hitmonlee jumps, and a pidgeot soars safely out of the hitmonlee’s way, then dives as it lands and rakes it with its talons.
“Excuse me,” Red says during the battle’s lull as hitmonlee is withdrawn, a point awarded to the pidgeot’s trainer.
The young man grunts, eyes on the screen.
“I need a mirror. Is there one available?”
“Bathroom,” the blond says, and points without looking.
Red stifles his annoyance. “I mean for training.”
“Training supplies are in the closets.” An ampharos appears to deal with the pidgeot, bulbs glowing with electric charge. Before it can get a bolt off the flying type is withdrawn, the flash overlapping with the replacement pokemon being sent out. By the time its ball rockets back to be caught by its trainer, she has already clipped pidgeot’s pokeball to her belt and replaced it with yet another. Regulations vary between regions, but the Indigo League allows no more than 1.6 seconds to pass without having a pokemon on the field: this trainer had just swapped pokemon and prepared a third in less than half that. Red remembers being awestruck the first time he saw the speed at which professional competitive trainers battle, making split second decisions one after the other while trying to predict two steps ahead of their opponents. Differences of philosophy aside, his admiration hasn’t faded much since.
“I know that, but there aren’t any in them,” Red says, tearing his gaze from the screen.
“Sorry.” The receptionist takes a drink from his soda can. As far as Red can tell, he still hasn’t so much as glanced at him.
Red feels his exhaustion fading as his blood pressure rises. He takes a deep breath, then lets it out. The cheap desk placard says “Mitchell,” and he puts on his most friendly, but forceful voice. “Can you pause that for a moment please, Mitchell?”
Mitchell sighs and stops the recording before turning to him at last, boredom giving way to irritation. “What do you want kid? I told you, the supplies are in the closets.”
“Sorry, I’m a little tired, and this is my first time at a Trainer House.” Making enemies isn’t going to help him, and he doesn’t have time to waste if he wants to get any sleep tonight. “What match was that? It looked pretty intense.”
After a moment Mitchell’s frown softens a bit, and he glances at the screen. “That was Alicorn’s last Summer Qualifiers from earlier tonight. She’s headed to Johto next week.”
Red vaguely remembers Blue mentioning an “Alicorn” once or twice. Something about her ability to adapt strategies on the fly and respond to new information… Red props his elbows on the counter. “Cool. I heard she has a great meta game.”
Mitchell nods. “Definitely top percent material. You see her match against Blaine last month?”
“No, I guess I missed that one.”
“Oh man, that was intense. You gotta check that out.”
“Noted.” Red glances around at the cluttered desk. “So you work here all night?”
“When I draw the short straw.”
“Must be boring.”
“Eh. Some nights go quicker than others.” Mitchell scratches the stubble on his jaw. “So what were you looking for again?”
“I need something that will let me see my pokemon without him seeing me.”
“Hmm. We’ve got observation rooms with a one way mirror.”
“I’d prefer being in the same room. Maybe a mirror and something to attach it to the ceiling?”
“Ah. Well I don’t think we have anything like that. What do you need it for?”
Red sighs. “I’m training my charmander to put up a smokescreen on command, but they need to be afraid to do it. I want to trigger it in different ways so he’s used to responding to it during emotions other than feelings of helplessness, so was thinking of hiding behind a pokedoll, throwing charmander’s ball to the other side of it, then shaking the doll and yelling to surprise him into emitting the smoke, which I’d then reinforce. But I can’t see him if I’m behind the pokedoll, so I won’t know when to reinforce his behavior, and if I pop my head out to look he’ll see me. So I figure I’ll stick a mirror on the roof and use that, since he’s not likely to look up.” Red sees Mitchell’s skeptical look. “What? You don’t think it will work?”
“Well, work or not, it’s pretty much the most convoluted way to go about it that I can imagine. Why does it matter if he sees you?”
“He’s really protective. I think if he sees me behind the pokedoll he’ll just think I’m in danger and attack.” Red shrugs. “I guess I’ll test it just to be sure, since I can’t get a mirror. Thanks anyway.”
“Well hold on there, you won’t need the mirror if you’ve got someone else to do the shaking.”
Red blinks as Mitchell gets up and walks around the counter, placing a “Be right back” sign up. “Are you volunteering?”
“Sure, my butt’s getting sore anyway.”
“Hey, thanks!”
“No prob. Shouldn’t take long.”
Red frowns. “Actually, that’s what I thought, but there’s an aspect of optimism bias called the planning fallacy-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mitchell says, already heading toward the training rooms. “Come on, let’s go scare the smoke out of your pokemon.”
Red sighs and follows. Mitchell is clearly looking for an excuse to do something more exciting than sit at his desk, but Red doesn’t want to get the guy in trouble.
It’ll be easier with help,
he reasons.
Another hour at most.
Hour and a half, maybe…
Red feels for his pokeball pouch, drawing another sphere out and enlarging it. There, just ahead between the trees… now! He throws, the ball missing by an inch as the mythical pokemon makes a sharp turn. He gasps in exasperation and exhaustion, pumping his legs harder to keep up as the mysterious creature pulls further ahead. He can’t let it get away, such a rare find has to be studied… he reaches for another ball and throws it, hitting a tree trunk. He tries to run faster, arms pumping at his sides as he leaps over fallen logs and ducks between thorny bushes-
“Hey snorlax, you getting up anytime today?”
Red opens his eyes a crack, momentarily nauseous from disorientation. He shifts his head to squint over his shoulder at Blue’s silhouette. His skull feels like it’s full of cotton, and his thoughts crawl over each word one by one until he can comprehend them all together. “Mphre… time…?”
“Almost eight.”
It takes Red a full second to subtract four from eight to calculate how long he slept. He groans and rolls back over, pulling the blanket over his head.
“Hey! They’re about to serve breakfast in the mess. You don’t want any?”
A quick check with his hierarchy of needs pyramid confirms that “sleep” is etched much larger than “food” at the moment. “Mbbe later,” Red mutters, already drifting off back into his dream.
The pokemon is so close he can almost make it out… four legged, and blue… or is it purple?
“Suit yourself. Guess I’ll just borrow this hat if you’re not using it.”
Alarm blows Red’s dream to fragments. He cranes his head over his shoulder again to see Blue walking out with his red and white cap on.
Red’s hierarchy pyramid pops up again, with HAT now overlaid at an angle across every level.
“Ngh!” Red tries to roll out of bed and only succeeds in turning over, his arm making a weak throwing gesture to capture the thieving demon as he walks toward the door. “…back,” Red wheezes, searching blearily around the bed for a pokeball.
“I’ll save a plate for you!”
Exhaustion overcomes his outrage, and Red’s eyelids slip back down, arm trailing over the edge of the bed as he drifts away, his last conscious thought:
Dammit, Past Red…
When Red next wakes, he feels much better rested. His phone shows almost eleven, and a text from half an hour ago tells him Blue and Leaf are waiting in the common room.
Red takes his time showering, then heads to the laundry room to pick up his clothes from last night. The small holes in his shirt are barely noticeable without any blood around them, and the smell is completely gone. He packs them back in his bag, then goes downstairs.
The common room isn’t as crowded as it had been the night before, and he quickly spots Leaf and Blue seated across from each other in a square of couches with a table between them. Bulbasaur sits in a potted plant beside Leaf with his eyes closed, and Leaf rubs between his ears.
“Jerk,” Red says, taking his hat off Blue’s head and sniffing it experimentally before putting it over his damp hair. He’d taken it off during the break in training the night before, and it hadn’t absorbed the smell of Charmander’s smoke nearly as much as the rest of his clothes had.
“There you are,” Leaf says with a smile. “Have trouble sleeping last night?”
Red sighs and flops down on a third couch. “You could say that. Is this food for me?”
“Yep.” Blue nudges the plastic box across the table with his foot.
“Thanks.” Red opens it and chows down on the cold noodles and strips of beef. “Sorry I couldn’t join you guys.”
“So what kept you up?”
Red swallows his mouthful, picking his words carefully. “In my attempts to mitigate optimism bias, I fell prey to the planning fallacy.”
Leaf raises a brow. “Oh, yeah,” she says. “I hate it when that happens.”
Blue snorts. “I’m pretty sure it’s nerd for ‘I screwed up.'”
So Red summarizes his night as he eats. His friends seem particularly interested in how the smoke works, and Red passes his notes to Leaf as Blue takes out his pokedex and looks up a video of it in action.
“The pokedex really is an amazing tool for training,” Leaf says. “I spent some time virtually training my pokemon last night to reinforce their target priorities, so it’s even easier for them to recognize friendly pokemon like Charmander or Squirtle if there are other pokemon around.”
Blue scratches his neck. “Are you going to work on training your rattata and pidgey too, or focus on Bulbasaur for now?”
“I want to at least get comfortable with all of them.”
“What about you, Blue?” Red asks.
“YouBlue.” Leaf giggles. “Hey, what’s new, Blue? Say it isn’t true, Blue! What’s your favorite hue, Blue?”
Blue ignores her. “Well, I’ve had a few ideas for what my core team is going to be…”
“I know you always wanted a pidgeot on it.”
Blue nods. “Which is why I’ve already started working with Zephyr.”
“Zephyr? Oh. When did you name him?”
“This morning.” Blue grins. “Leaf and I did some practice maneuvers on the roof, and he flew circles around Crimson.”
Leaf rolls her eyes. “Circle. Singular. He flew one circle around Crimson, and it wasn’t even during a race.”
“Technically still happened. I’m counting it.”
Red finishes eating as they argue, and spies a trash can to throw the box out. On the way back to his seat, he sees Amy sitting across the lobby on her own. Today she’s wearing jeans, a sleeveless blue vest over a white shirt, and a white cap. When he waves to her, she waves back, then walks over to their couches and sits on the one across from him. “Heya Red.”
“Hi Amy.” The other two are looking at her curiously. “These are my friends, Leaf and Blue. I met Amy last night in the training rooms.”
Amy smiles. “Nice to meet you all.”
“You’re a battle trainer!” Blue says, spying the red Volcano Badge on her hat. “Are you here to challenge Leader Giovanni?”
“I actually already have the Earth Badge.” She turns over the left side of her jacket, where a cluster of colorful medals gleam. “It was my third.” Red leans forward and sees the small green badge, along with the Marsh, Rainbow and Soul Badges.
Blue’s eyes light up as he examines them. “Nice. What are you in town for then?”
“I came up from Cinnibar to meet my brother. He just got his last badge and is about to head to the Indigo Plateau.”
“That’s awesome! How old is he? What was his last badge? Does he plan to go to Johto? Do you-”
“Breathe, Blue,” Leaf says. “I’m sure she didn’t come over here to answer endless questions.”
Amy smiles. “It’s fine, really. Twenty-seven, Thunder Badge, and not yet. He wants to try his hand at the League first while he waits for me to catch up.”
“Are you heading up to get the Boulder Badge after, then?” Blue asks.
“The Boulder Gym is in Pewter City, north of Viridian Forest,” Red explains to Leaf.
“I know, I’ve been reading the map.” She smiles at Amy. “I’m from Unova. We’re heading to Pewter City too, if you want some travel company.”
Amy looks between them. “You guys didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
Red gets a sinking feeling, and takes his phone out to check CoRRNet as Amy says, “A sudden storm developed in the Pewter Mountains. It’s far to the north as of this morning but the whole city is on high alert. I’m going to hold off until we know for sure where it’s headed.”
Leaf looks around in the quiet that follows, studying their tense expressions. “Is it one of them?” she asks, voice low. “What kind of storm is it?” Her fingers lie still on Bulbasaur’s head, and after a moment he shifts a bit, eyes slipping halfway open. He growls quietly, and she resumes rubbing between his ears.
“Lightning,” Red says, reading the report, which warns citizens in the area to check back every few hours to keep track of its movements. “Low precipitation, still a single cell… but a single cell that’s been going for two days now.” It goes on to call for experienced trainers to gather in Pewter and Cerulean in case of attack. Red’s stomach clenches, and he looks at Blue, who’s watching him.
So soon… We’re not ready!
“A storm that small lasting that long is definitely not natural,” Amy says. “Which means Zapdos is active again. I’m thinking of taking a detour to Vermillion City until he blows himself out. I suggest you guys hang around here for a bit, wait to see where it moves to.”
Blue is leaning back against the couch, arms crossed. He looks at Red and nods, and Red takes a breath before nodding back. “No,” Blue says. “We’re going.”
Amy blinks. “Going… to Pewter?” She looks from Blue to Red’s determined faces, and her expression hardens. “I take it back Red, you
are
dewy-eyed. Maybe even stupid. What do you think you’re going to accomplish, other than getting yourselves or your pokemon killed?”
Red opens his mouth to respond, but Blue cuts him off. “What do you care? Run off if you want to; the
real
trainers will be there with us to defend the city.”
Leaf’s eyes widen, and Red winces. “What he means is-”
“He said what he meant,” Amy says, voice level as she meets Blue’s gaze. “Who do you think you are, kid? You’ve had your pokemon, what, a day or two, and you think that makes you a trainer? Have you ever experienced what the storm gods can do? I have. Watching vids on the net and fantasizing about catching one doesn’t give you a clue of what it’s like.”
Blue drops his gaze to his splayed legs. “My parents were killed when Moltres flew over Fuchsia. I’m not going so I can try and catch Zapdos. I’m going so I can help protect the people there.”
Red listens to the other sounds in the lobby in the quiet that follows. One of the people working at the front desk is chattering on the phone, and some trainers across the room are spread out around a flatscreen watching a subtitled movie, its volume on low. There’s a loud flapping to his side, and he turns to see a spearow with a hood over its eyes perched on a trainer’s gauntleted arm as he walks toward the elevators.
Leaf is watching Blue sadly, and Amy’s expression is a bit softer, though her brow is still furrowed.
When it’s clear Blue won’t say anything else, Red clears his throat. “We made a promise, when we were younger. Swore that we’d do whatever we could against the trio, once we have our own pokemon.” He turns to Leaf. “You don’t have to come. It’s not your fight, and it’s not your region. We can meet up again after the danger’s past.”
Leaf bites her lip. “As great a chapter as it would make for my book, I’m not exactly eager to rush into a storm caused by a legendary. We have our own trio in Unova, and I still have nightmares about the time Tornadus swept through Accumula Town. If mom found out I ran headlong into a Tier 3 threat the first week I got here, she’d tear up my trainer license herself.”
Red feels a stab of guilt at that.
Be careful, Red…
He shies away from the thought of what his death would do to his mother. More visceral than that, fear coils in his belly as he remembers the death and destruction the Storm Birds, or “Storm Gods” as some still call them, can bring.
Fear that he knows his father had probably faced down dozens of times, against one of the trio or lesser threats. Can he hold himself to a lower standard?
But it’s too soon! We were supposed to have more time to prepare than this.
Surely it’s safer,
saner,
to steer clear for now, and get more experience and pokemon…
Red studies the set of Blue’s jaw, the way he glares down, arms crossed. As things stand, Blue will go with or without him. And despite what he said about his motives, Red knows Blue would try to kill the Storm Birds if he has the chance.
I need to review
my
options for
changing
his mind.
He tables the thought for later. Even if they end up going, he can still keep his word to his mom, and take rational precautions. “We’re not going to run headlong into it,” Red says. “There are things we can do besides try to drive off Zapdos ourselves. Even if it’s just to help with the evacuation, or those who get injured.”
Blue nods. “We’re not stupid. I wouldn’t send Squirtle or Zephyr out in the middle of a lightning storm, and we don’t have any ground pokemon between us. There are still other things we can do though, especially if we catch some new pokemon on the way.”
Leaf twists her hair around a finger, then lets it go and takes a deep breath and nods. “I’m okay with using CoRRNet to help with any periphery tasks they need help with.”
“That’s the idea,” Red says. “My dad was a Ranger, and he always talked about the need for more trainers in the area. Most local pokemon go to ground and wait the storms out, but some can go wild and attack anyone in the area.”
Amy frowns, but says, “Well, that’s a bit more sensible. Just remember that the storms move faster than normal weather. You could be dealing with some minor threat one minute, and be at the heart of it all the next. And then there’s the Pressure…”
“We’ll be careful,” Red says.
Amy taps her foot a bit, seems about to say something, then nods and settles back in her seat. “Alright. As long as you’re aware of the risks, which it seems you are. Sorry I called you stupid.”
Red smiles. “No harm done.”
Blue notices Red and Leaf looking at him after a moment, and frowns. “Yeah, no harm done. And… sorry I implied you’re not a real trainer.”
Amy shrugs. “You’ll get it once you’ve experienced it as a trainer yourself. It takes a lot out of you and your pokemon, wears on you psychologically. Go every time and you’ll get strung out, start jumping at shadows and making dangerous mistakes.”
“The Leaders show up whenever they can,” Blue says, though not accusingly.
She smiles. “Yeah, well, that’s part of what makes them Leaders.”
“When was your last encounter with one?” Leaf asks, taking out her phone fiddling with it. “And do you mind if I record this?”
“Uh… no I guess not. It was a few months ago. Articuno flew by Lavender near the end of winter, nearly buried the town in a blizzard before it was driven off. My brother and I got severe hypothermia, and he lost a couple toes to frostbite where his boot was cut open by some ice.”
“Do the birds come yearly?”
“Yeah, each one is seasonal,” Red says, and Leaf turns the recording end of the phone to him. “The exact days vary, but Articuno usually becomes active in the winter, Zapdos in the summer, and Moltres in the fall. This is really early for Zapdos. They’ve been spotted flying around at other times, but they don’t bring the storms. Or maybe it’s better to say the storms aren’t around to attract them: there’s a lot of controversy over how the two interact.”
Leaf nods. “Same with our Forces of Nature and their elements. So no fourth bird for spring?”
“There may have been, once,” Red says. “There are legends of a fourth god that flies in spring, with rainbow or golden plumage. It didn’t cause storms in its wake, so if it’s still around, it’s hard to notice. It might even be entirely mythical, people just trying to fill the pattern of the seasons with a made up pokemon. The stories say its feathers had rejuvenating powers, and could even restore life to the dead, so mythologically it fits the spring theme pretty well.”
Blue snorts. “Maybe it was real at some point, and someone knocked it out of the sky to steal all its feathers.”
“In any case, spring is a nice breather,” Amy says. “Most years it’s not a big deal: they fly around the wilderness, and everyone stays on high alert in case they wander near any towns or populated areas. A bit stressful, but you get used to it. The year before last we only had to deal with Moltres getting too close to some farms: Zapdos just circled the mountains for a few weeks, and Articuno turned some uninhabited island into a glacier all winter.”
As they continue to discuss the last few years of the storm trio’s activity, Red closes the CoRRNet announcement and sees an update on his ticket from yesterday. A ranger had closed it, with the comment “Rattata nest found and relocated farther from path. Pallet-Viridian Route secure.” A small bubble of pride warms him. However minor, it’s good to know that they made a difference, and that their experience helped keep others safe.
He does a search for open tickets in the area and spots a few. Most are flagged for Rangers, others for any experienced trainers in the area. Nothing in the city at the moment that requires the help of newbies.
“We boring you, Red?”
“Hm?” Red looks up to see Leaf smiling at him. She doesn’t have her phone out anymore, and he belatedly realizes that he hasn’t heard any conversation for the past few seconds.
“Nah, he probably just had a thought and completely forgot we existed,” Blue says, stretching his arms behind his head. “He does that.”
Red’s cheeks flush, and he closes CoRRNet and puts his phone away. “Sorry, did I miss a question?”
“I asked if you still want to go to the Earth Gym, or if you’d rather head up to Viridian right away.”
“Actually, I want to do some shopping, if that’s alright with you guys.”
“I thought you were trying to conserve your cash?”
“I was. I did my best to pack everything that might be useful, and thought it was enough. But last night’s training drove home how woefully unprepared I am. I’d rather have the gear I need now, like my own gas mask.”
“If you guys are headed north soon, there’s a supply store on the way-” Amy’s phone chimes, and she takes it out. “Excuse me.”
“See that?” Blue says to Red. “Manners.”
Red frowns at him as Leaf covers her grin. “You’re one to talk.”
“Hello? Hey! Yeah, I’m at the trainer house. Are you… cool, I’ll come out now. See you in a bit!”
She ends the call and stands. “My brother’s here. You guys want to meet him?”
“Sure,” Blue says as they all get to their feet.
“This way,” she says, heading for the elevators. “He doesn’t like landing at street level.”
Leaf returns Bulbasaur to his ball in a flash of light, and they go to the roof. The noise of the city washes over them as soon as they step out into the sunlight, a bit muted by their elevation. Other buildings rise up around them, most much higher than the trainer house, though not as wide. Some trainers fly by now and again riding their pokemon, but Amy gazes upward, her eyes shaded against the sun as she searches.
Red studies the landing platform that takes up a third of the roof, marked off by divisions for multiple pokemon to land at once. Another third of the roof is divided into dozens of squares the size of a small closet, designated as a safe spot for psychic trainers who have keyed the trainer house as their pokemon’s “home” to teleport in.
Not for the first time, Red finds himself watching the teleporting zone, hoping to spot someone pop into existence with their pokemon. There was a similar area in Pallet Town that he used to spend hours watching when he was younger, hoping to see someone pop into existence. His dad had come home that way once, and Red had stayed up as late as he could to greet him, only to succumb to sleep a half hour before he arrived.
Even in a major city like this, the teleportations are rare enough that he knows he probably won’t see anyone. Most people train their pokemon to warp directly to a pokemon center, which Red finds a bit pointless: one of the greatest benefits of pokeball technology is that they can freeze their pokemon at any level of injury and get them to a pokemon center without worry.
First teleport priority would probably be the nearest hospital. Second would be home for when I want to visit Pallet, third maybe the Celadon City Department Store-
“There he is!
Hey Donny!
”
A distant screech answers her yell, and they turn to follow Amy’s gaze as she waves her arms. Above the tallest building, sunlight flashes off something metallic. For a moment Red thinks a hang glider is swooping down at them, until he sees the red frills and a thrill goes through him.
The skarmory pulls out of its dive when it’s level with the roof top, and sails over the edge and onto one of the runways. Its legs kick as it touches down, bouncing it back up a few times with its wings flared until it finally slows to a stop.
The trainer on its back unbuckles himself from the leather harness and hops down. Amy jogs forward to meet him, and Red and Blue exchange amazed grins as they run forward to join her. By the time they cross the roof to the end of his runway, Amy’s brother has fed his pokemon something from a pouch at his waist and is stroking its neck.
“Hey bro!” Amy tackle hugs the other blonde, who’s a head taller and easily spins her around. He’s dressed in a thick leather aviator jacket and pants, loose buckles hanging from his belt where it had attached to skarmory’s harness.
“Hey sis.” He puts her down and pushes a pair of goggles to his forehead to reveal eyes as light as Professor Oak’s. “You didn’t mention you had a welcome party waiting.”
“These are some newbies I met. Red, Blue, Leaf, this is my brother Donovan and his skarmory, Tita. How’s it going girl?” She runs her nails over the metallic bird’s fin, which causes it to preen, its plate-like feathers lifting and falling in a ripple that sounds like a quick rain of coins.
They exchange greetings. Leaf admires the skarmory and says “Your pokemon is so beautiful! I didn’t know there were skarmory in this region.”
“There usually aren’t,” Blue says. “Did you trade her from someone in Johto?” Red had expected Blue to bombard the competitive trainer with questions, but so far he’s showing remarkable restraint.
“Nah, I took a trip down to the Sevii Islands a couple years ago and found her there.”
Red smiles. “Her nickname, Tita. That’s short for titanium, right?”
Amy looks smug. “Yep. Guess whose idea that was?” She sticks two thumbs at herself, and her brother grabs her wrists and tries to point them at himself.
Red sees Blue and Leaf’s bemused looks and says, “The metal that skarmory are coated in is a titanium alloy. It’s incredibly light for its strength, and the only type found naturally.”
“Neeeeerd,” Blue mutters until Leaf elbows him.
“Would it be alright if I pet her?” Leaf asks.
“Sure, let’s see if she’s in a good mood first.” He tugs on the thin chain around his neck and pulls a whistle out the front of his jacket. Watching his skarmory, he blows a few sharp whistles, then a low warble.
Red doesn’t notice any particular response from Tita, but apparently Donovan reads something from his pokemon, because after a moment he takes the whistle out and says, “Okay, we should be good. Approach slowly from her side and keep your hands free of the area around her wings: they’re very sharp. Also, be sure to stroke from front to back. Ladies first?”
Leaf grins and steps forward, hands carefully held up. Tita notices her when she’s a few steps away, and the pokemon’s attention sharpens, whole body going still. Leaf pauses while Donovan soothes Tita until the skarmory seems calm again, then continues forward until she can run her hand tentatively down the bird’s side.
“Oh!” she gasps. “It’s so… not soft, exactly, but… not hard either. Strong, but yielding.”
After another few moments she steps away, and Blue goes next. Tita shuffles from foot to foot, but allows herself to be stroked without complaint. Donovan watches his pokemon carefully, whistle held up near his lips as he instructs, “Just there… right. You can explore a bit, but no sudden movements. A few more seconds… okay, now slowly step back.”
When it’s Red’s turn to approach, a knot of tension forms in his stomach, and he hesitates. His eyes dart to the razor sharp edges of skarmory’s wings, talon and beak, imagination painting a far too vivid picture of what it would look like tearing through his body.
Donovan wouldn’t let us approach if he wasn’t sure of his training
. He tries to step forward, feet doing an awkward half-shuffle. His instincts ignore rational argument and continue to insist that he get as far away from the metallic death machine as he can.
Only a few seconds have passed, and the others are beginning to glance at him curiously. The shame propels him another half-step forward, but no further.
This is mutiny!
he yells at his jelly legs.
Then the thin iris of the skarmory’s eye meets his, and Red sees an assessment in its alien gaze. Is he a friend, a foe… or possibly food?
Red takes a deep breath, and focuses on his thought process.
What are my priorities, and how do my actions align with them?
Priority one: Learn as much as possible about pokemon so I can become a Professor, which also helps-
Priority two: Become an effective trainer, so that I can –
Priority three: Protect the public, benefits of which includes –
Priority four: Gain respect among tribe members and wider community, which helps-
Priority five: Get funding and support to discover the origin of pokemon species.
This paralysis hinders all of the above priorities.
So wh
at is its purpose?
To protect the self, loss of which also hinders all of the above.
Exaggeration: The life as a trainer requires far more dangerous risks than this. How can I expect to help Blue against the storm birds if I can’t even do this?
Irrelevant: Possibility of future justified risk doesn’t excuse present recklessness.
Strawman: Present risk is not reckless, and is justified by mitigating future risk through contribution to priorities one and two. What purpose,
value, or priority
does this fear
serve?
Another couple seconds have passed, and a drop of sweat creeps down the back of Red’s neck as he continues to meet the skarmory’s gaze. Some pokemon flies near the building, but doesn’t land on the roof with them.
…
None. It just is, the simple consequence of acknowledging reality. If someone as capable as dad could die, so can I, and far more easily.
Red lets out his breath.
Dad wasn’t ignorant of reality. He knew the risks. And if he could overcome his fear, so can I, or I might as well go home now.
Red takes a step forward. The next is easier, but on the third the armored bird shifts a bit. Red stops, sweat breaking out all over his body. Donovan strokes Tita’s beak, and when she calms down again, Red forces himself to take another step, wiping his clammy hands on his pants. He’s acutely aware that the others are watching him, but as long as he keeps moving forward, he doesn’t have to feel ashamed of the fluttering in his belly.
Once he’s close enough to touch the skarmory, he stops and looks at Donovan. The trainer studies his pokemon briefly, then nods at him. Red slowly reaches out a hand and rests it on the skarmory’s thigh… and sudden wonder blows his fear away.
What looks like a smooth metal body is in fact thousands of small metallic feathers. Each is incredibly fine, but their combined overlapping strength gives the pokemon its incredible physical durability.
“Make a stroking motion, so she knows you’re friendly,” Donovan says, and Red does so, amazed by the distant feel of the warm body beneath the cool metal coating. He’s never felt anything like it.
“Is it alright if I look closer?” Red asks.
“Sure, give me a sec.” Donovan snaps his fingers in front of Tita. The skarmory fixes her attention on her trainer, then the bright blue pokepuff he pulls out of a pocket in his jacket. “Okay, go ahead,” he tells Red, keeping his gaze on his pokemon.
Red crouches forward and examines the glossy coat from an inch away. From here, he can just barely make out that the ripples of distortion on the pokemon’s metal coat, which he’d originally taken to be lines of impurity, are actually super thin divisions where the scale-like feathers overlap.
“Got a few more seconds,” Donovan says. Red nods, and after a few more strokes, steps away from the pokemon. Some of his nervousness returns now that he’s no longer touching it, and he backs away until he’s with Leaf and Blue again.
He braces himself for some comment by the others, but Blue just claps him on the back, and Leaf smiles at him. “Pretty awesome, huh?”
“Definitely.” Red turns to Donovan and Amy. “Thank you very much.” That seems inadequate, so he puts his hands to his sides and bows from the waist, at about a thirty degree angle. “It was an honor to be able to interact with your pokemon, Donovan-san.”
Blue bows beside him, and after a surprised look Leaf mimics them. Globalization had faded much of each region’s unique culture in the times of Red’s grandparents and great grandparents, homogenizing everything from names to language to currency, but children are still taught the basic historical etiquette.
The older trainers look amused, but Donovan returns the bow after a moment. “It was my pleasure.” He gives Tita one more scratch along her neck, then steps back and returns her to her pokeball in a flash of light. “So what’s the story with you three? From around here?”
They tell him where they’re from as they walk back to the roof access and take the elevator down. Once in the common room, Red notices a bigger crowd than there had been earlier. Most of them seem gathered near the entrance.
“What’s up?” Blue asks one of the trainers nearby.
“Someone said Reza Salur is on his way here.”
“
Reza’s
here?” Blue stands on his toes and cranes his neck to look over the crowd.
“Ah, shit,” Donovan says with a rueful grin. “I was hoping he’d get bogged down in Cerulean a while longer.”
Red scratches beneath his cap. “Why is that name familiar?”
Blue gives him a flat look. “Do you ever listen when I talk?”
“Depends. Is he a battle trainer you admire, or did he actually do something important?” Red looks at Amy and Donovan. “No offense.”
Amy grins. “None taken.”
Blue rolls his eyes. “He’s the dragon trainer that single-handedly stopped a kangaskhan herd from flattening Rifu Village last year.”
Red frowns. “Rings a faint bell.”
“You know him?” Leaf asks Donovan.
“Yeah, a bit. We met for the first time a couple years back in the Saffron Gym. It was his third badge, my second. Since then we’ve been keeping tabs on each other’s progress. He-”
The front door opens, and a young man with dark skin and a black jacket walks in. He seems surprised for a moment by the number of people near the entrance, but quickly continues forward to the front desk. His hair is worn long, and swept to hang over the left side of his face.
“Younger than I expected,” Amy says.
Donovan nods. “He’s about your age.”
When he finishes checking in, Reza makes his way through the common room, gaze on the elevators ahead as he ignores the looks and whispers of those around him. Once Reza is past the crowd and fully in sight, Red sees the heavy scars that run along his left jaw and cheek, partially obscured by hair.
Donovan gives a casual salute with two fingers. The dragon trainer glances at him, then smiles in wry amusement and nods back. As he passes, Red notices the conspicuous lack of an ear under his hair, and wonders how far the scarring goes.
“So he’s challenging the League too?” Red asks once he passes.
“Yep. Part of me wants to see how good he is for myself, but I won’t complain if he gets knocked out before that. Fighting dragons is never fun.”
“Nor training them, from the looks of it,” Leaf says, and Red nods.
As
I’ll find out
for myself,
someday.
His thumb rubs the roof of Charmander’s pokeball.
The crowd is beginning to disperse, and the group makes their way through to the front desk to check out. When it’s his turn, Red swipes his trainer card, then pays four dollars, plus another two for the use of the training room.
“Thank you for staying,” the receptionist says. “We hope to see you again soon!” Red thanks him and joins the others outside.
“Well, I’m starving,” Donovan announces once they’re outside. “How does seafood sound to you, Ames?”
“Right behind you.” She turns to them. “Care to join us?”
“I already ate.” Red looks at the others, “What do you guys think?”
“We should probably get going,” Blue says. “I want to get to Viridian Forest today.”
Leaf nods. “It was great to meet the two of you!”
Amy smiles. “It was. I hope you enjoy your time in Kanto, Leaf.”
“Thanks, I’m loving it so far!”
Blue turns to Donovan. “Good luck in the league. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
They say their farewells and part. Red’s a bit disappointed that Amy won’t be traveling with them, but his excitement to be back on the move quickly dominates his mood as they walk up the street and head north.
“Okay, so there’s a few stores on the way that have what I need,” he says as he checks online. “Is there anything you guys want to pick up too?”
“Wouldn’t mind getting a whistle and chain,” Blue says.
Leaf looks up at the summer sun as it beat down on them. “And I’d like to find a nice hat.”
“Hat, whistle, gas mask…” Red types with his thumbs, watching stores fade from the map until two are left. “Got one.” He puts his phone away, already thinking of what else he’d like to buy. “The closest is on the northern edge of the city though. Do we want to leave just yet?”
Leaf checks the time. “Well, I’m glad we met Amy and Donovan, but we’re behind schedule.”
“Yeah, I’d like to get to the forest before dark,” Blue says. ” What do you say, master fallacy planner? Think we can make it?”
Red shrugs. “Sure, as long as no more than three moderately interesting or disrupting unexpected things happen along the way.”
Blue smiles. “Those odds aren’t so bad.”
Just then, an exeggutor runs out from a restaurant ahead of them, a food held in each of its numerous mouths. Cars honk as it dashes across the street, and someone in a suit runs after it, pokeball in hand as he tries to get a lock on his pokemon. The two are followed by a pair of angry restaurant staff, and the trainers watch them all run by, then look at each other.
Blue steps to the edge of the sidewalk and holds up a hand at one of the stopped cabs. “Taxi!”
Viridian City’s northern department store is a round building that functions as a one stop shopping mall, each of its four floors devoted to a different stratum of needs. The sign over the entryway informs that the top floor contains trainer supplies, the third protective gear, the second conventional goods, and the first food and services. Red, Leaf and Blue walk through the wide glass doors into an open and bustling indoor plaza, walls lined with service areas and shops of every kind. As they head for the escalators, Red’s eyes bounce from cafes and massage parlors for trainers to poffin bakeries and treatment spas for pokemon.
“I may have to stop here on our way out,” Leaf muses, and Red follows her gaze to see a sentret getting its tail brushed through a display window, while in the next a charmeleon has its claws filed.
He absently rubs the cool spheres at his waist as he eyes the prices. It would be nice to treat his pokemon, but… he only has about $220 of spending money. As nice as it would be to pamper them a bit, his pokemon are dependent on him to make smart financial decisions. If someone were to offer him an hour at the spa or some extra medicine in case of emergencies, he knows what he’d choose for himself.
They reach the escalators and decide to head to the top floor first, then work their way back down. Red’s gaze continues to roam, passing over bright advertisements without a second glance. He sees a trainer with a bellsprout outside its ball step onto the escalator behind them, the plant’s long viney limbs wrapped around his shoulder and waist. Red smiles as the pokemon’s bulbous head swivels to take in everything around it, mimicking his trainer.
They switch elevators at the second and third floors, then reach the the fourth near its middle, surrounded by stalls and shelves full of pokeballs and medical equipment. Trainers fill the aisles, speaking with salesmen and comparing products. Advertisements and guideposts hang from the ceiling to direct customers, and Red scans them quickly. “Okay, so we need to-”
“Check it out, balls are on sale!” Blue approaches a glass display counter and crouches down to peer at the colorful variety of pokeballs inside. “Greatballs for just eighty bucks with a trainer card. And ten pokeballs gets you a free premier ball!”
“We don’t need more pokeballs yet-”
“Ooh look, free samples.” Leaf wanders over to a nutritionist sitting at a stall, the countertop covered in colored rows of pokemon vitamin supplements.
Red sets his jaw and resists the urge to follow either of them, turning resolutely in the direction of the audio training tools. It’s fairly easy to block the advertisements: after getting burned a few times by misleading ads as a kid, and making one particularly expensive impulse purchase he later regretted when he was nine, he grabbed some books on marketing and devoted a week to reading them.
Once he emerged from that roller coaster of fascination and horror, he walked into the living room and declared that if he ever became Champion of the Indigo League, all ads would just be a name, an image, an intended purpose in ten words or less, and some sources for where more information could be found. Ever since then he’s taken the default position that all ads lie about everything, and reflexively ignores them until he has the chance to do independent research.
But it’s a bit harder ignoring so many cool toys once they’re all around him and in easy reach.
He catches himself slowing down by a shelf of laser pointers with a sign declaring “50% off!” and forces himself to walk past, only to realize a minute later that he’s unconsciously veering toward some targeting frisbees that promise to “improve pokemon accuracy by 63%!”
The lasers are regular priced, they’re just usually marked up twice as much,
he grimly reminds himself.
And a 63%
improvement means instead of landing two out of ten attacks, my pokemon will land three.
The biggest crowd by far is in the relatively open area where new pokedex models are on display and available to demo. Red is glad he’s spared that particular temptation. The Technique Machine aisle proves impossible to resist however, and he walks over to a console to see what’s available.
He waits for the trainer using one of the machines to finish browsing, then steps up to the free screen and types in “charmander.”
Toxic, Dig, Flame Charge, Fire Blast,
Shadow Claw
…
Woah. Charmander can learn Shadow Claw?
He checks the move’s information and confirms that yes, it’s a Ghost Type attack. He wonders how long some programmer slaved over that particular code.
The software in the machines are very specific programs designed to do two things: mundanely, they can train a pokemon to learn a specific behavior that they might normally be able to learn on their own, with enough maturity and training. The second, far rarer programs are those few that rewrite specific pokemon’s actual “code,” the data they’re saved as while in their pokeball, so that their physical bodies are safely altered to be capable of entirely new things. Even rarer are programs written well enough to apply the effects to any pokemon of that species, with all the variation they have, rather than a specific one the programmer wrote the code for. A coder that manages to make such a universal program is usually set for life, and a handful of programmers, like Bill Sonezaki of Kanto, have coded multiple such machines and gained prestige almost on par with that given to Professors.
He watches a demonstration video of a charmander attacking a pokedoll, its claws trailing purple mist. The mist doesn’t help with cutting the doll, as it’s not a physical augmentation: Ghost abilities attack the mind. But he can clearly see that charmander is capable of using it.
This. This would be a solid investment. With Shadow Claw, his charmander would have incredibly boosted coverage. He could stand a chance against rock pokemon, as charmander’s normal claws and fire wouldn’t do much good against their tough hides, and if he faces a Psychic or Ghost type, he could fight fire with fire, so to speak.
With a mix of excitement and dread, he checks the price and feels his heart sink. Five hundred dollars is relatively cheap, especially for something so cutting edge, but it’s still expensive for a one-time use. If it were a permanent copy of the software that he could reuse on other pokemon, that might be worth it…
Not that I could afford it either way.
He returns to the homescreen and steps away for the next trainer, watching as a grim looking man in a trench coat navigates the screen with quick familiarity, makes his selection, then inserts an ultra ball after swiping his card through the machine. Red turns away and continues his search for the training whistles, trying not to dwell on his disappointment.
“Hey,” Blue says as he approaches from the side and falls into step with him. “Lot of stuff around here, huh?”
“Yeah. You buy anything?”
“Nah, not yet. I might call up gramps and ask him to release some of my savings, but then he’s going to want to know every single thing I spend it on. Man, I can’t wait till I’m fifteen.”
Red nods. “Tell me about it.” He’s not as well off as Blue, but his own bank account has a couple thousand in it. Unfortunately he still needs his mother’s permission to withdraw anything more than a hundred dollars a week, and his mother made clear that should be for emergencies. It’s an old grievance of his and Blue’s: 11 is old enough to go out in the world, but not old enough to make their own decisions about money, apparently.
On the other hand…
He looks around at all the things he’d love to buy. Being in a store like this, he can see why some kids might need a bit of help with self control.
“Have you seen any shock suits around here?”
Red frowns. “I think that would be on the third floor. It’s more for protection than training.” Professor Faraday had created the first “shock suit” to help him safely study electric pokemon. By providing an easy path for electron flow around the wearer, modern Faraday suits can immunize someone to most electric attacks.
It’s one of the top items on Red’s wishlist, and being reminded of it doesn’t improve his mood.
I need to get started on articles for my Researcher license so I can get some income.
He files the thought away for later consideration. “You’re not going to buy one now, are you? The ones I saw online were priced at least at a thousand.”
“If Zapdos ends up coming south, I think it would be worth it. I’ll just tell gramps I want the money for a good bike.”
Red’s steps slow at the mention of Zapdos. “Right. I actually wanted to talk to you about that…” How could he stop Blue from going into the storm, short of tying him up? Better yet, how could he change Blue’s mind so he
chooses
not to himself? Red flips through his memory for ways in which people change their minds.
Fear of consequences, appeal to authority, deceit… which is most likely to succeed?
Blue looks at him askance. “What about it?”
1) Fear of consequences. The dangers of the storm trio are hard to overstate, but confronting them is tied to too many of Blue’s central values, including his ego and desire to avenge the loss of his parents.
Low chance of success
.
2) Appeal to authority.
L
ow chance of success
.
Blue’s value for autonomy is too high. Calling Professor Oak to intercede directly might work, but would likely sever friendship. Worth severing to possibly save his life? Maybe.
“I don’t know how prepared we are at the moment,” Red says. “There are some things I was hoping to have before facing one of the trio, like a Faraday suit of my own.”
Blue scratches his neck, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah, I was thinking it over. Look, I think I can take out enough money to cover two suits without gramps noticing right away. Don’t worry about paying me back, I know you’re good for it.”
3) Deceit. I could pretend to be sick at a critical moment, and force Blue to choose between competing values. Better yet, actually injure myself at just the right moment. Even better yet, call Daisy and collaborate a convincing deception for Blue to return home. If discovered though, this would definitely sever friendship. Also would prefer not to injure myself badly enough to warrant serious medical attention.
Moderate
chance of success, but risky.
Reserve for last resort.
4) Competing values….
Red nods. “Thanks, I might take you up on that. But I think there’s a cheaper alternative.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll show you when we head down to the third floor. For now I want to find these whistles before my wallet burns a hole through my pocket.”
They begin to hear the sound of flutes and whistles over the general noise of the store, and find a wall of various handheld instruments a minute later. Leaf is already there, examining a pendant ocarina with four holes on the outer side and two on the inner. A middle aged woman in store attendant uniform is standing beside her and demonstrating the proper way to hold it. Around her neck hangs an assortment of different whistles and flutes from the wall. Leaf spies Red and Blue approaching and waves them over.
“Hey guys! Come listen. She’s explaining how to choose the right instrument.” Leaf turns to the woman. “They’re interested in getting one too.”
The saleswoman smiles and turns to include them in her demonstration. “As I was telling your friend here, a whistle is a good choice for training pokemon that are expected to range out from you, like flying types. But it’s harder than just training them to follow a verbal command. Each action you want them to perform has to be linked to a particular, short tone or tune, and that means which instrument you choose is very important.”
The attendant finds the plain whistle in the jumble around her neck and demonstrates with a pair of quick notes. “See? Just two basic commands, and anything more than that will take a brief melody.” She waits for another attendant nearby to stop blowing on a long flute before she gives three short blows. “So you’ll need one of those for each action. With something like the ocarina, each note can be tied to a command, and then a melody can be its own.” She puts the pendant ocarina to her lips and blows each note once, then a number of quick combinations, and finally a brief melody.
“So why doesn’t everyone get an ocarina?” Red asks. “Other than the price.” He sees on the wall that the plain whistles are just five bucks, while the ocarina is thirty.
She smiles. “The ocarina takes quite a bit more dedication. It has more range and options, but you have to be willing to learn and memorize each one. Also it takes two hands, which some trainers find cumbersome.”
Meaning mostly battle trainers.
Having your hands free to swap pokemon at a moment’s notice is a big deal, especially in the fast paced world of competitive battles.
Blue is clearly thinking the same thing, because he heads over to the plain whistles and begins to sort through them.
“I think I’ll take an ocarina,” Leaf says, and goes to the wall to examine the different styles available.
Red turns to the attendant. “So if we plan on traveling and training our pokemon together, should we worry about confusing them with our whistles?”
The woman smiles. “Getting three different instruments would certainly help avoid that.”
“Right. So… any suggestions? Something between the two in complexity is fine, but I don’t mind using both hands if I have to.”
Her necklace rattles as she sorts through it. “How’s this? Bamboo flute. A good amount of variety, and you can use one or two hands for increased range. And it has a very unique sound.” She gives it a trill.
Red goes over to the wall and examines one of the long wooden flutes. “I like it, but do you have something a bit more durable? And a bit smaller.”
“Certainly.” She leads him to another section, and within a few minutes Red decides on a one handed silver flute, with four holes on top and one on the bottom for his thumb. Blue goes with a similar one with a higher pitch, both of which only cost ten dollars, and the three trainers purchase their instruments, which Blue carries in a small shopping bag. After thanking the attendant, they head for the escalators.
“You guys should grab some vitamin samples before we go down,” Leaf says. “I tried to get some for you, but he wouldn’t let me.”
Red and Blue exchange looks, then shrug and head for the stall. There’s a bit of a crowd when they get there, and Red has time to read the ad on the screen above it. The sound is mostly muted by the crowd, but he can pick up the energetic narration. “Is your rapidash more of a slowpoke? Machamp getting seismically tossed? Want your kingler’s carapace to be as strong as steelix? Carbos, protein, iron, we have it all right here! Poffins and berries aren’t enough: four out of five professors agree, your pokemon can’t reach their full potential without the right dietary supplements!”
Blue snorts. “Bet the fifth was gramps.”
Red grins. “Yeah, and I’d love to know who the other four are.”
They move up in the line, and the young nutritionist smiles as they approach. “Hello again, I see you brought your friends! Excellent! What kind of pokemon do you two-”
“I’ll take protein please,” Red says.
“Same.”
The nutritionist blinks, but reaches beneath the counter and hands over two red packets. “Certainly, there you are. Now, if you’re looking for some-”
“Nope, I’m good, thanks a lot.” Red turns to the escalator and begins to head down to the third floor. He and Blue are soon joined by Leaf, who’s looking at him in surprise. “What?”
“Nothing, I just wasn’t expecting you to be so… abrupt. You could have at least heard him out.”
“Why? I don’t have money to spare, and there were more people in line behind us.” Red tucks the packet of protein into one of the side pockets of his bag. “Besides, I’ve already researched his products, and wouldn’t believe any new studies he cites without looking into them myself first anyway.”
“You don’t believe in nutrition supplements?”
“Let’s just say I’m skeptical of some of their claims,” Red says. “I got protein because it has some substantial research backing its effectiveness in muscle growth. As for things like iron ‘boosting toughness,’ or hardening skin or shells… the results are still inconclusive. Some tests show slight measurable gains, others don’t. And that’s not even getting to some of the other stuff they sell.”
Leaf looks at Blue. “You’re in the same boat I take it?”
Blue shrugs. “Some of the top trainers swear by certain vitamins, while others say they’re not necessary. I haven’t seen any proof myself yet, but as far as I’ve heard they can’t hurt, and free is free.”
“Huh. My mom never really talked about them, either for or against.” Leaf shrugs. “She tends to ignore anything outside the scope of her research.”
Blue laughs. “I think that comes with the fancy title. One time gramps spent a month at the lab without coming home for more than a meal and a shower a day. When I told him there’d been a new appointment to the Elite Four, he barely heard me.”
Red opens his mouth, then closes it. He always loved his parents for who they were, but being raised by a pokemon professor had always seemed like the closest thing to a perfect childhood he could imagine. He’s used to Blue’s grouching about Professor Oak, and just assumed it’s due to his lack of interest in science and research. But Leaf’s voice held a similar tinge of wistfulness that stops Red short, and he pulls out his notepad and reminds himself to re-evaluate whether he’s experiencing a negative focusing effect when he gets the chance.
“Hey,” Blue says. “If you’re analyzing me, you have to tell me why. That’s the rule.”
“I’m not.”
Leaf looks between them, then glances at the notepad. “You guys have a rule for that?”
Blue glowers at Red. “We do.”
“Can I have the same rule?”
Red smiles. “Yeah, that’s fair. But I’m not analyzing either of you. Just reflecting on that whole ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ saying.”
They reach the third floor and step off the escalator, and Leaf returns Red’s smile. “I was mostly joking. You deserve your privacy. There’s little enough of it, traveling together like we are.”
Blue snorts. “Yeah, you say that now. It’ll drive you mad soon enough, you wait. Him scribbling in that notebook every other day, looking at you like a pokemon that learned a new trick.” Blue’s voice goes lower as he talks, eyes widening in horror. “Eventually you start thinking over every word you say, wondering what might set him off next… your nights are filled with thoughts of a notebook, its pages dissecting your every thought and action, and you dream of waking up in a lab cage, Red dressed in a white coat and staring down at you, scribbling, scribbling, scribbling…”
Red and Leaf laugh. “It’s really not a big deal,” Red says. “I’ll tell you about it later, promise. Just need to get my thoughts in order. In the meantime, I need to grab a gas mask. You guys should get a couple too.”
They find the right section fairly quickly, but after a few minutes of browsing Red doesn’t find a mask like the one he used in the trainer house practice rooms. He finds an ordering terminal and begins browsing its catalog while Blue and Leaf try on various masks and headgear.
He calls them over when he finds it. “Here, this is the one the trainer house used. It protects your whole face without distorting your vision or voice much.” He goes to the product page and swipes his trainer card. “Just forty bucks too. You guys want one?”
“Yeah, I’ll get one.” Leaf smiles. “I’ve been looking at new moves for Bulbasaur, and it could be handy for protection against powders or spores.”
Blue nods “Me too. There are butterfree and shroomish in the forest that can knock a guy out in one breath.”
Red shifts the quantity to three and presses accept. The machine hums, and after a few moments three of the dozen hand-sized slots beneath the screen light up. Red reaches into two and withdraws the Containers from them, handing one to Leaf while Blue takes his own.
They aim the silver balls at the floor and release the grey boxes inside in a triplet of flashes. Red opens his and takes out the gas mask, freshly sent over from the store’s warehouse. He closes the box, then withdraws it into the Container before returning the sphere into its nook as Blue does the same beside him.
Leaf carefully adjusts the ball in its nook so its lens is properly aligned before straightening. “Checkout’s over there, right?”
“Hang on, there are a couple more things I want here.”
Red follows the signs that have a lightning bolt on them until he’s surrounded by trainers trying out shoes with non-conductive soles. He steps carefully past all the boxes and scans the shelves, reluctantly drawing his gaze from the corner where Faraday suits are being sold as he walks from one aisle to another.
“Aha.” Red goes to a shelf of copper rods about twice as thick as his thumb and as long as his arm. He counts out four and turns to the others. “We should each have at least one. I’m getting two.”
“Do you think these will be necessary?” Leaf asks, taking hers and experimentally pulling on the rod. It extends to the full length of her arm-span without reaching its limit, and she collapses it back to its compact size.
Blue nods. “If we’re going to be risking the storm, we’ll need something like this sooner than later.” He looks over his and frowns, clearly skeptical. “That said, I’d feel much safer in a shock suit. You sure these will be good enough? Don’t they only work if you stand near them?”
“Well, ‘near’ is relative. A true bolt of lightning will be caught within sixty meters, and redirected to the earth. From that point, the ground current might travel about twenty meters, maybe a bit more. Speaking of which,” Red turns to Leaf. “You should pick up new shoes if yours aren’t rubber-soled.”
She hesitates, then nods and goes to the shoe section. Red checks the maximum size of the rods. “Three and a half meters… Should be enough.” He turns to Blue. “You can get a Faraday suit if you want, but I’d rather neither of us spend that much money if it’s not necessary. This will do fine for me.”
Blue looks at him for a moment, then back at the rod. “Sixty meters huh?”
“Yep.”
Red surreptitiously pulls out his phone and opens CoRRNet as Blue examines the lightning rod. His friend’s shoulders are straight, and his eyes gleam with anticipation as he extends it fully and tests its weight. Red goes to his alert settings and adjusts the threshold. By default it’s set to only alert him of Tier 1 or higher threats near his location, but it can also alert him of any nearby tickets or requests that pop up. Now it’ll be easy for Red to keep an eye out for any opportunities for heroism as they travel north. If he can delay their journey long enough, the storm might pass before they get near Pewter City. But if not, Red might still be able to distract Blue with requests for aid that will surely pop up with the storm’s arrival, even at its outskirts.
4) Competing values. If the storm comes south, I’ll force Blue to choose between rushing headlong into it and another value. If he has to make a choice between helping someone in need or taking a shot at one of the birds, he’ll make the right choice.
Red puts his phone away and watches Blue test out the quickest ways to get the lightning rod to full length. From a thousand games and conversations the two had shared over the years, Red knows that as hot as his friend burns for revenge against the storm gods, at his core the role he sees for himself is that of an emerging hero, willing and able to help those that need him. That Red sees himself the same way is one of the core bonds of their friendship.
Blue grins as he refolds the lightning rod. “Yeah, this’ll work. With your book smarts and my trainer skills, we’ll have all three birds down by the end of the year. Come on, let’s go help Leaf find a good pair of shoes.”
He’ll make the right choice…
By the time the three leave the department store, the sun has begun its western descent. Once out on the sidewalk, Leaf dons her last new purchase, a white sunhat with a pink band above the rim and in a half-circle above the front. She tugs its edges until it shades her eyes and ears, and smiles.
Blue takes their various instruments out of the shopping bag and passes them out before slipping his own whistle around his neck. Leaf puts her ocarina pendant on and gives each of its notes a test, running through a brief melody. The sharp sounds make passerby turn, and a flock of pidgey take off from a nearby light pole.
Red watches them go as he takes his hat off and slips his own flute on, tucking it into his shirt. His new gas mask is strapped to the outside of his pack for easy access, and his lightning rods are braced along the roof and floor of the inside of his bag: he can feel their upper tips against his spine. He’d had trouble fitting them in at first, and finally resigned himself to using his Container to free up room. For all his planning for the trip, “free space” hadn’t been something he thought he’d need this soon. Now that all his extra clothes are in the silver sphere tucked into one of the bag’s pockets, it feels uncomfortably light.
In total he’d spent about fifty-five dollars, bringing him down to $165. Having to use his only Container is what bothers him most at the moment. Unlike pokeballs, they’re not subsidized by the Department for the Advancement of Trainer Efficacy, and cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars on up depending on how much mass they could store. His own is the lowest model, capable of holding a bit over fifty pounds, not including the light metal box the Container is keyed to. It had his sleeping bag and a collapsible tent in it, but now it holds most of what was in his bag. He left everything that he might need at a moment’s notice out of it, like first aid supplies and snacks.
Leaf tucks her ocarina in her blouse. “How long before we’re out of the city? I want to start training Crimson with this!”
“We’re in the northern suburbs now,” Red says. “Shouldn’t take long.”
“Are you gonna pick up a flier soon too?”
“He wants a noctowl,” Blue says, already fiddling with his pokedex as they begin to head north.
“Neat. Why a noctowl?”
“Well for one thing, their night vision is incredible, and they’re almost completely silent while flying. For another, they’re one of the smartest birds in Kanto or Johto.”
Leaf smiles. “Very practical of you.” Red blinks, but before he can comment at her tone Leaf takes out her own pokedex. “Any thoughts on a good set of commands?”
“I’ve been looking some up,” Blue says. “There are a bunch of recommendations, but that lady was right: the more complex commands you want to give, the more you need to practice and memorize.”
“We’d better start then.” Red takes his small flute out, absently stepping around a lightpost in the sidewalk as he examines it. “Let’s go over the basics. Up, down, left, right. That’s four notes. A return command, that’s five. A ‘hover,’ for those pokemon that can do it…”
“Hang on,” Blue says. “Too complex. Pokemon are smart enough to know how to fly on their own. I’m going to stick with diving, climbing, and hovering for movement, and use the rest for attacks.”
“Well, I’ve got the options,” Leaf says, indicating her pendant. “I don’t need to micromanage them every moment, but if I need them to go a specific direction I like having the option.”
They debate and discuss the optimal ways to train their pokemon as they walk, researching and testing their instruments. Within an hour they’re surrounded by more trees than houses, and the road begins to split in different directions. They stay on the main path north as it winds between small neighborhoods and the occasional mom and pop stores.
Eventually Blue and Leaf take turns registering various whistle commands with their pokedex, then downloading them to their pidgey’s pokeballs. After letting the sound recognition programs run, they summon Zephyr and Crimson to fly around them, occasionally using their whistles to try instructions. At one point Crimson lands on Leaf’s shoulder, and Red notes the ruddy feathers along its wing tips. He’s about to point it out to Leaf, then realizes it must be the basis for the name. He feels a flush of embarrassment, and is glad he didn’t voice his assumption that it was a reference to him.
“I can’t wait till they’re big enough to fly on,” Leaf says with a smile as she watches Crimson take off again and soar up to a tree to peck at some fruit.
“Yeah, we should reach Vermillion City before then.”
“What’s in Vermillion city?”
“Well, I don’t know how they do it in Unova, but here in Kanto they don’t just hand the Fly program out to anyone,” Blue says.
“What, you mean it’s regulated?”
Red nods. “It gives bird pokemon an incredible boost in endurance and strength, but it’s not magic, and a lot of people don’t seem to get that.”
Blue scowls. “So all of us have to prove we’re not idiots just because some moron uses it on a golbat that’s barely bigger than they are and plummets off a roof.”
“Ugh. Did that really happen?”
“Yep.”
Leaf makes a disgusted face. “So how do we prove we’re not idiots?”
“Vermillion Gym Leader Surge,” Blue says. “You might have heard of him Leaf, he’s from Unova.”
“Really? Neat. No, I never heard of him. Does he use any birds from Unova?”
“Surge runs an electric gym actually. There’s no Flying gym in Kanto.”
Leaf raises a brow, and Red grins, shrugging. “We don’t make the rules.”
The sun continues to set, and the woods on either side of the road begin to grow thick as they enter the outer edges of Viridian Forest. They pass a school nestled in a clearing off the side of the road, and a few minutes later see a crowd of six or seven year olds in the distance. Blue and Leaf call their pokemon back, and withdraw them into their balls. When they get closer, they see the kids are gathered around an old man. A woman in a teacher’s uniform stands by, supervising the field trip and quieting the kids to let the old man talk over their shouted questions and excited chattering.
“Alright now, settle down, settle down,” the old man says, and the kids grow mostly quiet. “Who here can tell me the most important part of catching pokemon?”
“Keep it still!”
“Summon your pokemon!”
“Knock it out!”
“Stay a safe distance!”
“That’s right!” The old man says. “First and foremost, you want to stay a safe distance from the pokemon. That means knowing what a certain pokemon is capable of. If you encounter a pokemon that you’ve never seen before, you have to be extra careful! Don’t assume that just because it’s big that it’ll move slow, or because it’s small it has short reach. Watch carefully.”
The three trainers slow to a stop nearby as the old man walks into the woods. Red looks past him into the foliage and notices a weedle sitting on a bush and munching on its leaves, bright yellow and pink body a warning to any that come near. As the old man approaches, the weedle perks up, its segmented body going rigid as an exclamation point, long and thick as the old man’s forearm.
“Now, the standard pokeball has a lock-on range of about nine meters, and these little bugs can easily jump that. They pack some fearful poison in that stinger, so catching one can be a bit risky. But as long as you know how to read their body language…” He takes a careful step forward, then one to the side, watching the weedle as the stinger on its forehead sways to follow him. “See how it’s bunching itself up? One more ought to do it…”
The old man steps forward, and the weedle shoots forward like a loosed arrow. Red feels his pulse surge, and the watching kids cry out as the old man staggers to the side. The weedle curls midair and flips, so that it lands on the other side still facing him.
Red’s hand is on charmander’s pokeball and Leaf is already stepping forward with her arm cocked back, but when the old man turns they see he’s grinning.
“Caught my sleeve there,” he says, eyes on the arthropod as he holds his arm up to show the tear in his shirt. “Come on little guy, you can do better than that.” He steps forward, some of the children crying out in warning as the weedle bunches itself up and leaps at him again, quick as a blink.
The veteran ducks and spins with the speed of a man half his age, calmly turning to keep the weedle in his vision. It goes at him again and again, but never comes closer than a hand-breadth.
As Red watches the grizzled instructor turn and sidestep every leap, he feels himself slowly relax, a grin spreading over his face. The old man has clearly done this many times to perfect such showmanship, and the crowd of students cheers and claps, Red, Leaf and Blue joining in. In all the many field exercises he went on when he was younger to teach his class about catching pokemon, none of the instructors were as big of a showman as this guy.
The old man turns to face the weedle again, and holds a hand up to quiet the cheers. “Now, see the way it’s arching its body like that rather than leaping at me again? It sees I’m too quick for it, so it’s going to try and even the playing field a bit. That brings us to the second most important thing: speed. You gotta slow the pokemon down, or even better yet, keep it still! Whether you knock it out first or immobilize it some other way, you can’t catch a pokemon that’s moving too fast for your ball to lock onto it, let alone hit it with a throw.”
“We could’ve gotten those pidgey if they hadn’t kept blowing the balls away,” Blue mutters to Red, who shushes him.
The old man spreads his fingers wide and crouches, waiting. When the weedle shoots a string of sticky silk at him, he snatches it out of the air.
The weedle immediately leaps forward, using the connecting string to home in on the old trainer. But the veteran rotates on his heel with his arm straight out, swinging the weedle in an arc and bashing it against a tree trunk beside him. The pokemon falls to the ground and releases the string, stunned.
The old man bows at the renewed cheers, then holds up his hand again to quiet them, three fingers up. “Third, make sure the area is clear of other pokemon. The ball can get confused if the capture area is crowded, and it won’t open if it’s not positive it’ll draw in the right one.” He takes his pokeball out, lens pointed at the weedle. “Gotta let it hold on the pokemon for a bit, and when it’s ready…” There’s a
ping
as the pokeball locks onto its target. “It’ll let you know. Cock your arm back, take aim, and release just as the ball is leaving your fingertips… like so!” The old man throws the ball, hitting the weedle dead on. The pokeball bounces to the side, and opens mid-spin to capture the pokemon in a flash.
The ball rolls on the grass before coming to a standstill. The old man retrieves the ball as his audience claps and cheers. He approaches the road again and notices the three trainers standing behind the crowd. “Well hello there! Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
The kids and teacher all turn in surprise. “It certainly is,” Leaf says with a smile. “That was fantastic!” Red nods agreement.
“Why thank you kindly! You’re trainers then, are ya?” He eyes the pokeballs at their waists.
“That’s right,” Blue says, and spins Zephyr’s pokeball on his finger. “We caught these ourselves.”
“Coooool,” one of the kids says, watching the ball, and Blue smirks as the class begins to murmur excitedly, many asking to see their pokemon.
Red covers his grin with one hand. Just a few years ago, it would have been he and Blue staring in awe as “grown up” trainers walked by. When he notices one of the boys watching him in particular though, he feels his own shoulders square a bit, back straightening.
“Hey, not bad!” The old man gives his new weedle’s ball a spin, then sends it across the back of his hand by flexing his knuckles. The kids ooooh and ahhh, and Blue palms his ball to watch closely as the old trainer dances the still spinning ball from the back of one hand over to the other before turning his hand and catching it out of the air. “We’re gonna look for a spinarak next. Feel free to stick around, maybe you’ll pick up a thing or two!” He winks.
Red’s response is cut off by Blue. “We’d love to, but we’re trying to make the forest by nightfall.”
Leaf nods. “I wouldn’t mind getting a weedle of my own!”
Red hesitates, then nods. “Maybe another time.”
“Anytime you’re in the area, just come pay me a visit. Name’s Hamato.”
They introduce themselves, bow, and wave goodbye as they continue on their way. Leaf and Blue remark on how amazing the veteran trainer had been, while Red is mostly silent. That had been a perfect opportunity to spend the rest of the day without going any further north.
“You alright Red?”
He looks at Blue and nods. “Just wondering how long it might take to catch one of every pokemon in here.”
Leaf looks speculative. “For each of us? Or in total?”
“How about a friendly wager? First person to reach six pokemon, without any duplicates, is treated to dinner by whoever’s last.”
“Sounds like free food,” Leaf says. “You guys are one behind me.”
Red grins. “Is that a bet, then?”
Blue smirks. “You’re on.”
They pick up their pace, each pulling out their own pokedex. Within moments they’re so engrossed in their study of nearby pokemon habits that they barely notice when they pass the sign marking the border to Viridian Forest.
In general, travel through Viridian Forest is safe in groups. While the more territorial or aggressive pokemon like weedle or mankey might choose fight over flight, lone pokemon that are willing to face down three humans, even adolescents, are the exception rather than the rule. It’s the primary reason people are encouraged to travel in groups, but it does pose an issue for trainers who are actively seeking out new pokemon.
Red, Blue and Leaf quickly conclude that sticking to the main road through the forest wouldn’t let them encounter many pokemon, while tromping through the forest together would only scare most off. Knowing how foolhardy it would be to go off in separate directions, they compromise with a variation of the tactic Rangers use to sweep an area.
Red checks the map on his phone as he walks through the underbrush. The screen shows an aerial view of the forest overlaid with a grid. The two dots representing Blue and Leaf’s phones form a rough triangle with his own, all within a hundred meters of each other. If someone goes too far from the other two, the phones would alert everyone. In the meantime they have enough personal space to find and catch pokemon without fighting over each one they see, and are still within safe distance of each other for emergencies.
Red smiles and puts his phone away, mentally patting himself on the back. They’ve only been in the forest for half an hour, and have at most another full hour of daylight left. After approximating their distance traveled so far with how much forest is left to the north before Pewter City, Red is confident his “competition” will keep them busy for at least a couple days. Hopefully that’ll be long enough to miss the storm if it continues south, but worst case scenario, Zapdos attacks after they arrive when at least one of them has a full belt of pokemon. And if any help requests pop up nearby meanwhile, it might take even longer before they get to Pewter, giving them an excuse to miss it entirely without bruising Blue’s ego.
Not that he doesn’t intend to try and win their little competition, of course. There are a number of pokemon in the area he wants, and a free dinner is a free dinner.
Red breathes in the earthy smell of the forest, mostly filtered by his gas mask. He’d put it on as soon as they split up, and has an empty pokeball ready in one hand so he can try for a quick capture if he spots a wild pokemon. But even walking alone, he’s big enough to scare away most pokemon in the area. Poking his head in every bush or tree trunk looking for those that are hiding is a great way to get a cloud of poison or stinger to the face, and while his mask will protect him from the former, he doesn’t want to test the latter.
Which leaves using his pokemon to flush wild ones out. He wants to keep charmander fresh, so he puts away his empty ball and unclips his rattata’s to summon it for the first time. “Rattata, go,” he says with a toss, then puts his wrist together to catch the ball on its recoil.
It sails forward into a relatively clear patch of grass and disgorges his rattata in a flash of light before rocketing back toward Red. Realizing in a split second that he threw it with a downward arc, he reaches above his head and snatches it out of the air with both hands cupped together.
“Yes!” Red pumps his fist up with a grin, then looks around. Unfortunately (or fortunately), no one had been around to see it.
No one except his rattata, who seems surprised at the outburst. She stands on her hindlegs and peers around the forest, nose twitching in the air.
Red approaches and kneels to scratch the fur along her back. “Hey there little lady. Nice to see you again,” he says, wanting her to get used to his voice in the real world. He puts her ball away and takes out some dried berries and nuts for her to eat.
His rattata’s whiskers twitch over his cupped palm, then her front paws begin scooping the food into her mouth, munching quickly at each mouthful before grabbing more. Standing on her hindlegs she’s as tall as his knee, and when she finishes feeding she drops back down to all fours and rubs against his ankle.
He plays with her a bit, letting her get the scent of his hands and scratching her white belly. He tries to stroke her tail, and smiles as she squirms, then twists it away from his hand. “Okay, no tail touching. Got it.”
Red finds some rocks and hefts them to ensure they weigh a solid amount. Once he has a dozen in his pocket, he begins walking forward again with one in each hand. His rattata follows at his heels, occasionally running to the sides or ahead briefly to sniff at some moss or munch on a fallen acorn.
Red stops when they near a particularly large clump of bushes, turning one of the stones over and over between his fingers. He doesn’t want to go rooting through the bushes for pokemon, and he doesn’t want his rattata to stick her nose into potential danger either…
“Rattata, ready,” he says, and the rodent dashes in front of him, planting its feet and staring forward, long tail curled up above it. Feeling his pulse begin to speed up, he prepares himself for a fight, then cocks his arm back and throws the rock into the bushes.
The round stone swishes through the leaves and rustles some branches as it hits something with a dull thud. Red waits, body tense, not blinking as the bush sits still… silent…
Eventually he realizes his lungs ache, and lets out his breath. “Rattata, follow,” he says, and they continue onward.
The next bush is smaller than the last, and when he throws the rock it sails straight through it. Red waits with his heart in his throat, but nothing emerges, and he walks on, checking every group of bushes big or dense enough to hide a pokemon.
On his fifth throw, a pidgey flies out of the bush with a startled flap of its wings. Red is aiming an empty pokeball at it before it’s out of sight, but it’s already too far for the lens to get a lock. He frowns as it flies up and away through the tree branches. Rattata hisses at a feather that floats down at them before pouncing on it, and Red laughs, frustration draining away.
He tries another two bushes with no result. Just as he’s about to throw at the third one, his phone chimes, causing him to jump and drop his rock. Blushing furiously, he takes his phone out and checks the screen.
3 to 2. Have I mentioned how much I love tentacool soup?
Red returns his phone to his pocket without replying. He’s dying to know what pokemon Blue had caught, and how, but that’s why Blue hadn’t mentioned it, and asking would just waste more time.
Throwing rocks into bushes and hoping a pokemon would pop out and fight his rattata may be the safest way to go, but it could take hours, and the daylight’s fading. It’s time to put some of his riskier ideas to the test.
He needs a flying pokemon, but hoothoot and noctowl won’t be up and about until it’s full dark. He could try to find one’s roost, but that would involve a lot of tree climbing, and without a flying pokemon of his own he’d be at a major disadvantage if he angers one.
Against anything but other flyers though, his charmander gives him a huge advantage over the local flora and fauna. One on one, the fire lizard could take down practically any pokemon in the forest, as most are bug or plant types.
But being the strongest thing around isn’t going to attract contenders. He needs to seem like the weakest.
Red takes his pokedex out and opens its audio folders. In them are recorded the cries of every pokemon ever captured and studied, most with a number of different entries: anger, playfulness, fear, challenge, affection, and pain.
It’s the last one that interests him at the moment.
In every ecology, there exists a food chain. It’s rarely a straightforward line, but rather a shifting mess of predators and prey. Viridian Forest has over a dozen species of pokemon with almost three dozen different forms that have lived amongst each other for thousands of generations, each filling different niches in the environment and adapting to one-another’s strengths and weaknesses.
Caterpie are without doubt the weakest pokemon in the forest. The only thing that keeps their species going is their incredibly short juvenile period, usually lasting no more than a few days before they “evolve” into metapods, which themselves only take a week or two before metamorphing again into butterfree.
In any other environment, a pokemon like butterfree might stay near the bottom of the food chain. It has no sharp claws or mandibles, and its poisonous spores are slow acting. Encountering any predator should spell a quick doom.
Or it would, if not for a peculiar adaptation.
As far as official classifications go, there are no “psychic bugs” on record. It’s theorized that none are intelligent enough for the true breadth of mental powers psychics are capable of. And psychics do have a harder time defending themselves against bug pokemon, lending some merit to the idea that their minds are too simple, or just too different, for psychics to interact with the way they normally would.
Nevertheless, some bug pokemon like butterfree and venomoth seem capable of low intensity bursts of psychic energy to ward off predators, disorienting them long enough for an escape. There’s debate in academic circles whether it’s a truly psychic attack, or some low frequency sound or vibration the bugs use that just have similar effects; trainers with psychic and dark minds can’t seem to come to a consensus, which leads Red to think that the answer might be both. The bottom line is that butterfree are able to stay near the top of the food chain, despite not actually being a predator to any other pokemon. Even spinarak and ariados, with their own mental attacks, can’t keep butterfree in their webs. As a result, butterfree populations introduced to new habitats can quickly explode in number.
Which is where hoothoot and noctowl come in. Another non-psychic pokemon with rudimentary psychic powers, their mental defenses are strong enough to resist butterfree’s disorienting attacks, allowing them to swoop in for a kill. Lacking the weaknesses of the more powerfully psychic birds like xatu, noctowl are the perfect predator to butterfree.
Unfortunately, it’s still light out, which means playing the distress sounds of an injured butterfree isn’t likely to bring any noctowl or hoothoot to him. But if there’s one pokemon that will catch the attention of any nearby predators, it’s caterpie.
Red goes to the tenth entry in the pokedex and turns the volume all the way up. He briefly considers switching Rattata out for Charmander, but the rodent is much faster than the fire lizard, and if some predators come charging out of the trees at him, he’s going to need Rattata’s speed to intercept them.
Red checks to make sure Rattata is at attention, then wipes his sweating palms on his jeans before he holds the pokedex up and presses the button.
A pained, warbling cry fills the quiet forest air. It only lasts a couple seconds, and then the hushed rustle of leaves returns. Rattata whips its head around, nose twitching as it tries to locate the source of the sound, and Red stands tensely still, ears straining for the sound of wings or rustling underbrush to alert him of incoming pokemon.
After a few seconds pass, Red presses the button again. When nothing approaches, he begins to press it repeatedly, waiting two to five seconds between repetitions as he starts walking forward. His rattata follows, still looking puzzled as she tries to see or smell the injured caterpie she hears.
His arms begin to get tired holding the pokedex above his head, so he lowers it to chest level with the speakers pointed outward, occasionally shifting its direction. Red’s spine feels like a coiled spring, and he keeps one eye on the forest around him while the other watches the ground for roots or stones to ensure he doesn’t trip in the dense underbru-
A line of silk shoots down and nabs the pokedex, tugging it out of Red’s grasp. For a second he simply gapes upward as it floats away to a tree branch above. Then he throws himself at the tree with a cry of horror, scrambling up the rough bark. “Rattata, climb!”
He lifts himself onto the lowest branch before checking to confirm that his pokemon is following, then looks up. There! Now Red can make out the spinarak hanging from the underside of the branch, drawing the pokedex up with its forelimbs.
Including the width of its six legs, the green and black arachnoid is as wide as Red’s torso, half again as big as his rattata. It finishes pulling up the pokedex, but seems confused by what’s clearly not a caterpie. Red’s veins fill with ice as the pokemon scuttles onto the top of the branch and away, pokedex still attached by some string hanging from the end of its abdomen. The slim red device tips this way and that under the branch, and Red begins to climb to the next branch up.
Don’t fall don’t fall don’t fall…
To say his pokedex prototype is priceless would be a bit of an overstatement, but to Red it might as well be. Even older models that act as little more than indexes cost hundreds of dollars, and Red’s is by far the most valuable thing he’s ever owned. Part of what had made Red work so hard the past year was the sacred trust Professor Oak would be putting in him: the only other person he’d given his personally designed, off-the-market software to was his grandson. Breaking it would be bad enough, but if the spinarak gets away and someone else finds it…
Red pulls himself onto the second branch and stands, legs only shaking a little. The third is another head above him, almost parallel to his own. He takes out an empty pokeball and points its lens up at what he can see of the bug pokemon. He waits for the
ping
with his heart in his throat, but the line of sight isn’t clear enough.
“Shit!” Rattata climbs up the trunk beside him, claws still hooked in the bark, and Red points to the retreating spinarak. “Rattata, Bite!”
Rattata follows the direction of his finger and gives a high pitched growl before leaping onto the branch and giving chase. Red places his feet carefully and follows on his own, feeling the whole thing bend and sway beneath him as he watches her attack. The spinarak turns just before she reaches it, and rears onto its hind legs, hissing and aiming the stinger on its forehead to break her charge.
Rattata stops herself short of being impaled, head darting in for a nip here and there. Spinarak retreats with its hind legs to avoid the bites while its forward claws draw blood along rattata’s forehead and stomach. All the while, the pokedex bobs and spins on the end of its string under the branch, out of Red’s reach.
Red grits his teeth as his rattata squeals in pain. Rattata’s greatest strength is her speed: on the narrow branch, the spinarak has home advantage that completely nullifies her maneuverability. Red pulls out his remaining stones and tries to chuck some at the bug. He nearly loses his balance on the third attempt, and his shots all go too high or bounce off the branch. Heart hammering, Red watches helplessly as Rattata over commits and gets stung, only managing a light bite in response.
I need to even the playing field.
The only way he can think to do that is to get them off the branch.
Just gotta avoid landing on my head. Or my neck. Or my back.
“Fuck it,” Red whispers. “Time for heroics.” He shucks off his backpack and lets it fall before he bounces on the branch once, twice, then jumps to the one above, hands reaching.
His fingers scramble at the bark, digging in as his body hangs six meters off the ground. He feels the whole thing bend with his weight, and for a moment thinks it’s going to crack.
That would be one way to do it.
The wood holds though, and he begins to pull himself toward the pokemon, arms burning and breath coming in short pants. His eyes are fixed on his pokedex, bobbing closer with every hand.
Come on… three more… two… there…
He reaches out with one hand, fingers on his other screaming with his whole weight as he snatches the pokedex.
As soon as he has it in his grip and pulls, the spinarak scuttles under the branch, following it down as the webbing stretches. It points its stinger at his hand and dashes at him. Red gives a heroic yelp and lets go. “Rattata, down!”
He only has a heartbeat of weightlessness to curl protectively around the pokedex and lift his head before he hits the grass. He’d turned onto his side a bit while falling, and a knobby root sends a bolt of pain up his knee. When he looks up, he sees the pokedex is still attached by its damn string, now stretched long and thin. Red instinctively rolls just as the spinarak leaps down at him.
Completely unfazed by its fall, it dashes for him again, stinger forward. Red holds the pokedex tight as he whips his arm up and spins his whole body, using his uninjured knee as a pivot the way Hamato had.
The spinarak is lifted into the air, and finally releases the web rather than smash into the tree. It lands on its feet and leaps for Red again just as his rattata falls on it in a clawing, squealing fury.
Red forces himself to his feet and stuffs the pokedex in his pocket as he shouts, “Rattata, Quick Attack!”
His pokemon immediately disengages, then dashes in for a bite, running past the spinarak before it can retaliate. She’s breathing hard and bleeding from a number of wounds, but now so is the bug, its green and black abdomen leaking pale fluid.
“Quick Attack! Quick Attack!”
Rattata dashes at the arachnoid again and again, taking a quick nip out of it with each pass. The spinarak occasionally tries to leap at it, but Rattata is too fast on the open grass, juking from side to side before speeding in for another bite.
But Red can see his pokemon getting slower from the blood loss and poison. The time between attacks grows longer, and her exhaustion is palpable as she tumbles over the grass after a close dodge. The spinarak curls its abdomen and shoots a string of web at Rattata as she scrambles to her feet.
Red already has Charmander’s pokeball in one hand and Rattata’s in the other. He points it at her and yells “Rattata, return!” Quick as a blink, a red beam shoots out and reverts his pokemon to a glowing mass that’s sucked back into the open pokeball. The web is left behind, and Red feels a surge of relief. Rattata would be safe in her ball, wounds suspended until he could treat her. “Charmand-”
The spinarak leaps for him. Red rolls to the side, dropping Rattata’s pokeball as he tries to clip it back to his belt. He throws Charmander’s ball haphazardly as he comes up hard against a tree. “Charmander, go!”
The ball explodes with light and sound before shooting back into some bushes to Red’s side. He doesn’t spare it a glance, eyes on the fire lizard as it takes a bewildered moment to look around and orient itself to its new surroundings.
“Charmander, battle!”
Charmander snaps into a combat stance and focuses on the only other pokemon present. The spinarak’s forward charge slows. Maybe it thinks the rattata is still around somewhere, or maybe it’s the open flame at the tip of Charmander’s tail, but the spinarak begins to back away, its abdomen rising to shoot web at the branches above.
“Charmander, Scratch!” He doesn’t dare use ember: bugs are easily killed or crippled by fire, and now that he has his pokedex back, his priority is to capture it.
The spinarak is forced to leap aside as the lizard claws at it, arching its back and raising its body upright above its head, hissing. The black dots and stripe on its abdomen look like a frowning fa-
Freezing, empty night, no light or warmth, not cold but simple absence of heat, a vacuum of sensation or sound that unhinges his mind-
Red gasps, pain radiating from his chest. He’s lying face down in the grass, nose pressed against his breath mask with no memory of when he’d fallen.
Was I poisoned?
He can’t recall being stung, but a wave of nausea almost makes him hurl when he tries to remember the last thing he’d seen. Red raises his head and spots Charmander weaving erratically toward spinarak, as if he can’t get his balance right. Instead of pressing the advantage, the spinarak turns and begins to scuttle away.
“No… you… don’t,” Red wheezes. He forces himself up and pulls an empty ball from his pocket, holding it outstretched and bracing it on his uninjured knee. The max distance a pokeball beam will work is roughly ten meters, and the bug is almost out of range when he hears the
ping
of its lock. Heart in his throat, he throws…
…and misses, the ball bouncing on the grass to the right of the spinarak.
“Charmander, Scratch!”
The fire lizard leaps forward, stumbling onto all fours as he tries to recover from whatever had happened. His first claw attack misses, but his flaming tail keeps the spinarak from retaliating so he can get another attack in. This time his claws rake the spinarak’s body, drawing more clear ichor. The arachnoid hisses and jabs its stinger forward, barely missing as charmander jumps away.
Tossing dignity aside, Red crawls forward until he can aim another pokeball, focusing it on the spinarak as it rears up and shoots web at Charmander, sticking his legs together.
Just as it turns to run again, Red throws. The ball nails the spinarak in the thorax, and it vanishes with a flash.
Red collapses back onto his stomach. He still feels queasy, and takes deep breaths until his stomach settles a bit. Charmander struggles to free its legs from the webbing, then curls its tail around to burn the stuff off. Afterward he approaches Red with a chirp and curls up beside him, tail flame warming Red’s arm to just the edge of comfort. He checks to make sure Charmander isn’t injured, then reaches out to rub his smooth head. “Good boy, Charmander. You did great.”
His mask is beginning to hurt as it’s pressed against his face, and he flips himself onto his back with a sigh. After a minute he feels a bit more grounded, but he still can’t think of what had happened without intense discomfort. He groans in frustration, removing his face mask and pressing his palms to his eyes. It’s like there’s a part of his brain that’s broken, a memory scooped out to leave a raw wound that he keeps brushing up against.
The spinarak had hit Charmander with something, and Red, standing behind him, had been evidently hit much harder. It can only be a mental attack of some kind, but spinaraks aren’t usually capable of more than minor emotional manipulation, the type usually classified as Ghost attacks…
Chill fingers brush his spine. He’d never experienced a Psychic attack before, but he’d also never experienced a Ghost attack. He doesn’t know which it had been… but the fact that it was so strong pointed to two possibilities. Either his mind is incredibly vulnerable to all forms of Psychic attack, or… he’s psychic himself, and the attack had been a Ghost one that turned his own mental powers against him.
But I’m not a psychic.
He underwent the tests last year. They aren’t 100% accurate, a lot of psychics’ powers only manifest when they encounter others, but he tried all the practice techniques he could find just in case he was one of the rare few. What kid doesn’t dream of having special powers?
But now the thought of enduring things like… that… again makes Red reconsider the various advantages of even mild psychic abilities.
His thoughts are interrupted by his phone ringing, and he suddenly realizes he’s been holding still for awhile. Had he dropped behind the others’ positions? He takes his phone out and sees that Blue’s calling him.
“Hello?”
“Red! Chasing a caterpie right at you! Cut it off!” Blue sounds like he’s running.
Red blinks, then scrambles to his feet, ignoring the cry of protest from his knee. “What?! From where?” He looks around and realizes his pokemon are all scattered. He pulls his mask back on and hobbles forward to grab Rattata’s ball.
“Northeast! I’ll be on you in ten seconds! Catchers keepers, but just stop it from getting away!”
Blue hangs up, and Red stuffs his phone away and runs over to grab his new spinarak, attaching it to his belt and cursing his weakness. He’d wasted time he could have used to register his spinarak or heal Rattata. But a caterpie shouldn’t be hard to deal with, and all he has to do is stop it from running.
“Charmander, battle!” The lizard was watching him curiously as he dashed about, and now drops back into an aggressive stance. S
hit, where’s his ball?
It went somewhere in those bushes…
He hears Blue before he sees him, crashing through the underbrush like a stampeding tauros. Once he runs out from between some foliage, Red spots the caterpie bounding ahead of him. About as thick as Blue’s leg and half as long, its green segmented body blends in with the grass and leaves around it, whole body scrunching up to propel itself forward in a leap. It hops from grass to tree to bush. When it spots Red and Charmander waiting for it ahead, it aims its body straight up and flings itself up to a tree branch, sticky feet allowing it to start climbing.
“Not again,” Red mutters as he runs forward to meet Blue at the base of the tree. “Where’s Zephyr?”
“I was afraid he’d eat it,” Blue pants. “Can you send up your rattata?”
“She’s hurt.” Red looks at Charmander and hesitates for just a moment. “Get Squirtle out, I don’t want to start a forest fire. Charmander, Ember!” He points just ahead of the caterpie as Blue summons the water turtle.
Charmander looks up, then drops onto all fours. His tail relaxes downward before flicking sharply up, and the glob of fire hits the tree just in front of caterpie. It immediately curls up and shies away from the heat, falling to the grass.
Red and Blue have their pokeballs out and ready, both
pinging
almost simultaneously. The balls collide mid-air and bounce away from each other, and Red sees Blue’s hand move in a blur, already replacing Squirtle’s ball and grabbing another empty one. Red is still aiming his second when Blue’s new ball locks, and a moment later the caterpie’s gone in a flash.
“Squirtle, Water Gun!” A jet of water splatters against the branch and puts out the fire. Blue rubs the turtle’s shell, then withdraws her.
Red does the same with Charmander after retrieving his ball from the bushes, trying not to feel disappointed as they gather up the pokeballs that missed. “Nice catch.”
Blue smirks and bows in the foreign style their generation uses mockingly, one arm across his stomach and the other to the side with one heel planted forward. “Thanks for the assist. That’s four to two now.” Blue takes out his pokedex and registers his new caterpie, beginning its virtual training.
“Four to three, actually,” Red says as he does the same with his new pokemon.
“Oh right, you said Rattata’s hurt. Whatcha get?”
“Spinarak.”
“Shit, that’s a good one. I got a shroomish.”
“With Squirtle?”
“Yeah, she’s pretty drained. It kept running through bushes so Zephyr couldn’t grab it, and I couldn’t get a clear throw. Got scratched to hell chasing it.”
“Tell me about it. This damn bug nearly made me break my neck…”
They exchange stories as they heal up their pokemon. Red doesn’t mention the mental attack, still not quite sure what to make of it. It would sound like bragging if he emphasizes the possibility that he’s psychic. And what if he’s wrong? He would just sound weak.
I need to do some research first.
He considers writing a note to remind himself, then realizes he’s not likely to forget the event. He shudders slightly just thinking about it.
Red looks over his medical supplies once he finishes spraying Rattata’s wounds with some antivenom and a healing potion. He has six more potions, three more antidotes, and two each of paralyze and burn heals. Red watches Blue spray a bit of his own anti-burn medicine on his new caterpie, while Red uses one of his potions to heal his spinarak’s wounds.
It’s hard to look at the arachnoid’s green and black abdomen, expecting another burst of mental torment at any second. But nothing happens, and Red strokes his new pokemon tentatively after feeding it some berries. After he withdraws it, he checks the pokedex entry:
Spinarak is a patient hunter that can wait motionlessly for several days for unsuspecting prey. Even juvenile specimen can spin webbing as strong as iron, and adults have been known to spin strands five times as strong as an equal weight of steel. The patterns on their backs are used to project some forms of mental attacks in an outward cone, and the venom in its forehead stinger can melt flesh into a nutrient-rich soup within their cocoons.
His seems to fall within the averages for weight and size. Red begins to look for more details on their mental attacks when his phone chimes. A moment later, both his and Blue’s phones chime at the same time.
They look at each other and say “Leaf!” before pulling their phones out. Red flushes as he realizes he’d forgotten to tell her that they’d stopped moving. It had been just Blue and him for so long that he’d forgotten… if she was hurt because of their negligence…
“
Come quick as you can!”
had been the second message. The first had been a CoRRNet alert… with Leaf as the author.
“This way!” Red takes off through the trees quick as he dares, keeping one eye on his phone’s map and the other on the ground for roots or ditches. The wilderness training he’d gone through, first in class as a kid and then with Blue over the past year, had taught him how dangerous running through forests can be, especially with low light, and he tries desperately not to twist his ankle as he hurries to Leaf’s location, the pain from his knee getting worse with every step. Leaf didn’t press her panic button, taking the time to write out a ticket on CoRRNet instead, so what-
They find Leaf just before reaching a clearing. She’s crouched around the side of a tree, and puts her finger over her lips as soon as she turns and sees them.
“Quiet. Look.” She points.
Still catching their breath, Red and Blue look past her. It takes a moment for Red to realize what he’s seeing.
The clearing is full of flowers. Above them, a swarm of at least a dozen beedrill fly from one to the other, collecting pollen.
And lying on the ground in the middle of the field is a body.
The forest was dark and full of monsters, but Red wasn’t afraid. The bravest man in the world sat across the fire, and Red knew nothing would happen to him while Tomio Verres was near.
“The most important thing to remember is that everything contains risk, Red. Everything.”
Red watched his father turn the spit over the bed of cinders. “You mean like how you can choke while eating?”
Tomio smiled. “Exactly.” His other hand poured a packet of soy sauce on the pidgey meat. The fire hissed and snapped as the sauce dripped down with the meat’s juices, and the sharp scent filled the air, combating the damp, green smells of the woods. “So tell me, what risks are we taking right now?”
Red thought it over as he carefully peeled the bark from a stick. His father had given the dagger to him last night for his eighth birthday, and he’d been itching to use it all day. He watched each peel of bark curl up, carefully adjusting his grip if it became too thin or thick. “I guess just being here instead of staying at home is a risk. But the fire is the real problem, since it might bring pokemon. Also, the smell of the meat might attract predators.” As he spoke, he imagined sharp teethed pokemon circling the camp just out of sight, slowly drawing in to pounce on his back. The back of his neck tightened, but he resisted the urge to look behind him. His dad would see if there was a pokemon sneaking up on him, and Kage would alert them if any came near.
The mightyena rested with its head on its forelimbs beside the fire, a shadow in the island of light. One eye was open, reflecting the fire as it watched the pidgey meat, nose twitching. Red checked his new spit for splinters, then handed it to his dad, who speared a pair of wings and legs onto it. “What about if we had stayed home? It’s safe there. There are wards around town to alert us if dangerous pokemon come by, and others to help defend us.”
“Well. We might have fallen down the stairs at home.”
Red’s dad smiled and said nothing.
So Red considered some of the dangers back at Pallet Town. He could drown at the beach, but the obvious answer was to just not swim. He could get run over by a car, but they’re so uncommon and easy to avoid that it’s not likely. He eventually realized he was thinking in circles. Everything was too similar to falling down the stairs to be what his dad had in mind. He tried to think of unpredictable dangers like storms, and as a glimmer of understanding surfaced, he thought out loud. “Well… If I stayed home all the time, I wouldn’t learn as much. I could read about wilderness survival, but knowing how to gather food or build a fire properly takes practice. And if I never left home, I’d never get experience in training or defending against wild pokemon. Which might be okay, if I live my whole life at home or in a city. Or it might be deadly, if something unexpected happens. I would basically be gambling that I wouldn’t need that experience and knowledge later.”
“Put another way?”
“Put another way…” Red took his cap off and scratched his head, then left it off so he could feel the wind in his sweaty hair. His mom had taught him to write with as much breadth as possible before editing down to the basics, cutting the fat from the ideas until the core message stood stark and irrefutable. That’s what his dad wanted. “Put another way, if I stayed home I wouldn’t be learning to manage risk. Letting others keep you safe is a risk in itself, a gamble on the long run that you’ll always be protected.”
“Full marks.”
Pride warmed Red deeper than the fire reached. His dad took the first pidgey off the sticks holding it up, and after blowing on the meat a bit, slid it to the end of its spit and offered it to Kage. His mightyena extended his neck without rising and chomped it off the spit, spilling half of the pidgey to the grass. The dark canine began to feast, light bones cracking in his powerful jaws.
“So what are we doing to mitigate our risk right now, Red?”
“Well. First we used some repel to mask our scent. We chose a dense part of the woods so the firelight doesn’t go far. And as a last resort, Kage is ready to defend us if anything comes by.”
Tomio nodded. “What else?”
Red racked his brain to think of what he’d missed. “Our clothes? Nothing bright green or yellow, nothing tan or purple.”
“Yes. Nothing that resembles prey in the area. What else?”
Red frowned. He picked up a third stick and began to peel it. The minutes crawled by, and when he realized he was focusing more on how much time was passing than finding the answer, he shook his head.
“Where are we?” his dad asked.
“About eight kilometers west of Pallet Town.”
“What’s nearby us?”
Red blinked. “Uh… besides Pallet Town… the beach is about two kilometers south… the southern shore, I mean. The western shore is another seven…”
His dad waited silently, still turning the meat as he pours soy sauce on the second pidgey. Eventually he said, “You can check your map.”
Red did so, brow furrowed. His dad rarely told him straight out how he was wrong, instead letting him flail about and find out himself. It was far more embarrassing than the way they taught in school, where the hammer fell quickly at least. But then, there’s less of an audience with his dad than there was in school, especially when Blue wasn’t with them.
Red expanded the map until he saw it. “There’s a Ranger outpost two kilometers up from us. North, I mean.” Now that he saw it, he remembered there being one to the northwest of Pallet. He hadn’t realized it was so close.
“That’s right. To further minimize our risk in camping out, we chose to spend the night near a Ranger outpost. Being constantly aware of your location helps you not get lost, but what if you were in trouble? What if your phone was broken, or your pokeballs were running low on power? You might have tried to go all the way back to Pallet, when there’s help much closer.”
Red put his phone away, cheeks burning. The words were spoken without rebuke, but Red hated missing obvious things. He bit his tongue, pushing down the excuses that tried to bubble up. Whether he’d been lazy or just forgetful didn’t matter. “So why aren’t we spending the night with them?”
“Because I wanted to spend some alone time with my birthday boy.”
Red looked up and saw his dad’s smile. His frustration melted away, and Red finished peeling the stick with a smile before handing it to him.
“So would you say the risk has been properly negated?” Tomio said as he took the spit and speared more meat onto it.
“I guess so, yeah.”
“What else could we do to be safer, other than camping closer to the outpost?”
“I could have my own pokemon,” Red said automatically.
Tomio laughed, and Red grinned. He knew his dad wouldn’t break the licensing regulations, but he hadn’t given up on the loophole that allowed kids to use pokemon registered to their parents. He wanted a pokemon of his own so bad that just looking at his dad’s full belt made his fingers itch to touch the cold spheres.
“I don’t know that a budew or azurill would be of much use for keeping us safe.”
“I could get a riolu, or a tyrogue.”
Red’s dad shook his head, still grinning. “I’d rather not come home one day and find you with a cracked rib because your training got a bit out of hand. What else could we do?”
Red let it go while his dad was still in a good mood. “You could bring out another pokemon.” He knew his dad was more than capable of commanding two at once in combat.
Tom nodded, face serious again. “I could. Who would you suggest?”
“Kaze could fly around and let us know if something’s coming from the air. Nintai could go underground in case of tunneling pokemon.”
“In a forest?”
Red shrugs. “Kūfuku could use roots…”
His dad smiled and stood. He took out a pokeball and aimed it one handed at the ground far from the fire. “Kūfuku, kimi ni kimeta!”
The flash lit up the night for a split second, and then a victreebel was with them, its long vine immediately digging into the ground as it flexed its leaves and opened its wide mouth to the sky. Its eyes rolled to take in its surroundings, and it relaxed as it found itself at home. Tomio ran a hand over the plant pokemon’s bulbous body and dug a pokeblock out of his pocket with the other. He murmured a greeting as he dropped the pokeblock into its gaping mouth, then stood back.
“Kūfuku, ne o uero,
” he said, and his pokemon began extending roots through the soil.
Tomio sat back down and carefully placed the second stick of meat on a small plate before handing it to Red. “Why those pokemon?”
Red accepted the plate with thanks, and began blowing on a wing, belly rumbling. “Kage’s nose is strong enough to warn us of most things approaching, but there would be no scent if it comes from underground, or dives from above.”
“Good. So why did I bring out Kūfuku and not Kaze?”
Red hesitated. “Because there are no pokemon native to this area that dive to attack their foes,” he said, trying to sound confident.
“Was that a guess?”
“It… an informed guess. Yes.”
His father nodded. “A good guess.” Red relaxed. “Spearow and Fearow do, but they do not fly by night. So in total our risk-“
“Dad? There’s something else we could do.’
“Such as?”
“We could light other fires.”
Tomio’s hands paused while seasoning his food, face thoughtful. “As decoys.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think we should do that?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Because leaving unattended fires can be dangerous, even if we build them carefully.”
“So why bring it up?”
“Because it’s an option, even if a dangerous one. It could be worth the risk. If I were here alone I might do it.”
“A manageable risk, to reduce a risk you have no control over.”
“Right.”
“Good.” Red’s dad finished cooking his meal, then joined Red on his side of the firebed. He placed a hand on Red’s hair, then bent to kiss his head. “Yoku dekimashita, Red.”
Red leaned against his father’s side, eating his dinner and feeling warmed from the inside and out.
“
Remember, nothing is without risk, but risk is manageable. Risk is the balance between the danger of an action, and what the actor is capable of. A skilled trainer manages risks at all times and stays alive. A skilled and
smart
trainer thinks beyond the obvious risks of action, and find ways to do the impossible. Where such men and women go, legends bloom like flowers in their wake.”
As soon as Red gets over his shock, he whips his bag around one shoulder and scrambles for the zipper along the side. “Repel,” he hisses to Blue. “Now!” He pulls out the canister, pops the top, and sprays himself liberally, breathing deep to recover from the sprint through the woods and to keep himself from panicking.
The body is too far to see clearly through the grass and flowers, but the tallish figure and short hair makes it appear to be a young man. There are red blotches on his clothes, but not enough to tell if he’s dead. Red tries to hold onto that hope, though it makes him anxiously aware of every passing second the venom might be creeping through the man’s veins…
Risk = Magnitude of loss x Probability that loss will occur. M is death for all of us, and P is almost certain. So that’s bad.
“Shiiit,” Blue says, quietly but with feeling as he pants for breath and sprays himself with repel. “How long-”
“Less than a minute ago,” Leaf murmurs, barely audible over the buzzing. He offers his canister to her, but she shakes her head and holds up her own empty can. “I followed one of the beedrill here, and saw it… him… already lying there.”
Easiest variable to reduce is M, which means leveraging our pokemon’s safety. P needs to go down either way. What are our tools?
Blue already has his hand on a pokeball. “We need to watch their pattern, wait for an opening. Two of us can provide cover while the third goes to help him.”
Wait,
Red mouths soundlessly as his mind races.
Half a meter per second, sustained for up to 40 seconds-no good-which way is the wind blowing?
Leaf is nodding as Red sucks on a finger and holds it up. “A distraction. Red, you taught charmander smokescreen, it’s perfect to keep them away. Bulbasaur could use his sleep powder on any that get through.”
“You’ve trained him in sleep powder?” Blue asks her.
“Yeah, we caught a ledyba with it before I found this place.”
“Wait,” Red whispers as yet another beedrill join the swarm.
Moderate wind to the west, won’t work.
Spinarak isn’t trained, can’t use web, beedrill could dive through sleep powder and sting before being affected-
“Then I’ll start with Zephyr and whip the smoke into them. You and Bulbasaur-
“
Wait.
”
They both look at him.
“We need to wait. The nearest ranger outpost is kilometers away. They’ll be here in eight minutes at most from when you sent your alert, Leaf. This swarm is too big to handle on our own.”
Blue looks at him in disgust. “We can’t just sit here while they could be dying out there!”
“Keep your voice down,” Red says. “This isn’t a cartoon. Against six beedrill, we might stand a chance. At least we could try to get away if things go bad. Against nine, we would need to each personally take down three beedrill, which none of our pokemon are capable of. But even nine would be better odds than this. There are over a dozen beedrill out there-”
“I’m not saying we need to beat them all, but if we’re careful we can at least distract them long enough to check if that guy’s alive.”
Red shakes his head, still breathing hard from the run as he tries to put his thoughts in order. “My charmander’s smokescreen covers half a square meter per second, and double that vertically. It could hide one person moving slowly, but I wouldn’t be able to see anything from inside it, which means I wouldn’t be able to check for and treat wounds.” Red’s voice cracks, and he takes another deep breath to steady his voice, fists clenched against the ground. “Blowing the smoke into the field won’t work either, the wind will disperse it too quickly.”
“So we try to draw them a bit at a time,” Leaf says.
Blue shakes his head with a frown. “They attack in swarms. Pull one and you usually pull others. But we don’t have to hold them long, eight minutes-”
“Eight minutes with at least four on each of us,” Red says. “Maybe more. None of our pokemon can protect us from all of them, and we can’t outrun them. Zephyr and Crimson can handle at least a couple each, but unless you’re paying close attention you won’t be able to withdraw them at a safe time. And you won’t be paying attention, because the rest will be on you. The repel will mask our scent, but it’ll do nothing once they see us.”
“We could bring out all of our pokemon,” Blue says. “They can hold them off long enough to check-”
Red meets Blue’s gaze. “No bluster, Blue. No bragging. Think before you answer, because you’re gambling with your pokemons’ lives, and ours. Are you really that confident you could command four at once? Two you just caught?”
Blue’s eyes are dark and deep as the sea in a storm, no longer the sparkling blue of his grandfather’s. “Yes,” he says after at least ten seconds, which is still longer than Red had expected. “Maybe not the caterpie. He wouldn’t do much against them anyway, but the others, yeah. I’ve watched gramps. I’ve seen a hundred vids. I’ve practiced in VR sims. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I can do it.”
Red looks at Leaf. “You?”
She shrugs. “Bulbasaur and Crimson, probably.”
“So let’s say I try with Charmander and my rattata. We’re still outnumbered over two to one.”
“We took on bad odds with the rattata cluster.”
“We
ran
from that rattata cluster. Beedrill are faster, and won’t give up as easily. Not to mention the whole point is to help the guy out there, which we can’t do while all of us are focusing on the beedrill.”
“Squirtle can-” Blue whips his head around, and Red hears it a moment later: buzzing approaching from their side instead of the din in the field.
They all get to their feet, pokeballs in hand, but the three insects pass by them without slowing and join the others in the flower field. Up close, the pokemon’s forelimb stingers look wickedly sharp, their yellow and black bodies lean and deadly.
Red crouches down again, legs shaking at the near miss, and Leaf leans against the tree with a relieved sigh. Blue pounds a fist into the grass as the three join the rest of the swarm, along with yet another from the other side of the clearing, bringing the total upwards of twenty.
Red looks back at the man in the field, searching for any twitch or sign of life. “There’s too many. Fighting on mostly instinct and outnumbered, our pokemon will die. We probably would too. If we know that guy out there is alive, maybe it would be worth the risk, but…” Red’s distantly aware that his legs are still trembling, as are his arms. He forces his gaze away from the… body. “It’s not. You understand? It’s not worth the risk. We’d most likely just get ourselves and our pokemon killed for nothing. That’s not what responsible trainers do. We need to be ready to assist the rangers when they arrive. If there are only a couple they might need our help, but until then we need to-” His voice breaks, and he closes his eyes as they start to burn.
Something, there has to be something we can do…
“-stay safe. Whoever’s out there… is probably already d-dead…”
Like dad, dead even though he understood the risks, dead because at the end of the day he chose to put himself at risk to protect others, I’m sorry dad, I can’t…
There’s a hand on his shoulder.
Left hand, right shoulder, Leaf
. A moment later Blue’s is on his left, and together they wait, the air filled with the buzzing of the swarm.
Bulbasaur can send powder up and have Zephyr blow it into field: should get some of them, but the rest will notice us… we can try to lure some here and set up a smokescreen to keep the rest from following, taking them out a few at a time, but if any go around the smokescreen we’ll be overwhelmed… Squirtle can draw their attention and stay in her shell to stay safe, but Blue has to be nearby to give commands…
Nothing. There’s nothing they can do. Red takes another minute to finish internalizing that, then takes a deep breath and raises his head, feeling a bit more in control of himself. He wipes at his face, then nods his thanks to the other two and stands. “Be on the lookout for the rangers, they’ll probably be coming from the east across the clearing.”
“Let’s circle around then,” Leaf says, and leads the way through the trees. Red follows Blue after her and tries to keep an eye on the beedrill. A few leave the swarm as they walk, but to the northwest. Red quickly takes out his phone and draws a cone on his map in that direction, estimating where their hive might be so he can avoid it in the future. He can look up foraging ranges to make a better estimation later.
Thankfully the repel seems to be keeping them safe while the beedrill are busy. Red watches another one finish drinking its fill of nectar before flying off for home, its lower limbs coated in pollen. He wonders if the person in the field had been resting there when the swarm arrived, or if they had been foolish enough to try to capture a beedrill while they were foraging. Perhaps only one had been here at first, and the others had taken him by surprise. Either way, where’s his pokemon
?
As far as Red can tell, the body is alone.
They reach the eastern side of the clearing a few minutes before the Rangers appear through the trees. As Red had guessed there’s two of them, an investigative pair comprised of a senior riding a meganium and a junior on the back of an ursaring. Red doesn’t recognize either of them, and for a moment he feels homesick for the familiar, competent presence of the Rangers around Pallet Town. Then the two are dismounting and withdrawing their pokemon, and Red takes a step forward.
“Sitrep, one civ down, possibly trainer, surrounded by fifteen to twenty passive beedrill. Aid is one charmander, squirtle, bulbasaur, two rattata, two pidgey. Trained suppression skills are smokescreen and sleep powder.” He doesn’t mention their new captures: even if he considered them reliable, the Rangers wouldn’t.
The junior Ranger’s brow rises, but the senior doesn’t blink as he sizes the three up. His eyes linger a moment on Red’s clothes: the red and white of his jacket and black of his shirt makes him match the Ranger uniform color scheme. “You were right to alert us. All three of you are willing to assist?” They confirm, and he nods. “Pokeball count?”
“I have six.” Red glances at the others.
“Five,” Leaf says, while Blue holds up five fingers.
“Good. I’m Ranger Akio, this is Ranger Metis. Please stand by while we assess the situation.”
Red barely steps aside in time to avoid being shoved as they pass. The two Rangers stand at the edge of the clearing and begin to confer in low voices. Red’s gas mask is strong enough to mute the repel he used on himself, but the strength of the Rangers’ repellent still goes through his air filters. Their uniforms are smudged and stained by what seems like a rough few days in the woods, and they stand with the steady confidence of professionals.
The knot of tension in Red’s chest has eased somewhat seeing them. The authorities are here now, and he can relax a bit. The three trainers wait together quietly, ready to act on the Ranger’s command.
But after a couple minutes pass, Red feels his impatience begin to return. He realizes he’s rocking back and forth on his heels, and reminds himself that he’s the one that insisted on waiting for their judgement and assistance.
Blue eventually begins to pace, both hands spinning pokeballs and swapping them with those at his belt with a speed and skill that’s mesmerizing to watch. Red tears his gaze away and sees Leaf watching the Rangers as they murmur to each other, the senior pointing at the far end of the field. She seems more patient than he and Blue, though there’s a crease between her brow.
“So. A ledyba, huh?”
Leaf glances at him.
He smiles crookedly and shrugs. “I could use some distraction, and you seem pretty calm.”
She lets out a breath of amusement through her nose and nods, turning away from the field. “Wish I felt calmer. Yeah, I got the ledyba about half an hour in. It was caught in a spinarak web. I couldn’t get a lock on it, so I had bulbasaur prep some sleep powder, then cut it out with razor leaves.”
“Razor leaves too, huh? You’ve been busy.”
She smiles. “What about you?”
“I got a spinarak, actually. Wonder if you stole its dinner.”
“Wow. Spinarak’s a nice catch.”
“Yeah, ledyba too. Lots of support and impairment.”
She nods, and then they’re silent again. The quiet is filled with the distant buzzing of the swarm and the mutters of the Rangers. Red’s knee continues to ache, and he bends down a bit to rub it gently. After a moment he straightens with a sigh. “Want to know how big an ass I am?” he asks quietly. “There’s someone lying out there either dying or dead, and I feel slighted because I’m not being included in the discussion on how to help them.”
“I know. I feel like my mom sent me out of the room so she could discuss ‘adult things.’ What do you think is taking so long?”
“Their main priority is protecting people, but they’re also guardians of wild pokemon and the environment. Since we don’t know if that guy’s alive, my guess is they’re trying to minimize collateral damage. Something heavy handed could have repercussions that harm a lot of others.”
“Like what?”
“Beedrill keep a lot of the plants in the forest spreading, and cull a lot of pokemon that move into their turf. This looks like a big chunk of a colony: if they’re all taken out, it could be enough to shift the ecology of this part of the forest in ways that are hard to predict.” Talking helps calm Red’s impatience, and he lets out a breath, stretching his arms behind his head. “Or if it’s part of a huge colony, the rest might go on a feeding frenzy to make up their losses. They might even migrate as a swarm. If the Rangers have a couple fully evolved fire pokemon, they could burn all the beedrill up in seconds, but that would be a last resort. Coming up with safe alternatives is harder.”
“Well, I’m happy to help however I can. But being kept out of discussing a plan that will involve my pokemon feels shitty.”
“Yeah. It’s probably because of how young we are. If we had a badge or two to flash around-”
“It’s insulting, is what it is,” Blue says, not keeping his voice as low as theirs. “Treating us like civs. If they knew who we are…”
Red rolls his eyes, though he’s smiling. “Who
we
are? That’s pretty generous of you.”
Leaf laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think ‘Juniper’ carries much weight around here.”
“You might be surprised,” Red says. “Your grandfather is pretty well respected, and some people even know of your mom’s work.”
“By ‘some people,’ he means the eggheads at the lab,” Blue says to Leaf.
“Bit of a biased reference pool, then.”
“Still,” Red says. “Unless these guys knew my dad, being the son of a Ranger and journalist doesn’t inspire much awe.”
Blue frowns at him. “Hey, you may not be an Oak by blood, but gramps doesn’t send just anyone out in the world with his babies. And no, I’m not talking about me,” he says as Leaf opens her mouth, and she covers her grin with a hand.
Red shrugs. “I think others would just call it nepotism.”
“Ahh, that’s crap.” Blue hooks an arm around Red’s neck. “Give it a few years and I bet ‘Verres’ will be a household Kanto name.”
Red flushes a bit at the unexpected compliment, trying to think of a reply when Blue knocks his hat off and begins grinding his knuckles in his hair. “After all, someone’s going to have to write my biography, ya know? Who better than the kid who watched the legend begin?”
Red curses and grabs for his hat, which leaves him defenseless to the noogie. Leaf leans against a nearby tree as she tries to muffle her giggles, and Blue spins in place so Red’s punches only graze his ribs.
Suddenly Leaf stands straight, face serious. The boys disengage and turn to see the Rangers approaching. Ranger Metis is frowning at them, but Akio merely watches impassively as they straighten their clothing and stand at attention. “We have a plan. Are you still interested in assisting?”
Red’s cheeks are hot as he nods along with the others. “Sorry sir, just nerves.”
If you don’t want to seem like a feckless kid, stop acting like one.
“We’re ready. What do you need us to do?”
Even through his mask filters, the air is cloyingly sweet.
Red breathes through his mouth as he watches the meganium’s petals flap up and down, wafting more and more of its sweet scent into the air. They had separated the group, with Akio and Blue to the southeast of the clearing while Red, Leaf and Metis stay on the eastern side. Red can’t see Ranger Akio’s expression from this far, but sitting on the pokemon’s back, so close to the petals, the smell must be overwhelming.
He’s probably used to it by now.
Blue on the other hand clearly isn’t, and even from a distance Red can see that his friend’s face is a grimace of disgust. He stands ready though, pokeball in one hand and flute in the other. After another few moments, when the scent feels tangible as cotton candy against Red’s tongue, Akio gives Blue the signal.
“Zephyr, go!” Blue’s pokeball flashes mid-air, and Zephyr swoops out, taking a moment to orient itself in the unfamiliar trees. Blue catches his pokeball with one hand and sticks his flute between his lips with the other, then points and blows a quick pair of notes.
The bird comes up behind Blue and hovers in the air as it begins to flap, small body bounding up and down mid air with every powerful sweep of its wings. Stronger and stronger gusts blow into the clearing, and it doesn’t take long for the beedrill to stop foraging and turn as one toward the source of the scent.
The buzzing of the field reaches a frenzied pitch, and Red feels a thrill of fear in his guts as the swarm suddenly dives toward Akio and his meganium. Blue has already withdrawn Zephyr and is running toward Red, Leaf and Metis.
Ranger Akio waits to ensure the trainer is clear, then slaps his pokemon’s side with a “Ha!”
The meganium leaps into the trees, swiftly disappearing through the foliage on its four powerful legs. Plant pokemon are not particularly known for speed, but meganium is one of the faster among them, and just barely outspeeds the average beedrill. The Ranger’s is no doubt also trained to be quick, and as long as their luck holds out, Akio should be able to keep the majority of the swarm focused on him until they’re far enough to cut the scent trail.
Meanwhile, Metis has already bounded off into the field with his ursaring. They decided not to stay in the clearing, even with the added risk of moving the body, in case any beedrill return or don’t follow Ranger Akio.
As indeed some haven’t. Red watches from the treeline as the powerful ursine swats a beedrill out of the air when it dives at him. The bug hits the ground and stays down, stunned or too hurt to fly again, but there are another four on the outskirts that suddenly turn their focus on Ranger Metis. Red tears his gaze away to crouch beside Charmander.
“Ok buddy, just like we practiced. Smokescreen. Charmander, smokescreen.”
Charmander’s head snaps up to Red, then he shivers a bit, eyes closing. A thick, heavy smog begins to pour from his tail, spreading and rising under the tree branch like a curtain between the field and the rest of the forest.
“Good job. Good boy,” he says, stroking his pokemon’s smooth head. “More, smokescreen.” He looks at the field as the smoke rises around him, starting to obscure his vision.
Faster, faster…
The last thing he sees is Ranger Metis carefully placing the body on the ursaring’s back before hopping back on and running toward him, the four beedrill in pursuit.
Then the smoke is everywhere, and Red can only crouch still so he doesn’t get barreled over. Ursaring aren’t nearly as fast as meganium, and the beedrill would swiftly close the distance. His heart hammers in his throat as he waits, keeping his hand on charmander so he knows where he is.
A few moments later the ursaring dashes through the smoke to Red’s right, a dark mass of furred muscle that takes some of the smoke with it. Then two beedrill zoom over him, more smoke dislodged in their wake. He hears the two beyond the smokescreen veer off, and says “Charmander, stop.” He picks his pokemon up and walks back through the smoke until it clears.
When it does, he sees the two beedrill lying on the grass a dozen feet away. They’d flown straight into the cloud of sleep powder that bulbasaur is raining down from a branch in a nearby tree. Leaf is beside him with a small bucket that they’d filled with sleep spores beforehand.
“All clear!” he says. “The other two turned back.” Red puts charmander down and waits, listening for any newly approaching buzz as the smoke slowly fades. He hears Leaf withdraw bulbasaur, and by the time she gets down from the tree, the smoke is diffuse enough for them to see the field again. The remaining two beedrill return to drinking nectar, taking no mind of them. A newcomer has already joined them, and the one that had been knocked down by the ursaring slowly rises back into the air.
Red lets a breath out and turns to see Blue jogging over, Zephyr on his shoulder. “Nice job. That was perfect timing with that powder, Leaf.”
“Thanks. You guys did great too.”
Red shrugs. He’d performed a simple task with minimal risk. Leaf approaches the unconscious beedrill warily and dumps her bucket of powder onto them. Then the three trainers go to Ranger Metis, who’s crouched beside the body.
Everyone is silent, an air of tension making the forest seem oddly quiet and still. Or maybe that’s just the much quieter buzz of the remaining beedrill.
The body lies limp, mouth slightly parted and eyes closed. The Ranger has two fingers pressed to the young man’s neck, face impassive as he waits for a pulse. Impassive, but not indifferent: it’s an expression of control Red has seen on his father’s face. An expression of enduring.
The trainer’s wounds are hard to make out clearly. The back of his blue jacket is caked with blood where it pooled, but since he’s lying on it again it’s easy to look elsewhere. There are punctures along his torso, though it’s hard tell how many due to the spread of blood. Lacerations run along one arm and up his neck and jaw, leaving the rest of his face relatively unblemished. Red can see the Ranger’s potion and antidote bottles sitting on the grass, the droplets of their spray still glistening on the visible wounds. Their hypercoagulant properties have stopped any blood flow, but no new skin is growing over the wounds.
“Revive capsule?” Leaf says, voice hollow.
Ranger Metis shakes his head, once. “No swallow reflex.” He removes his fingers. “He’s gone. Lost too much blood, and the venom…”
A horrible weight is slowly pressing in Red’s stomach as he looks at the young man’s face. Blonde, with a round chin and a few days of beard growth. In death he looks barely older than Red. “How long…”
“Hard to tell without taking a temperature reading. He’s not stiff yet, so probably no more than a few hours.” Ranger Metis lets out a breath and rises, leaning against his ursaring’s neck and scratching its ear as he turns his face away.
Blue mutters something that gets lost in his face mask and stomps off, while Leaf walks to a nearby tree and sinks to the ground with her back against it, eyes closed.
Red continues to stand where he is, staring at the young man’s face. He’s dimly aware of his pulse speeding up, breath becoming faster and more shallow. He wants to ask if there’s any chance they could have saved him, if acting sooner would have helped… but he already knows there’s no answer. The trainer might have bled out before Leaf found him, or he might have died a few minutes after. Past that, it’s unlikely he’d have survived such blood loss.
This isn’t my fault. I can’t blame myself for making the right choice.
He repeats it to himself as the world grows a bit fuzzy around the edges, distantly aware that he’s close to hyperventilating in his mask. He tears it off and takes deep breaths, willing himself to calm down.
Not my fault. Not my fault…
The ursaring makes a chuffing noise and sits, Metis still rubbing its head. Now that Red notices the pokemon’s proximity, its size is intimidating. He meets its solid brown eyes and sees none of the razor focus of Trainer Donovan’s skarmory. Instead, the ursaring’s gaze is the very definition of neutral. It simply watches him, waiting. If he leaves it alone, it’ll leave him alone. If he attacks, it’ll snap his neck with one swipe. Things could go one way or the other, and the ursaring simply doesn’t care.
It looks away from him, gaze moving over the body, then off into the trees as its jaw gapes in a yawn. Unimpressed. Despite everything, Red’s lips twitch briefly with the ghost of a smile. The ursaring’s utter disinterest is grounding, in a way, and his breathing begins to even out. For the vast majority of the world and its inhabitants, life will go on. In the grand scheme of things, the web of tragedy and heartbreaks that will spread from this death are relatively minimal.
As soon as he thinks that, an echo of soul-cracking despair makes Red shudder, and he sways on his feet.
Minimal. Right.
He suddenly wants to call his mother. Hear her voice. He forces himself to remember the ursaring’s indifference, and after a moment the ache numbs a bit.
Ranger Metis finishes drawing comfort from his pokemon and steps away to withdraw it. He clips its pokeball to his belt slowly, then turns to consider the body, face once again a mask. “I’m going to identify him and record his death, then make preparations to transport him. There’s no need for you to be around for all that.” He turns to Red, and the other two as they approach again. “You did well. As thanks, please capture those two beedrill before they awaken. Then I suggest you find a safe place to camp. It will be dark soon.”
“If it’s alright,” Leaf says, “I would like to know who he was.”
Metis looks at her a moment. “Knowing will make it harder.”
“I want to know too,” Blue says, and Red nods.
We owe him that much, at least.
Metis meets each of their gazes. His face softens a bit, and he turns away. “Alright. On the condition that you will keep it to yourselves until after we’ve had a chance to inform his family.”
They agree, and watch as Metis respectfully begins to pat the young man’s pockets down. He finds the wallet in his jacket, and extracts it to pull out the Trainer ID.
“Luke Koyama, Age 26. Home, Cremini Town. License issued March 3rd, 1492.”
There’s a moment of quiet as Ranger Metis puts the ID back. Red’s eyes are drawn to Luke’s pokeball belt, where four balls rest. “Was there a pokemon or pokeball out there with him?”
Metis pauses. “No. Not that I saw. I’ll double check before the swarm gets back. Now go catch those beedrill before they wake.”
Blue turns away, and Red and Leaf follow. They approach the sleeping pokemon without getting too close. One of them is still as stone, but the other’s wings are slowly flexing.
Each of the beedrill is about as tall as Red, their forelimb blades as long as his arms. The idea of applying human morality to barely sentient beings should be silly, but beedrill had always struck Red as an
evil
species, vicious in a way even the most commonly feared ghost and dark type pokemon are often not.
No sense getting mad at a pokemon for acting in its nature,
his father had told him once, but he can’t help but study their blades, trying to spot any signs of blood…
“You guys take them,” Blue says just as Red opens his mouth. “You took bigger risks.”
Leaf frowns at him. “What? You practically bathed in that beedrill bait. I was scared stiff thinking half of them would go after you.”
“Zephyr blew most of it away, and the beedrill knew the meganium was the source. If a few more had gone after you and Red-”
“I don’t want one.”
They both look at him. He shrugs a shoulder, keeping his gaze on the one starting to wake. “I don’t want one. They don’t really interest me, from a research perspective. So you guys should take them.” He walks away before they can reply, staring out in the direction Ranger Akio had gone.
You’re being irrational,
Future Red mutters in the more distant recesses of his mind.
There are two of them and three of us. If someone has to go without, it might as well be me.
Rationalize it all you want, but you took us out of the running for purely emotional reasons. It feels good to you now, but I might need a beedrill someday.
So catch one then. They’re not rare.
Would that have made a difference? What if you come across a dragonair that had killed someone? Excuse me, that
might
have killed someone.
Is it so bad to not want a pokemon that might have killed a person?
The point of catching pokemon is to
stop
them from killing people. One of the points, anyway.
There are a pair of flashes and twin explosions of sound behind Red that light up the forest briefly. He looks up, noticing for the first time how dark it’s getting.
Well, it’s moot now.
You’ll have to deal with it again eventually.
Technically,
you
will. Then you might not find it so easy to cast judgement.
His prospective mental voice grumbles a bit, but quiets down. Blue and Leaf approach, and Red turns to them.
“We’re not counting these as part of our catches,” Blue says. “So you’re still only one behind us.”
Red blinks at him, then smiles. The expression feels odd, but good. “Right. Thanks.”
“Not that you’ll be able to catch us before we get to Pewter anyway.” Leaf winks.
Red’s smile widens. “We’ll see about that. I woke up pretty late today: I might catch another three tonight while you guys are sleeping.”
Blue’s about to respond when Red spies a flash of color in the trees. “Akio’s back!”
They turn to see the Ranger approaching from the northeast riding an arcanine. Blue makes an appreciative sound at the sight of the majestic pokemon. Red wonders how far Ranger Akio had run before switching mounts.
After checking with Ranger Metis, Akio dismounts and examines the body for himself before approaching the trainers. The older man is sweating slightly, but otherwise seems fine. All trace of the meganium’s sweet scent are replaced by the hot fumes of the arcanine’s fur.
“It’s good to see you’re all alright. Thank you for your help here today.”
“No prob,” Blue says. “Just doing our duty.”
Ranger Akio’s smile is brief, but genuine. If he’s bothered by Luke’s death, he doesn’t show it. Perhaps he’d already taken it as a given. “Yes. Today you three repaid the trust the public has placed in you, and all trainers. If you don’t mind, I’d like your names, so when we return Mr. Koyama and his pokemon to his family they know who else to thank.” He nods at Leaf. “Yours we have from the ticket you made, Miss Juniper.” He looks at the other two expectantly.
“Red Verres.”
“Blue Oak.”
Ranger Akio’s brow twitches briefly at Blue’s surname. “A pleasure to meet you. May your travels be swift and safe.” He salutes them, one arm crossed behind his back and the other across his waist as he bows slightly.
Red and the others return it, then gather their things. Leaf cleans her bucket out carefully before collapsing it and putting it back in her bag, and Red puts his gas mask back on. Before leaving, Red approaches the Rangers.
“Could you do me a favor? I’m very curious to know what happened out here today,” Red says. “How Luke was killed. What he was doing in the field. I know it’s not likely we’ll get any answers, but…”
Ranger Metis glances at his superior, who studies Red for a moment. “It doesn’t do to obsess over these things. Trust me, I know. Sometimes mistakes are made. Accidents happen. People die. The why isn’t always known, or even helpful.”
Red doesn’t agree with that last bit, but he merely says, “I understand. I don’t intend to dwell on it. I just meant, if you do learn anything, I would appreciate knowing. I think it would help me put it out of my mind.”
Ranger Akio nods. “If we learn anything, I’ll pass it along. You have my word.”
Red salutes him again, bowing deep. “
Arigatō
, Akio-san.” Red rejoins Blue and Leaf, and, looking back at Luke Koyama one more time in the darkening twilight, leaves the buzz of the remaining beedrill behind.
The leader of the Darkmoon Demons rises from his crouch to join Bode at the mouth of the alley. “Yeah, that’s our guy.” Their mark is going down the steps from an apartment building, buttoning up his jacket against the cool wind. It makes Wax wish he has his leathers on, but they’re too identifiable.
The gang left their jackets with the bikes on Cycling Road to avoid notice when coming into Fuchsia. They did their best to stay under the radar during the day, holing up in a hotel room and only sending people out on food runs.
Now it’s past midnight, and everyone’s tucked nice and cozy in their beds. “How long since someone else came out?” Wax asks.
“Must’ve been ’bout five minutes,” Bode says, keeping his eyes on the street. “Lot of them left together, earlier, but just a couple people here and there lately. Figure their night’s just about wound down.”
Wax watches their mark walk down the street toward them. Not only does he not have anyone with him, the man doesn’t even have a pokebelt.
Perfect.
They’re all willing to get their hands dirty and risk some jail time, but Wax doesn’t want anyone getting a bounty on their head.
He turns to his boys. Each is intense and focused, some shivering a bit, though he can’t tell if it’s from the cold, or adrenaline as they psych themselves up for the coming fight. “Listen close,” he says, voice low. “This should be easy money. Break a few bones, grab his wallet, then we’re out. Long as he survives, the heat won’t be so bad and we can avoid the cops. But no one touches their pokeballs, got it? If we get the local Gym and trainers on us we’ll never make it out of the city.”
“What if he’s got a pokemon on him?” Jasper asks.
“If he’s got a ball in his jacket or somethin’ and it opens, Bode and I will handle it. Any of you so much as reaches for your belt, I’ll kick your ass and tell Blackfire to torch your jacket. I don’t run with no Renegades. We clear?” They all mutter and nod, clearly impatient to get going. He feels the excitement growing in himself too, and grins. “Alright, let’s fuck him up.”
The night suddenly lights up in flashes, explosive sounds making them all flinch and reach instinctively for their belts. But instead of a squad of cops and their pokemon descending on them, there’s just smoke. Lots of it, surrounding the gang in a thick haze. Wax’s relief is quickly replaced by confusion.
Smoke bombs?
He almost screams when someone nearby him does, and he sees Lam fall to the ground, quickly lost in the roiling smog. He stares wildly around, trying to see what’s happening as one after another the others drop, crying out briefly before going silent.
Wax is about to run for it when Bode’s voice cuts through his panic.
“Wax! Wax it’s Koga! Look!”
Wax follows Bode’s pointing hand, and cranes his neck up to see a figure on the roof of the building beside them. It’s hard to make Leader Koga out with the smoke stinging Wax’s eyes, but no one could mistake these tactics after all the rumors that were going around that Fuchsia’s gym leader was cleaning up the streets. A weezing floats beside him, jetting out more smoke down into the alley.
Oh fuck me,
they were right, we should have stayed the fuck away-
“
Drop your pokeballs. Now.”
The voice has a mechanical hiss to it, some sort of gasmask, and Wax reaches for his belt. He could send out his houndoom and make a run for it… it would take Koga at least a few seconds to give chase, maybe he can find another alley, jump in a dumpster…
Wax forces himself to take a deep breath, the acrid stench of the smoke almost making him choke. “Koga! This is none of your business! We didn’t use our pokemon, you’ve got no jur-
cough
-no juris-” Wax breaks off coughing as Koga raises his arms and grips his weezing, then leaps down two stories and lands softly, his descent slow and smooth. The ninja master is shrouded and hard to see through the smog, but as his silhouette approaches, Wax backs up involuntarily. “You’ve got no authority,” Wax chokes out, trying to catch his breath.
“Screw this!” Bode says and bolts for the opening of the alley.
“No you idiot!”
Bode doesn’t get two steps before he cries out in pain and falls, clutching his leg. Then he’s gone, the whole world a haze of smog. Wax can just make out the opening of the alley thanks to the streetlights.
His whole body is trembling as he looks back at Koga, who’s lowering his arms back to his sides, something long and thin held in one. A small sword? There’s a
shadow
moving through the smog, passing over the bodies of his gangmates. Wax keeps his feet very, very still, not wanting to spook whatever pokemon might be around him.
“Okay… okay you win, here…” Wax undoes his belt and lets it fall to the ground. “We just wanted to make some quick cash, you know? No big deal, a few potions and a night at the hospital and he’d have been fine, we weren’t gonna kill-”
“
The name of your employer. Give it to me.”
Wax gapes at the figure. “I-no man, you got it all wrong. We were just looking for someone to rob-”
There’s a snapping sound, and something
slithers
against Wax’s ankle. He screams, jumping away and cowering against the wall, one leg raised off the ground as if to present less targets. “Alright, alright! It was Pat Uzuki! He said head into town, get to this address around this time, showed me a photo, I’m sorry-”
“
You will never come back to this city. Go, and tell the rest of your kind that Fuchsia is not for you. If I see you here again, I will feed you to my arbok.”
Wax simply stares, shivering.
My pokemon…
Then the last sentence registers, and he remembers that dry, smooth slither between his ankles.
He bows repeatedly as he stumbles backward, groveling his thanks as he keeps his eyes scanning the ground for that shadow. His foot bumps against Bode’s still figure, and Wax hesitates. Bode and he have been running together since they were punks. If Koga really feeds people to his arbok…
“Leader Koga… what about the others-”
“
GO!”
the ninja thunders, and in the smoke Wax sees the shape of a long, thick serpent rise up. Its hood flares out, and it
hisses-
-and Wax is running out of the smoke and through the streets, ignoring the bewildered stare of their mark as he runs for the city limits without another look back, gasping apologies to Bode and the others between breaths of sweet, clean air.
The quiet of Kamal Chadha’s office is unbroken by his keyboard’s clacking, just as it’s uninterrupted by the tick-tock of the old fashioned clock above the door, or the muted wind outside. Each is a soothing testament to the quiet’s value.
His eyes flick between two monitors, collating the previous month’s sales reports for Silph’s upcoming regional conference. He always looks forward to them, learning from the other managers and district directors’ successes and failures. He’s particularly excited for this year, when he would be one of the major speakers. He and his people worked hard to bring up Fuchsia’s sales, and it shows.
Kamal’s hair is kept short, his nails neatly trimmed. His tie is a silver grey that matches his hair, and at his neck hangs the Golden Wheel of his church. He came to Kanto at the age of seven when his father, an engineer, was headhunted by Silph Co. Kamal had been just a bit too old to easily assimilate to the new culture, and his accent and skin tone had not helped. While other children played after school, Kamal studied at home under his mother’s approving gaze. His family wasn’t shunned, but rather treated with polite aloofness by their neighbors.
Things got better as the decades passed. An influx of foreigners and improved communication technologies led to a more multicultural region, and the younger generations treated him no different than anyone else. But by then Kamal had already internalized the sense of “otherness,” and his focus on his work continued through his middle age, keeping few close friends and pursuing his passion for business. He dallied in romance here and there, but remains a bachelor at fifty-six despite his mother’s incessant cajoling.
In truth, he rarely feels lonely. When he first became a manager, his whole store had become his family. A man can only dedicate time and effort to so many things before one starts to suffer for it, and his work had never suffered.
Kamal’s office phone rings, and he glances at the ID. Building security. He finishes the last few lines of the current column one handed as he picks up the phone. “Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you Mr. Chadha, this is Marissa at the front desk.”
Kamal thinks for a moment before he summons the face of the young security guard. “Yes, hello Marissa. Is everything alright?”
“Quiet night down here, but my husband seems to have misplaced his keys. He’s stuck outside the house, and it’s another half hour until my shift is over. Will you be leaving the office before then, or can I lock up and go a bit early?”
Kamal checks the time. When had midnight come and gone? “I think I’ll be staying the night, as a matter of fact. You go ahead.”
“Are you sure, sir? I can wait for the relief to arrive.”
“Quite sure. Trin is still doing the rounds outside, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then go let your husband into the house before he falls asleep on the lawn.”
He hears the smile in her voice. “Thank you sir. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
Kamal hangs up, then goes back to work. He’s not in the least bit tired, and the idea of going home and dithering about until he’s sleepy doesn’t hold any appeal. Course set, he types for another five minutes, then gets up to take a quick break.
Kamal considers himself a man of simple pleasures, but his office is his major indulgence. At the top of the sixteen story Silph building, it takes up a quarter of the floor. A beautiful painting of a ninetales is on the opposite wall, and a bronze solrock lamp hangs horizontally from the ceiling, splaying light out in a sunburst pattern. Decorations aside, it also functions as a home away from home: connected rooms lead to a kitchen on one side and a bedroom on the other, fully stocked with minibar and entertainment systems.
It’s the former he heads to now, turning on the lights and mixing himself a drink. When he finishes, he takes a glass out onto the western facing balcony to drink in the unusually cool summer night.
Fuchsia spreads out beneath him like a cluster of stars fallen to earth. With the safari preserve to the north and the ocean to the south and west, the city is an island of light in a sea of darkness, an opposite reflection of the sky above.
Surprising how quickly a new place could feel like home. He was transferred to Fuchsia about eight months ago, and of all the places he lived, both growing up and in the course of his career, none made him feel so at peace just looking out at it.
He wonders if his predecessor felt it at all. Frank Moore was a competent city director and sometime acquaintance, but resigned after a nervous breakdown. Kamal sent some well wishes, but was too busy dealing with his own sudden promotion to discover the personal details. Frank had been getting along in years, and managing all the stores in Fuchsia can be stressful work.
Kamal watches the sparks that come and go in the distance, racing over the bridge, or “Cycling Road,” that connects the peninsula to western Kanto and Celadon City. He’s been thinking of riding across it soon, for the exercise and the experience. The view of the ocean on every side is said to be lovely, and some of the restaurants that line the sides of the bridge are very popular.
When the stiffness in his legs and shoulders fully fades, he finishes his drink and steps back inside. He refills his glass and debates going back on the balcony, then puts the bottle away and returns to the office. It’s only after he sits down at his computer that he notices the young woman on the couch.
Kamal’s heart clenches in his chest, and he nearly spills his drink as he shoots back to his feet. “Who- how did-” He stammers to a stop as he recognizes her from the news. “Mistress Koga? You startled me…” Kamal slowly sits back down, pulse racing as he lets out a shaking breath. “What are you doing in my office? How did you get in the building?”
“I picked the lock after the security guard downstairs left.” The young woman’s short purple hair is drawn back, making the clean angles of her face look severe. She’s dressed in dark, form fitting clothes that almost resembles body armor, and a purple silk scarf is tied around her neck. “It was easy. You should have gotten better ones.”
He does his best to push away his lingering shock, squaring his shoulders and resting his arms on his desk as his heart rate slowly returns to normal. “Thank you for informing me of that. I’ll be sure to do so. Now please explain why I shouldn’t have you arrested for trespassing. Are you applying as a security consultant? If so, I don’t approve of your methods, and I doubt your father would either.”
“My father is my business. We are here to discuss yours.”
Kamal blinks, and understanding washes through him. Not security, then, but some other position. She isn’t the first person to approach him looking for an inside track on a career at Silph, but he’d never had one break into his office to do so before. If she thought he would be impressed with her dedication or some other such foolish thing, she’s badly mistaken.
Leader Koga has clearly spoiled her.
A shame; he always seemed a competent Gym Leader. But Kamal supposes everyone has their weaknesses.
“I’m sorry, but this is my office, and you do not dictate the terms here, no matter whose daughter you are.” He takes a sip of his drink. The spike of fear and adrenaline is still bitter in his mouth, and he grimaces. “If you call my secretary during normal business hours and schedule an appointment, I would be happy to see you when I’m available.”
Janine seems to relax somewhat as he speaks, and he frowns at her. “However, I’m still informing your father of this. And if I ever find out you’ve snuck into this or any other building again, I will be forced to call the police. Do you understand?”
She nods, staring at him.
“Goodnight then.” He turns back to his monitors and begins drafting an email to Leader Koga. He notices in his peripheral that she still hasn’t moved, and seems to be twirling some dark grey cylinder between her fingers, like a very long flute.
“If the new security guard arrives before you leave, I won’t intervene on your behalf.”
“He won’t see me.”
The tube is still spinning, and Kamal begins to feel real anger stirring in him. “Do you
want
me to call the police?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“I’m waiting for the poison to start working.”
Kamal stares at her. “That’s not funny, young lady.”
She doesn’t respond, those amethyst eyes still steady on his, and the bitterness on his tongue is suddenly hard to ignore. He feels a chill, and then flushes as his heart gallops back into a panicked frenzy.
“What- what did you-”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d refill your glass when you came back in, so this was my backup plan.” She stops her fingers, and the “flute” becomes identifiable. It’s a blowgun.
“I’m glad you took another drink though. I’ve used enough darts tonight, and this gives us more time to talk-”
He grabs his office phone and throws himself backward, hitting the floor and pressing the emergency number. “Help, please send help, I’m being…” There’s only silence in his ear. The line is dead.
He’s in the middle of reaching for his cell when the crazy bitch calmly walks around the desk and aims the blowgun at him, one end at her lips. He freezes, and after a moment she draws it away a bit and perches on the edge of his desk. He notices a facemask of some kind hanging from her neck.
“As I was saying, we have time to talk. I want to know who told you to bribe the mayor, and if you answer me, you get the antidote.”
Kamal feels the world shift. This isn’t some random murder by a sociopathic child.
But how does she know about that? No money was even transferred!
Doesn’t matter right now. That she has a reason for her actions means there’s a glimmer of hope for him.
“I’ll tell you,” he says. “Just let me get to a hospital, and I’ll tell you everything! Please, I can feel it!” He clutches his stomach, a pang of pain making him want to throw up. She’d likely shoot him with a dart if he does though…
“I find that highly unlikely. You’ve just ingested arbok venom. Most venom is harmless when swallowed, did you know? But arbok use a neurotoxin so potent it’s also poisonous. Just takes longer to act. You should lose consciousness in fifteen minutes or so, and any pain you feel is just in your head. So we have time.” She taps the blowgun. “The dart in here will be considerably quicker depending on where it hits.” She puts it to her lips and aims for his chest.
“Wait, wait! Okay!” His skin feels cold and clammy, and despite her words he feels a fire in his gut. She might be lying about the poison’s effects… he’d never heard anything about arbok venom as a poison. Or his body might just be reacting to the stress of the situation. Either way, he doesn’t think the blowgun is a bluff. “There was no bribe! I just reminded Mr. Ramsey that election season is coming up, and how the new safari regulation would affect tourism and local businesses. Nothing illegal was done!”
Janine rolls her eyes. “Yes, because I clearly care so much about legalities. I already know all this. I asked you who told you to do it.”
“No one, it was my idea!”
“Possible, but I don’t think so. There’s been a concerted effort to soften Fuchsia’s anti-poaching laws for over two years now. On top of that, resistance to the new regulation has been popping up from all sorts of unlikely directions. It’s possible you’re just concerned with the impact on business, but my bet is you’re a patsy. So give me a name.”
Kamal tries to quiet his panic so he can think. If she wants a name, he’ll give her one. “Okay… I’ll tell you. It was Dylan Omaki. He’s a friend of my late father’s who likes hunting in the safari, and asked me to do it as a favor. Please, I didn’t think any harm would come of it-”
She’s shakes her head. “No one above you in Silph goes by that name. You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“It has nothing to do with Silph! I swear, that’s the truth!”
“Mmhm. And did Mr. Moore also know this friend of your father’s?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like I said, this isn’t new. It’s just a coincidence that your predecessor was doing the exact same thing?”
Shit.
“I don’t… it must be-”
“And the gang I stopped from beating up a union leader tonight? ‘Mr. Omaki’ tell you to facilitate that too?”
He feels cold. “How did you kno-” He clamps his mouth shut, furious with himself as he sees the smug smile on her face. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“I believe you. But you know who ordered it done, don’t you?”
Kamal looks away, a drop of sweat sliding down his neck. He’d been uneasy about that whole business. Dealing with unions is always frustrating and tiresome, but this has been the most stubborn leadership he’s ever encountered. When he explained the recent difficulties with his superior, they assured him they would handle it. He didn’t ask questions. In truth, he didn’t want to know the answers… he was just grateful for their help.
“I was hoping you’d be more on the level than Mr. Moore was. It’s really starting to piss me off.”
The fire in his belly is gone, replaced with a block of ice. She’s here on a vendetta, and he was dangerously close to saying something he shouldn’t. Kamal takes a deep breath and sits up, and Janine stands and steps back, gaze wary.
“I won’t say any more. You can let me die and deal with the investigation of my murder, or you can give me an antidote and walk away. But this
interrogation
is over.”
“That’s it? Just like that, you don’t care if you die?”
He looks her in the eye. “I’d prefer not to, but I won’t let you intimidate me.” Some measure of calm returns to him, and he’s pleasantly surprised to discover as he says it that it’s the truth.
I will not betray my family.
Janine meets his gaze silently. “I misjudged you,” she says eventually, voice quiet. “Nothing in my research indicated a spine of steel. I thought you’d be as easy to break as your predecessor.”
Kamal’s eyes widen. “What?”
“Like I said, he was involved in similar things. Corrupting city officials. Buying off Safari Rangers. Hiring thugs. Nothing solid enough that I could let the police handle it, but clear abuses of power. He had to go.”
Kamal’s fists clench. “What did you do to him?”
“Not much. A history of minor mental issues already set the foundation. I added some stimulants to his nightly drinks to disrupt his sleep cycle, then switched them to hallucinogens. Eventually I began to appear to him in disguise. He thought I was a demon, come to punish him for his sins. Told me all sorts of interesting things. But not what I needed. I suspect he didn’t know.”
She says all this casually. Almost dispassionately. As if breaking a man’s mind and destroying his life was of no consequence. Kamal feels his nails digging into his palms. “You’re a monster. A sick, twisted child.”
Her eyes narrow. “Two rangers at the safari were killed by poachers last spring. The suspects were a group of thugs from out of town, very similar to the ones I ran into tonight. They were tied to the scene by eight witnesses at various points. The rangers’ pokemon had been transferred from balls found in the gang’s possession. They claimed someone had sold the balls to them empty.” Janine crouches down to make it harder for him to avoid her gaze. “How many years do you think they were sentenced to?”
Kamal stares at the wall, feeling sick.
“None. Out of nowhere, an army of lawyers descended and tied the case up for months. In that time, all the witnesses either changed their story or moved away from Kanto. Every. Single. One.”
She stands. “I can’t prove the witness intimidation. It took me a while to trace it, but the money that paid for the defense attorneys came from Mr. Moore. Nothing illegal about that, is there? But those rangers deserved justice. Their families deserved justice. This
city
deserved justice. And since some powerful people seem intent on preventing that, we’ll have to take what we can get.”
The room feels cold, and Kamal is starting to feel groggy. Panic tries to send protests and denials up his throat, but he doesn’t let them pass his lips. Kamal wonders if the new security guard arrived yet. Would he call up when he does? Kamal’s hand rises to the wheel on his necklace, gripping the cool metal in his hand. Its gold-plated prongs dig into his palm a bit, and he savors the sensation, focusing on it to keep alert. “And killing me? That’s justice?”
“I have little against you personally, Mr. Chadha. But I think you work for immoral people. And I cannot allow you to continue spreading their tendrils through my city.”
“This is ridiculous. You’re just a kid-”
“I’m fifteen. In your world that’s not old enough to be more than a cashier or sales clerk, but in mine I assure you, it’s of little impediment.”
“Your world. You mean pokemon training. You’re not an officer of the law. Not a judge. Not an executioner. If you think I’ve done some crime, take me to the police, I’ll sign a confession to whatever you want-”
“What, hand you over to people your superiors can manipulate and buy off? And what would a confession from you be worth, even if it weren’t under duress? You’re just a hand. I want the head.”
“You won’t get it from inside a jail cell.”
“No one saw me enter, nor will they see me leave. Your security cameras are laughably easy to avoid. And there will be little in the investigation to point to foul play. No one will go to jail for your death, least of all me. You accomplish nothing by dying but dying.”
“You can let me go. I’ll resign, like Frank, move away. I’ll never bother you… your city… again.”
She shakes her head. “You would just be replaced, and I’d have to do this all over again. I need to send a stronger message to your bosses this time. Or you could tell me what I want to know.”
Kamal looks away, ignoring the fluttering of his heart. “I can’t.”
“Such misguided loyalty. Don’t you realize you’re a puppet? They knew something happened to Mr. Moore and sent you in case it happened again. You were chosen because you’re expendable. Little family, few friends. Replaceable.”
Kamal straightens his back and turns to her. “That is your interpretation. Mine is that they knew I would be the perfect person for the job. And I will not betray that trust. You will gain nothing by my death but my death.”
She meets his gaze for a moment, and this time she’s the one that looks away, peering out at the night through his window. “I’m sorry. You are worth less than nothing to me alive if you can’t give me what I need.”
Kamal tries to think of some other argument, something to save himself. But there’s nothing. He can’t convince her to release him, and won’t give her what she wants. He doesn’t know anything of what Frank Moore had done, but his activities in the city haven’t been anything worth killing over.
What of that business tonight? Beating up a union leader, she said. What other things like that have been going on?
He doesn’t know. It’s not his job to know. But he trusts that what has been done has been done for the good of the company, for its employees, and ultimately for the society it serves. He won’t help his murderess in whatever vendetta she has against his superiors. He can only wait for the poison to take its course, and hope that help comes before it does. If the new security calls and receives no answer, what would he do? Did Marissa even inform him that Kamal was staying? Surely she would…
Kamal closes his eyes and bows his head, grip loose around his wheel as he tries to control his breathing, and his fear.
Arceus, First and Last, watch over your humble servant. Let me be as malleable as the gold of your wheel, so you can shape me into purity. If I have sinned, let me learn from my sins and change, as you change. And if Judgement is upon me, let me face it with courage.
The time passes, and Kamal once again begins to hear the alloys of the silence. The ticking clock. The muted wind. All that’s missing is the clack of his keyboard. He thinks of his past self, content and oblivious of what was coming. How strange and unfair, that life could be so utterly shattered in such a small time without warning.
He realizes that he can’t feel the wheel in his hand anymore, and a moment later that he can barely move his limbs. The tiredness spreads slowly, but noticeably now, and his fear returns, a coiling, frantic thing. It’s far too late to try an escape however: he doubts he could even stand.
The girl is staring at him. Is that pity in her gaze? Regret? The dying ember of hope flares up, but when he opens his mouth, he can’t form any words. He lets his hope fade away. She won’t save him now. He would just be a liability to her, a witness to her crime.
He wonders what she plans to do with his body. How she’ll cover up her involvement. Make it look like a suicide, maybe? Push him off the balcony?
What will mother think?
Imagining her reaction is agonizing, and in that moment he wants to tell Janine everything if only to spare his mother the grief.
But it’s too late: his consciousness is beginning to drift. Kamal thanks Arceus for the strength to hold out as long as he has, then lets the soothing sounds of the silence comfort him down into oblivion.
The night is cool and smells of salt as Janine travels south, passing from one rooftop to the next. She runs on her forefeet, a silent shadow leaping over the streets of her city. Seeing but unseen, hearing but unheard. It’s exhilarating. Freeing.
Especially at the apex of each jump. She leaps, eyes closed as she flies through the air, weightless for a split second before gravity pulls her back down. She tucks into a roll for the landing, and even that is quiet, her padded clothes muffling the impact and protecting her so she can easily spring back to her feet.
She’s taking a new route home, passing by some rumored trouble spots so she can ensure nothing is going on. Thankfully, all is quiet. It usually is: despite what the cartoons say, it’s really hard to randomly run into a crime as it’s in progress, even in the bad parts of town. Nights like this come from a lot of research, having good reason to suspect something will go down at a certain time and place. Even then she usually ends up staking places out all night for nothing.
At least those nights aren’t so exhausting. She just wants to go to bed and stop thinking for a bit. Her thoughts keep circling back to Kamal. Her failure is frustrating on a number of levels, but what bothers her most is how willing he had been to die. She had thought it possible, but hadn’t really believed he would. It worries her that her adversaries have such dedicated employees on staff. She copied his hard drive, and hopes to find some answers there.
The gap between this roof and the next is too wide to jump. As she runs, Janine tosses forward a pokeball and mutters “Go, koffing.”
It opens ahead of her just before the end of the roof, and she catches the ball, clips it to her belt, then grabs her koffing in both hands and says “up” as she leaps forward, her pokemon held just behind her and above her head.
The warm, hollow body of her koffing inflates, extending her leap into a glide. Her feet hit the next roof running, and she lets her koffing go, withdrawing him over her shoulder and reclipping his ball to her belt. The next gap is small enough to jump on her own.
Four hops and another glide later, she’s able to swing over the side of a shop and land in an alley below, a couple blocks from her father’s house. Two meowth leap onto a dumpster as she passes near them, staring at her with shining eyes as the streetlight gleams on their coins. She walks the rest of the way to the house, removing her mask and hood, then stripping the peelable black paint from her pokeballs one half at a time.
The two story house is dark. Her father might be sleeping, or he might be on his computer or watching the news in the living room. She listens for any sounds as she mounts the front steps, but all she hears are the distant waves and the cries of the wingulls above them. The scrape of her key seems very loud as she opens the lock, and she’s careful in opening and closing the door so that it makes as little sound as possible.
She turns the bolt behind her and takes off her shoes and pokebelt as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Once they have, she begins to head for the staircase when she notices the figure on the couch.
Her heart kicks into high gear, and she has a moment of sympathy for how Mr. Chadha must have felt seeing her in his office. She’d learned from the best, after all.
When she’s sure her voice won’t shake, she bows her head and says, “Good evening, father.”
“Good evening, Janine,” he says without inflection “Where have you been.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she decides against lying. For all she knows he arrived just a minute ahead of her after shadowing her all night.
“I did my usual patrols, then went to watch over a union meeting where tomorrow’s protest was being planned. I figured another attempt would be made to disrupt it, but instead a gang of thugs from out of town waited outside to jump Hart McEvoy when he came out. I stopped them.”
“Stopped them. How?”
Her eyes have adjusted enough to make out most of the room from the dim light from outside, but his face is still in shadows. She struggles not to smile as she imagines him shifting the seat around for maximum dramatic effect.
Since she can’t meet his eyes, she just looks at the shadows of his face and folds her arms. “I asked them politely to leave. What do you think?”
“I think you are a foolish and immature-”
“There were six of them-”
“
Do not interrupt me, Anzu.”
Janine winces. Her dad only calls her that when he’s particularly upset. As if that isn’t bad enough, his accent has gotten thicker throughout their conversation. Raised on the reclusive estates of the Koga clan when he was young, it’s already stronger than most others of his generation. She knows he’s self-conscious about it, even in private, and judges that he’s a handsbreadth away from lapsing completely into Japanese.
She bows her head. “I’m sorry, father.”
“I have warned you time and again of the consequences if you are caught using your pokemon against people. Is your life truly worth so little to you?”
“
You
risked it.”
“I was young and reckless, and I acted throughout the land, not all in a single city. If I was ever convicted, I would not be where I am today. I did not teach you my skills so you could make the same mistakes. I did it so you could protect yourself. ”
“So I should have just let them beat him?”
“Why did you not call the police?”
Janine snorts. “For what? Those magikarp? I needed to know who sent them.”
“They will say that Leader Koga attacked them with pokemon.”
“My pokemon attacked none of them. I used them for cover and to frighten, that’s all.”
“Then you did not need them at all. You put on a spectacle. That is not the way of the ninja.”
“There’s nothing dramatic about being darted unconscious before you even realize what happened. My way makes them frightened. They tell other criminals. It keeps them away from the city.”
“I’ve had to address questions about the crime in Fuchsia already. It was not a criminal who asked.”
She saw that interview. It made her a bit apprehensive, but she already decided that if actual charges are ever brought against her father, she’d turn herself in. “Everyone likes a juicy rumor. The point is they won’t talk to the police, they don’t trust them. And they’re too scared of you to risk it.”
Her father’s voice is tight with anger. “Because of
your
vigilantism.”
“Yes,
my
vigilantism, which saved a man from being beaten. Besides, unless you’ve been following me all night, you should have an alibi at the gym. Or did Markus not approach you to help train his venomoth?”
Her father is quiet for a moment. “You arranged that?”
“I suggested a time and date I knew you would be free. His request was genuine.”
“I have taught you too well. And now you do not heed me anymore, it seems. Have you outgrown my tutelage, Anzu?”
Something in his tone makes Janine’s chest tighten. She wishes she could see his face. “No, father. I will always value your teachings. But you cannot ask me to ignore my conscience.”
“As I ignore mine.”
“You know what’s going on, and you do nothing. What would you call it?”
“I would call it having sense. It is not just what you do, it is your methods. They are too brazen. You act without respect to the law at all. Would you have me take over the city? Declare myself mayor
and
gym leader?”
“Would that be so wrong? You’re ten times the man as that butterfree in city hall.”
Her father suddenly sounds tired. “It is not my place, Janine. We are no longer feudal lords, ruling absolutely by virtue of our might. I am Leader of the city’s pokemon trainers, and that is all. My responsibilities are to fight monsters, not people. There are civilian governments, civilian peacekeepers, civilian courts to deal with them. Our society could not function as it does if every trainer took the law into their own hands.”
“Then it’s a good thing they don’t. But that doesn’t mean I won’t, to protect my city.”
“It may not ever be yours if you continue like this.”
Janine lifts her chin. “Who else is there? Patricia? Lee? I’m your daughter. When you join the Elite Four, I’ll show them who your best student is.”
“I meant if you are branded a Renegade.”
“I won’t be.”
Her father stands and moves to the kitchen. He turns on the light before beginning to make some tea. After a moment Janine follows, stopping at the doorway. She’s so sleepy her eyes keep threatening to drift closed, but she’s not sure if she’s been dismissed yet. Once the water is set to boil, her father turns and leans against the counter, arms folded.
Her father’s face looks different in person than on vids. When she was young it had always seemed strange watching the great Michio Koga in interviews or on battle videos, so severe and cold. True, his face is sharp like hers, with a strong jaw and deep lines around his mouth. But it also holds character that doesn’t come across through a screen. An expressive vibrancy that makes even his current stern expression more heated than cool. Her eyes are drawn to the streaks of grey just beginning to form in his pine-green hair. They remind her of Mr. Chadha’s fully grey head, though they’re both about the same age. She wonders when they first appeared.
“So?”
She meets his gaze warily. “So, what?”
“So, what did you discover.”
Janine smiles before quickly schooling her expression. Part of her has always hoped that deep down, her father approves of what she does, and is just worried about her. He can’t completely ignore the good she’s done, or she’s sure he would have forced her to stop. “It’s as I thought. The same middle man from last time, when Mr. Moore was involved in everything. So I went to his replacement, in case there was a connection.”
“Mr… Chad, was it?”
“Chadha.”
“And?”
“I was right. It took a few bluffs, but he’s behind the same sorts of things. Unfortunately he wouldn’t name his superior.”
“So what makes you think there is a connection?”
“Two people from Silph being behind the same things is too much of a coincidence. There’s got to be someone above them guiding their actions.”
Her father shakes his head. “No, there does not. They work in the same business. They had the same responsibilities. They likely share many beliefs. In short, they had similar goals, resources, and values. It is not impossible that their corruption happened to take the same forms by coincidence.”
Janine frowns, replaying her conversation with Kamal over as best she could from memory. She has a recording of the conversation in her phone, but off the top of her head she can’t remember him actually admitting there
was
someone in Silph giving him orders, name or no name. “I suppose it’s possible…”
“Of course it is. So what did you do to this man, to force out this conspiracy that you made up in your head?”
She scowls. “Even if I was wrong, he isn’t innocent.”
“Answer the question.”
Janine looks away. “I drugged him.”
“With?”
“My own mix. Mostly chloral hydrate in his drink. Made him think he was dying. Some rohypnol for his memory.”
Her father’s face is hard. “In his ‘drink?’ Alcoholic?
Baka musume,
you could have killed him!”
“Could have,” she says as her temper flares. “But I learned from the best.”
Her father goes still. Janine flinches as his arm twitches up-
-and takes the teapot off the stove beside him, some wisps of steam just beginning to rise. “One of these days you will go too far, Anzu,” he says, not looking at her. “And I will be forced to stop you.”
Janine lets out her breath, heart racing. She turns and heads for the stairs. “If I ever go that far, father, I’m counting on it.”
As night descends on Viridian, Red checks their map for other travelers setting up camps nearby. There’s one within the wards of the Ranger Outpost, so they head east to join it. The forest darkens quickly, and soon they have their flashlights out to avoid walking into trees or bushes. Red has one eye on his phone to guide them, so he sees when they cross the proximity border of the wards. Whoever’s on watch at the Ranger Outpost just got an infrared image of them, and knows nothing dangerous has arrived.
Eventually they find a small clearing with a ring of dim lanterns hanging on the trees at the perimeter. In the middle are a quartet of sleeping bags with three girls and a boy sitting on them. They rise as Red, Blue and Leaf arrive, and Red can see pokeballs on each of their belts, though the boy only has two.
“Hey there. Mind if we join you?” Leaf asks.
“Sure-sure,” one of the girls says, beckoning with one hand. “The more the merrier.” She’s a bit shorter than the other two, with pitch black hair worn in a pixie cut. The taller pair are identical twins with light auburn hair, while the boy has blonde hair cut in a bowl and wears glasses. All three girls are a bit older than Red, though the boy looks a bit younger. “I’m Allie, this is Ayame and Kiku, and that’s Matthew.”
“Nice to meet you all. I’m Leaf, this is Red and Blue.” Red waves, and Blue tips a salute with his fingers.
The four rearrange their bags in a half circle so the newcomers can start unpacking their things, the bright flashes of their containers lighting up the night. “So, where ya from, where ya headed?” Allie asks as they open the boxes and take out their sleeping bags.
“Pallet.” Blue says. “Headed to Pewter. You?”
“Matthew and I are going south to see our uncle.”
“We’re going to take the Pallet ferry to Cinnabar,” one of the twins says. Red has already forgotten which is which.
He lets the others field questions as he sits on his sleeping bag and takes out his notebook. The whole walk here, he couldn’t get his mind off Luke and the beedrill. Maybe his daily assessment will help him stop circling around it.
Red takes out a granola bar and begins writing as he eats. He knows it might come off as rude, but at least Matthew seems similarly disinterested in small talk, playing on a handheld game system.
Mistakes I made today…
He taps his pencil on the sheet, thinking over the trip from Viridian City. Nothing too major there. He overcame his fear of the skarmory, and didn’t make any impulse purchases. Once he got to the forest though, he nearly lost his pokedex. Red grimaces and writes,
Be more careful with pokedex. Invaluable asset is not worth risking for higher chance of encountering pokemon.
At least he hadn’t tried it at night first: he can just imagine a noctowl swooping by and snatching it out of his hand.
Now that he’s crossing that strategy out though, he needs a new one. He turns back to a previous entry where he’d written down ideas for how to find pokemon-
“You’re from Unova?”
Red looks up to see Matthew talking to Leaf, his game system forgotten. “I am,” she says with a smile.
“Cool! Do you watch League of Heroes?”
Her smile turns to a grin. “You know League of Heroes? I didn’t think it was available here.”
“Allie and I watch it online,” the boy says. “It’s great!”
“What’s League of Heroes?” Ayame or Kiku asks.
“It’s a Unovan cartoon, like Power Force Ten. There’s a video game too.”
“What’s Power Force Ten?” Leaf asks, and the group chuckles. Red turns back to his notebook. Using forms of bait or instructing his pokemon to find natural prey in the area are his best bets. Though now that he has a spinarak… He writes
String up webs, maybe wait on a branch for it to catch something.
“You first.” Allie says.
“Well, it’s a about a team of superheroes,” Leaf says. “There’s Crobatman, he’s an assassin with super reflexes and a wingsuit; Luxia, she’s my favorite, she manipulates light; Ironman, he’s a robot that’s artificially intelligent; Supermon, who has all the powers of the different pokemon types-”
“What,
all
of them?” Blue asks.
“Seems kind of overpowered,” Red says, distracted despite himself as he erases a miswritten word.
“No, no, he can only use one of them at a time,” Matthew says.
Leaf nods. “He has to switch between them-
“-he can only do it once every ten minutes-”
“-and he gets their weaknesses too. There’s also Techno-”
-she’s
my
favorite-
-she has no powers, but she’s super smart and has a bunch of inventions-
-she made Crobatman’s suit!”
“Stop interrupting, Matt,” Allie says, batting his arm. “Anyway, it’s a pretty cool show. Power Force Ten is sort of like Kanto’s version of it, in terms of popularity. Nine humans found some of Arceus’s legendary Elemental Plates, the ones for Sky, Earth, Mind, Body, Flame, Sea, Meadow, Lightning, and Stone.”
Leaf blinks. “Why is it called Power Force Ten, then?”
“Oh, Milo is the tenth. He’s considered the ‘Normal’ type-”
Red snorts, and everyone turns to him. He looks up. “Sorry, it’s nothing.”
“Ignore him,” Blue says. “He’s a hater.”
“I am not. Milo is my favorite character.”
“Does he have a power?” Leaf asks.
“No,” Matthew says. “But he makes up for it by being really smart.”
“Like Techno?”
“Not so much with technology, but other ways.”
Red nods. “He’s good at getting the team to work together, thinking outside the box, and is a great strategist.”
“And since he uses pokemon instead of relying on powers, he’s the best trainer among them,” Blue adds.
“What made you laugh then?”
“I just think their idea of the Arceus Plates is funny. I mean, a ‘Sky Plate’ that grants ‘Sky Powers?’ Like having wings is a power, somehow?”
“It’s just a show,” Matthew says with a frown.
“I know,” Red says quickly. “I like the show. I just laughed because calling Milo the ‘Normal Type’ made me imagine them writing in a ‘Normal Plate’…” Now Allie is frowning at him too, and the sisters are raising mirroring eyebrows. “Forget it,” Red mutters and turns back to his notebook, biting into the granola.
There’s a pause, then Leaf says, “So what about the other types?”
Ayame or Kiko tick them off her fingers. “The Dread, Frost, Insect, Spirit, Toxic, Iron, and Draco Plates were found by Renegades.”
“They’re pretty evil,” Kiko or Ayame says with taboo relish.
Once spinarak spins a web, I could put pokepuffs in it to attract prey…
Blue smirks. “And totally badass. My favorite is Magnus. His wife and kid were killed by a metagross, and when the Dread plate came to him and gave him the powers of dark pokemon, he decided it was so he could wipe out all psychics, pokemon and human.”
“No way, Lung is the coolest,” Matthew says. “He can actually
turn into a dragon
, it’s awesome-”
…though it might still take too much time while traveling…
“He’s in trouble now that Crystalla might be switching sides,” Allie says, then says to Leaf. “She’s got the Frost Plate.”
“No way, she’s not going to break up with Lung,” one of the sisters say. “Kagari’s charming, but he’s a jerk.”
“He’s a
hot
jerk,” the other sister says with a giggle.
Blue turns to Leaf. “Kagari’s the-”
“Flame Plate?” She grins.
Red sighs and wishes he’d brought some headphones. He hadn’t really imagined needing to be able to tune out sound on his journey.
That excuse isn’t going to be valid forever.
It’s not like he has infinite resources though, and no matter how thorough he is in trying to think of them, there are countless things he won’t realize he might need until he does.
He tries his best to focus and writes a bit more as the conversation continues about the different character dynamics, but it’s too distracting. He feels himself getting more and more frustrated as his train of thought keeps derailing, and when he finishes his granola he forces himself to his feet.
“Gonna go call my mom,” he explains, and steps away from the clearing while the others continue talking. Once he’s outside the ring of lanterns and the voices are a mess of indistinguishable noise, he sits down with his back to a tree and he takes a deep breath. He has no reason to be so irritated with the others.
The forest stretches dark and still ahead of him, quiet but for the hum of voices behind and the occasional sound of pokemon in the distance. He hears a flutter of wings at one point, and wonders if a noctowl is on the hunt. Trying to catch one in this darkness would be worse than stupid though.
Red just listens to the wind in the branches and his own breaths until he feels himself again. As he gazes out into the night, he can’t help but wonder if somewhere out there, there are others lying dead or dying, unable to find a safe place to camp for the night.
He shakes himself and lets his breath out, then takes his phone out to call his mom. She answers on the third ring. “Hi honey! How is everything?”
“Hi mom. Everything’s alright. We’re all safe, getting ready to turn in for the night.”
“Are you enjoying the city?”
“We left this afternoon actually. We’re in Viridian Forest.”
“Already? Aren’t you going a bit fast, Red?”
“There just wasn’t much reason to stay. We didn’t become trainers to hang out in the city, you know.”
“I’m just worried about the storm…”
“Yeah, that’s kinda scary,” Red says. “But hopefully it’ll pass before we get there, and if not, there are few safer cities in summer than Pewter.”
“I know. Just be careful.”
Red rubs his knee, which is mostly pain free now. “We will. So how’s everything with you?”
“Productive! I have some news, actually.” She tells him about her plans to return to work in Celadon, which Red is happy to hear. Then she mentions what Daisy showed her last night.
“Pitch and tone…” Red marvels. “That’s an amazing discovery.”
“It was really something else, Red. I wish you could have seen it!”
“I can’t wait to,” Red says. “Daisy has her Researcher license, so once she unveils it at the Coordinator competition, I’m sure she’ll post demonstrations and trials on the pokedex.”
“I’m not sure what the applications of it would be though. Not battles, surely?”
Red’s pencil is in his hand, though he can’t remember taking it out, and he hasn’t enough light to write by anyway. He taps it against his leg instead. “Hard to tell. It sounds like it requires way too much buildup to be used in battles, but if you could pinpoint a certain power’s requisite tone, and if it’s all the same with different clefairy, then it could be invaluable for certain tasks. There’ll be a huge demand for clefairy when the news gets out, especially among researchers.”
“Well then, it’s a good thing you have a heads up.”
Red grins. “I’m definitely not leaving Mount Moon without one. In fact… would you mind if I dipped into my savings a bit?”
“What for?”
“To buy some clefairy.”
There’s a pause. “I don’t know that that’s such a good idea, Red.”
“It’s definitely a sound investment, I promise-”
“It’s not the financial angle. I just don’t think Daisy showed me what she did so you could profit off other people’s ignorance.”
“But I really need the money!”
“So do the people who are selling clefairy, for all you know.”
Red scowls. “It’s not like I can corner the market or anything.”
“So it’s alright if you can only cheat a few people instead of many?”
“Cheat seems a strong word for it-”
“Do you know how many stories I’ve covered on insider trading?”
“That’s completely different!” Red realizes he’s almost shouting, and takes a deep breath, lowering his voice. “I’m not influencing how much clefairy will be worth.”
“It’s not just about whether you have influence. It’s about a mutual understanding of value. The person you’re buying from doesn’t know as much as you do,
and you know it.
You are deliberately taking advantage of their ignorance.”
“So, what, I can’t buy something I think is undervalued? Different people have different reasons to value something. That’s why they engage in trade.”
“But they share an understanding of each other’s values and motives. Red, if you wanted to buy a clefairy for personal use, it wouldn’t be a problem. But you want to do it just to sell to someone else! You know the buyer wouldn’t take the deal if they knew what you would do with it.”
Red opens his mouth, then closes it. He… actually doesn’t have an argument for that… but… “But I
really
need the money!” he says, hating how juvenile he sounds.
“What for?”
“Lots of things! I need to buy a new Container, and a TM, and some trainer supplies-”
“Those sound like wants, not needs. You can afford them now, if you really need them, or I’ll give you the money if you can’t.”
I saw a dead trainer today, do you want me to end up like him because I’m not prepared?
Red bites down on his lip. He feels guilty just thinking it, and knows he would feel even more guilty if it works. She’s right though: he doesn’t
need
the supplies so much as he’d feel better or safer having them, which doesn’t necessarily place his need over that of the person selling the clefairy.
“What if I research the person selling it and see if they’re wealthy, first?”
“Pretend for a moment that Blue isn’t related to Daisy, and he’s selling a clefairy without knowing how much more it will soon be worth. Would you buy it from him just because he’s wealthier than you?”
“Dammit,” Red mutters. “Alright, that was a long shot anyway.”
“Or what about-”
“Alright, alright. I get it. You’re right. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, be thankful your mother is smart enough to stop you from making mistakes.”
Red smiles a bit. “Thanks mom.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What if-”
“Red!”
“No no, hear me out. What if I just buy
one
clefairy, strictly for personal use? I’m still a bit far from Mount Moon, and they’re really rare. If I don’t see any, at least I’ll have the one. Even if I
do
see one, Blue or Leaf might catch it. And if I see one
and
I catch it,
then
maybe I can sell it. Which is fine, because I caught it myself, right?”
“That… seems reasonable…”
He grins. “Thanks mom! If you see one for less than a thousand, feel free to grab it.”
“…fine. But if you sell it-”
“I won’t. Promise.”
She sighs. “Any preferences?”
“Nah, the gender ratio pretty well balances out the price distortion for breeding.”
“Alright then. I’ll check the markets tomorrow.”
After a few minutes of idler chat concerning her moving plans, Red says goodnight and ends the call with another promise to “stay safe.”
He stares into the dark forest afterward, thinking about Daisy’s discovery. Kanto legends talk about the clefairy family having all sorts of unusual powers. There are records that classify them as part of their own unique type, but most of their supposedly special properties seem exaggerated, if not completely made up.
Still, there are so many unusual things about them that it’s not hard to imagine there being more to them than is readily apparent… and this might be the key to discovering what they are.
Red catches a hold of his excitement and tries to stuff it into a box of lower expectations. Whatever secrets he might discover in clefairy are a long way off. In the meantime, he already has a mystery to tackle: his spinarak. That mental bla-
-dark emptiness, silent and still-
-st had crippled him, and he still doesn’t know why. If the spinarak wasn’t already hurt and ready to run, it might have killed him while he was prone. Blue and Leaf would have found him lying there on his belly, dead as Luke.
Red still hasn’t told the others. He’s too embarrassed to… but it’s not something he can ignore. A weakness like that can get him killed if it cripples him again at the wrong time, and it can get his companions killed. They have a right to know.
But first he needs to know more about it himself. He takes out his pokedex and goes to spinarak’s file, opening it past the menu summary he’d read earlier. He does a search for “psychic” and reads the first paragraph that shows up.
Both in the wild and after capture, spinarak have demonstrated mental attacks similar to some other insectile pokemon[23]. Experiments have ruled out the possibility that it uses psychic reception to identify prey[24], or protect itself: their capabilities seem purely projection of the psychic and ghost variety. However, they are not often the spinarak’s first or even second strategy of attack. The venom its stinger excretes…
Red taps the [24] and skims the referenced research paper. Observations showed spinarak preparing to deal with captured prey differently before it even saw what it had caught. Some experiments were done to determine if it was indicative of psychic powers, or if it was some other sense like scent or the vibrations on the web. The tests indicated the latter, as they were not able to distinguish between an actual pokemon’s thrashing and artificial manipulation. Furthermore, their behavior changed even when dark pokemon were introduced to their webs. Red goes back to the main article.
…can kill pokemon its size in minutes from a small scratch, and if it has room to maneuver, it will often sting its opponents and then use its web to immobilize them until the opponent succumbs to the toxin.[25] However, despite not being classified as Psychic or Ghost pokemon, some rare spinarak have the ability to attack the mind by inducing some mental discomfort through the patterns on its abdomen. While experiments have shown that the visual component is not necessary[26], it does seem to greatly increase discomfort[27]. The exact method and nature of the mental attacks are currently unknown.
Red looks over the rest of the biological info for any more relevant references. He tried reading about psychic phenomenon when he was younger, but the research on it, what little there was, quickly went beyond his comprehension. He moved onto other things after his tests came back negative. There were just so many other things to learn…
Unfortunately, now he finds himself with serious need to know, and little time to get back into the literature. Red closes the file and takes out his phone. He begins to search for Professor Oak’s number, then stops. The professor had insisted he feel free to call whenever, but Red doesn’t want to take advantage of their relationship. He can do some research first, then call the professor when he has specific questions to ask.
He begins to put the phone away, but there’s a niggling discomfort at the back of his mind. He almost ignores it, but months of training in self-awareness has helped occasionally identify cognitive dissonance. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, thinking about his motives.
Lying to himself is one of the most useless and dangerous things he can do. If he’s being honest, it’s his pride that made him hesitate to call the professor. Two days into his journey and he already needs help? It doesn’t fit his mental model of himself, where he’s smart and capable enough to learn and understand things on his own.
But objectively, he knows what a stupid thought that is, not to mention conceited.
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Some of the greatest minds that ever lived had purportedly said that.
Red wants to prove himself as at least Professor Oak’s equal. But progress comes from starting farther than the previous generations, and not taking advantage of his mentor’s knowledge would be as dumb as trying to train pokemon without pokeballs or dex, just because the professor had to.
His ego still doesn’t like it, but Red dials the professor before it can come up with another reason to put it off.
“Hello Red, it’s good to hear from you. How is everything?”
“Hi professor. Sorry to bother you so late-”
“Not at all, not at all. I was hoping you’d call soon, actually. Blue’s too proud to do more than check in by text, but I knew you’d let me live vicariously through you. What exciting adventures have you all been up to?”
Red winces. “Actually professor, it took something of an emergency to get past my ego enough to call.”
The professor’s tone sobers. “Is everyone alright?”
“Yeah, we’re fine.”
“What happened?”
“We saw a dead guy today.”
There’s a moment of silence where Red has time to be as surprised as Professor Oak. That… wasn’t what he planned to say…
“What happened?” the professor asks again, quieter.
So Red tells him about the beedrill swarm, their argument over what to do, the rangers’ arrival, how well the plan went, and how ultimately useless it all was. Professor Oak listens without interruption.
“Ranger Akio said he’d let me know if they learn something. Not sure if I believe him, but it’s better than nothing. I just hate not being able to find out what happened. And I feel guilty, even though it’s hard to think of something else we could have done. Maybe that’s why, because I can’t think of anything better. What if I had a slingshot? I could have shot a potion and antidote capsule at him, maybe it would have kept him alive until the Rangers came. Or Blue could have done it, he’s a better shot than me—”
He stops and takes a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright. I’m sorry you all had to go through that, especially so early on your journey. I empathize with your guilt, but you should know better than to listen to it.”
“I’m not just angsting, though. At least I don’t think I am.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me about why you decided to wait for the Ranger? Convincing Blue wouldn’t have been easy if your reasons weren’t sound.”
“I could barely keep myself from rushing in, honestly.”
“Be glad you didn’t or the three of you would be dead right now. You’re going to have to get used to the frustration of not solving every problem, or you’re going to get yourself killed before you write your first research paper.”
“But I don’t think I’ve
learned
anything from it. I can’t think of something different to have tried, or something new to do to be prepared in the future.”
“Then maybe it’s because there isn’t anything. Red, your father was a brave man, and he instilled great values in you—”
Something hot and painful coils through Red’s chest. “I’m not trying to be my dad.”
“Then what… ah. Have you been reading Leader Giovanni’s blog?”
Red blinks. “Yeah, for a few weeks now actually. Do you?”
“Now and then. Giovanni was one of my students at some point, you know. Let me guess: you’re worried you failed in your Heroic Responsibility. That you took the easy way out, waiting for the Rangers to arrive.”
“The Bystander Effect—”
“Doesn’t apply nearly as much if you were the only ones present at the time. What’s really bothering you?”
Red closes his eyes and rests his head against the tree. “I felt relieved, when the Rangers came. I thought, ‘Now they can handle it.’ And now I don’t know if my motives for not trying before that were genuine or not.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Red. It’s not your responsibility to solve the world’s problems.”
Red sighs. Professor Oak is a genius in a number of ways, but… He wonders what Leader Giovanni would say to that. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, sorry for not having a more exciting story to share. I know this probably wasn’t the kind of thing you had in mind for vicarious adventuring.”
“Not quite, but I knew to expect it at some point. And I’m glad you told me. Have you spoken to your mother yet?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want to worry her. Could you…”
“As long as she doesn’t ask me, I won’t bring it up.”
Red lets out a breath. “Thank you.”
“Of course. Despite my grouching, I still remember what it was like to be young.”
“How long did you go, before something like this happened?”
The professor is quiet for a moment, and Red hears a chair creak. “About two weeks. Some trainers tried to stop a graveler that was stomping through a town. Would have been easy with today’s pokeball technology, but back then… it crushed two of them, and five pokemon, before it was stopped.”
Red’s mind shies away from the mental image. Graveler are often slow enough to be easily captured today, but he can see why they’d be a bigger threat back when Professor Oak was his age, and the precursor to pokeballs only worked within touching distance. “What did you do?”
“Me? Nothing. I was good even at that age, but I didn’t have any pokemon that could help. I knew I would have just gotten in the way.”
Red wonders if the professor had selected this story among multiple he could have told. “That must have been frustrating.”
The professor gives a short laugh. “Very. I was so upset with myself I didn’t even stick around for the funerals. Over time, the guilt got better… especially once I got into situations where I
did
get involved. When I proved to myself that I had what it takes to help others. Just as I have every confidence you will.”
“Thanks, Professor,” Red whispers.
Professor Oak doesn’t respond, merely humming to himself as he settles in at his desk. Red can hear drawers opening and closing, and the sound of rapid typing on a keyboard. Red looks back at the campsite behind him and sees the others still sitting in a circle, talking. He can make out the sound of their voices, but not the words.
“There was something else I called about. The main thing, actually.”
“You have my undivided attention,” Oak assures him, still clacking away on the keyboard.
Red smiles briefly. It’s rare to see the professor at his desk doing any less than two things at once. “I caught a spinarak earlier today—”
“—yes, I saw. Very well done—”
“—but during the fight I was caught in some sort of mental attack against Charmander. It incapacitated me completely for at least a few seconds, and I didn’t fully recover from it for a few minutes.”
The sound of Oak’s typing slows to a stop. “You say it incapacitated you? A spinarak?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me everything.”
He does, going into detail about the way it felt during and after. As he describes it, he feels the echo of it again, raw and painful in his mind.
“And it still hurts when I try to think of it, professor.” Red’s throat is dry from so much talking, and he considers going to the campsite for his water bottle. “Is that normal?”
“Yes and no.” The professor is typing again, faster than before.
“Could you be a bit more specific? And possibly reassuring?”
“It’s normal for victims of strong mental attack, but quite rare for a spinarak to be capable of that strong an attack.”
“So either my spinarak is an outlier, or I’m the outlier, and I’d react at least as badly to other mental attacks. Or both.”
“First let’s gather some data by testing out one of the pokedex’s new features. Take yours out and go to your spinarak’s entry.”
Red switches his phone to speaker and places it on the grass, then does so. “Okay. Now what?”
“We’ve added the ability to read pokemon’s digital data and quantify it in easy to read metrics.”
“That sounds pretty cool.” He begins poking around the options on the menu. “One of Bill’s programs?”
“Yep. The Pokemon League has been doing the majority of the funding, and we’ve made a lot of progress. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to get objective interspecies measures. The best we can do is estimate a pokemon’s capabilities compared to others of the same species.”
Red navigates to the page labeled “Biology,” and looks down the list of options.
Diet, Life Cycle, Chemical Composition…
“Okay, I think I see it.” He taps
Comparative Metrics,
and a bar graph slowly begins to populate, comparing things like muscle mass, chitin density, neuron count, and more to the total average of registered spinaraks within the same age and gender range. Some of the bars go up, while others go down from the baseline of 0% difference. “Woah. This is awesome.”
“Indeed. We’re working on one that will compare performance metrics directly, measured through simulations in virtual space, but in the meantime this might help.”
The bars continue to populate, none stretching very far from the center line. “Now let me see…” Red hears a keyboard clacking, and a little notification pings on the corner of his screen to let him know it’s being shared by PROF. OAK. “Ah, it works. Excellent. And it’s just about done… well now. See the outlier?”
“I do, but what does it mean?” Most of the % differences listed are under 20%, either positive or negative. In Chitin Density, his spinarak has a 16% increase in thickness over others. Its venom sacs on the other hand are -12% the size of the species average. But in the last category, labeled “Other,” the difference is 37%, making it stick out from the rest of the metrics and skew the range of the y axis.
“‘Other’ is where the pokedex puts everything else in the data that can’t be easily categorized, or things we haven’t been able to fully study in a species yet.”
Red feels excitement stir in him. “So this could be something new, right? I mean, potentially, this could be important.”
“Absolutely. I think you just found the topic for your Researcher license article, Red.”
Red’s eyes narrow. “Wait, this isn’t like the charmander tail flame again, is it?”
Professor Oak laughs. “Not this time. Just keep in mind, ‘Other’ is something of a useless metric for the most part. It’s a calculation based on mass and defined by the pokemon’s coding. Whatever was left over that we couldn’t easily account for or distinguish goes there: everything from a pokemon’s stomach bacteria to the thickness of its hair.”
“So… I might discover that psychic powers in spinarak are positively correlated with how much bacteria are in its guts?”
“Just think of the headlines. You might start the first diet fad for psychics. Of course, it might also be completely unrelated.”
Red lowers his pokedex. “Professor… could you explain what psychic powers are?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know that
anyone
can do that. Even the psychics themselves fall into camps, some decidedly less scientific than others.”
“But you can explain the leading theories, right? I’m feeling a bit vulnerable at the moment, and short of seeking out another pokemon with psychic attacks and letting it blast me, I want to know how likely it is that the… variance is on my end.” He’d almost said “weakness.”
There’s a moment of hesitation. “Red, do you know what theory-induced blindness is?”
“I think I’ve heard the phrase before…”
“A psychologist named Daniel Kahneman coined it. You’ve run across his ideas before, even if you didn’t know it. Theory-induced blindness is a kind of confirmation bias, where
thinking
you know the way the world works means you ignore facts or dismiss ideas that show how it
actually
works.”
Red processes this, then smiles. “And there’s experimental evidence that supports this? I knew it. I
knew
it! This
totally
helps explain the intractability of perceptions of pokemon types—”
“This isn’t just a layman’s bias, Red. Scientists are also vulnerable to it.”
“Really? That sounds… pretty unscientific. How could they just ignore something that contradicts a theory? That’s half the point of testing predictions!”
“Ah, the voice of youth.” Red can hear the Professor’s grin. “You might be surprised how many otherwise intelligent and accomplished scientists can fall prey to it. Especially when inverse incentives are involved.”
“Even you, Professor?”
“Even me. Why do you think I keep so many fresh young minds around?”
“I just figured it’s the next best thing to cloning yourself.” Despite what the professor says, Red finds it hard to believe that a scientist wouldn’t immediately recognize contradicting evidence like a flashing red light. Especially one as accomplished as Professor Oak. He probably did it when he was less experienced—
Red blinks, then abruptly laughs at himself. “Okay, wow. That’s kind of scary.”
“Hm?”
“I just went from doubting what you said to experiencing it first hand, and almost missed the irony.”
The professor chuckles. “Like all biases, it can be subtle. So you see, I’m a bit worried about telling you the predominant hypothesis on psychic phenomenon, let alone whether it’s the one I think is correct. I don’t want to bias your thinking.”
“But I need to know
something
to help figure it all out, don’t I?”
The professor lets out a breath. “Something, yes. Let me think.”
Red stays quiet as the professor types, using the time to pull his notebook out of his pocket and write “BEWARE THEORY INDUCED BLINDNESS” on the cover by the light of his pokedex, drawing squares around it and putting an exclamation mark at either end, then doodling the open jaws of a gyarados over the top and bottom. After a few minutes, the professor speaks again. “Alright, here’s the crash course. I’m going to do my best to present all the competing theories fairly without promoting one over the others. Forgive me if I go over anything you’ve heard before.”
“Don’t worry about that, it’s been awhile anyway.” Red turns to a fresh page and labels it “Psychic Phenomena.”
“For starters, psychic phenomena are generally classified in two categories: projection and reception. Projection powers are the ones that are the most noticeable to others. They include telekinesis, barriers, teleportation, and reconstruction, among other things. Reception are the subtler powers, like perception, precognition, and focus.”
“Not all psychics have all the powers though, right?” Red asks as he writes.
“Right. Humans psychics vary wildly in strength compared to pokemon of a given species, and are weaker in the few projection powers they have. They seem to be weaker in reception powers too, but since we can’t talk to pokemon, it’s harder to tell. But even all this is controversial, as some academics object to the blanket classifications, and many psychics prefer other interpretations.”
“What do you mean? Mysticism?”
“It’s admittedly a fine line: some of the powers we once considered magical have since been revealed to be psychic, while others we thought were psychic don’t behave the way the majority of psychic powers do, or even the way Ghost or Dark powers do for pokemon. We think of them all as ‘mental powers,’ but then there are the other unusual abilities people and pokemon have demonstrated: is reading auras a psychic power, or a distinct and separate part of being in tune with
ki,
as the otherwise non-psychic martial artists insist? Are you starting to see the shape of the problem?”
Red frowns. “There are way too many theories, none of which account for all the evidence.”
“Not by half. And there’s another major problem that throws a snag in everything.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s see if you can figure it out. Pretend you don’t know there are any human psychics, and have only been studying pokemon. What would you say if I told you that humans can exhibit psychic powers?”
Red puts his pencil down and closes his eyes, thinking it over. His first reaction would be skepticism, because if he doesn’t know there are psychic humans, it must be because he hasn’t seen any evidence of them. “I would ask you to show me the human with the powers.”
“What if I said you can’t test their powers right now, but insist you believe they’re true anyway?”
Red opens his eyes, nonplussed. “I… would say you can insist whatever you want, but I can’t
make
myself believe psychic humans exist outside of a temporary hypothetical, especially when such a thing goes against the natural order as I understand it.”
“So you’d be blinded by your confidence in accepted theories.”
“What? No, that’s ridiculous. There’s a difference between rejecting evidence contradicting your theories and being skeptical of unsupported assertions.”
“Then what argument would you use to try to convince me they don’t exist?”
“None. Until you provide me a reason to believe they might exist, it would be a waste of time. I might as well go around trying to disprove everything random people believe without evidence.”
“But I’m not a random person,” the professor says patiently. “I’m your superior, and I’m telling you that psychic humans exist. How would you convince me I’m wrong?”
Red grumbles and closes his eyes again, turning the problem over in his mind. If he has to try and disprove an untestable assertion, he can only rely on natural laws and time-tested theories that contradict that assertion to cast doubt on it, or refer to ones that would increase the burden of proof beyond reasonable levels. What would make him the most skeptical of psychic humans?
If I haven’t seen or heard of any psychic humans before, my natural inclination would be to assume they don’t exist. But psychic powers do exist, so what makes me so skeptical of the idea that a human could develop them? For them to exist they would have to be an exception to some rule that I already believe about the world, or that my experience leads me to believe is true-
“Oooh, of course. There are no psychic rattata!”
The professor laughs. “Go on.”
“No psychic rattata. Furthermore, no psychic machop, no psychic rhyhorn, no psychic krabby, and no psychic charmander! Pokemon species are either capable of psychic powers or not. Some pokemon like spinarak are capable of limited, narrow mental powers, but there are
no
pokemon species where one member has exhibited them, but the others haven’t!”
“Exactly. It’s a subset of something called the ‘Speciation Paradox,’ but I like ‘No Psychic Rattata’ better.”
Red runs his fingers through his hair, taking his hat off for a moment and scratching his head as his mind races. “Wow. I’ve occasionally considered ways humans seem fundamentally different from pokemon, but I never really considered the way psychic powers manifest. Now that I recognize it, that’s a pretty major incongruity. It must drive researchers nuts.”
“It does. Unlike the narrow bounds of a pokemon species, humans exhibit wildly varying psychic powers. A tiny fraction have extremely powerful abilities, some have fairly weak powers, and the vast majority apparently have none at all.”
Red puts his cap back on, and begins writing rapidly to cover everything. “So maybe humans, as a whole, are a psychic species with tons of variance. Maybe a lot of what we dismiss as intuition, or even the special bond between some humans and their pokemon, are due to subtle psychic powers. There must be something about our accepted models of psychics, or our accepted models of humans as a species, that this evidence is contradicting.”
“Very good. But it gets worse.”
Red frowns. “Yeah. What about dark humans? There aren’t any Dark Type rattata either, outside of those from Alola, which are basically just a different species.”
“Some think it’s just a unique variation of psychic abilities, a defensive adaptation that makes a person or pokemon completely immune to psychic powers. Like pokemon, dark humans project a ‘dead zone’ around them that psychic abilities can’t penetrate, but unlike pokemon, and unlike psychics, no dark human has been able to manipulate that field or take advantage of the other abilities dark pokemon have.”
“That seems significant…” Red says slowly. “I wish I could talk to one of them, and a psychic.”
“I’ll see if I can call in a favor for the latter, but why not just ask Blue?”
Red blinks, pencil pausing mid-stroke. “Wait, what?”
“Oh. Oh dear.”
Red gapes. “That jerk, he never told me! When did he find out?”
“Shortly after he met Elite Agatha. She informed me afterward, and I told him in private. He was quite upset.”
“That’s understandable.” He was disappointed as a kid when he didn’t manifest psychic powers, but at least he could still train psychic pokemon to respond to this thoughts. A pokemon trainer with a dark mind would have twice as hard a time training psychic types, and for some they’d find it completely impossible.
That said, Red can appreciate the trade-off better now that he knows what a mental attack feels like. A blanket protection against psychic attacks, and a resistance to ghost attacks, could be invaluable.
Professor Oak sighs. “I’ll have to apologize for letting his secret slip, I suppose.”
Red hesitates. “If you’d like, I can pretend—”
“No, no. It’s my mistake, and better that he knows you know than maintain a double-deception. It should be something you’re aware of if you’re going to be traveling together anyway.”
“Yeah. Ooo, and this means I can test if my spinarak’s mental attack was Psychic or Ghost Type!”
“You’re going to ask it to blast my grandson, aren’t you?”
“…maybe?”
The professor laughs. “Well it wouldn’t be the first time a scientist risks Renegade branding. Just make sure you get him to sign a waiver. Better make that multiple waivers.”
“Wouldn’t it be useful to know, though?”
“You’re wondering if it had such a strong effect because you’re a latent psychic?”
“It crossed the optimistic part of my mind, yeah. But I mean in general, since we’re trying to figure out if there’s something special about my spinarak.”
“Yes, it could definitely be useful to know. Some think psychic and ghost powers are related, certainly more related than psychic and dark. Others think that they’re all variations of the same one. The only things we really
know
are that some psychics have an affinity with ghost pokemon, and dark trainers have difficulty training either, though psychic types more than ghosts.”
Red’s wrist is cramping from writing so much so quickly, switching between summarizing and writing questions as soon as they spring to mind. “And nothing relates them to
ki
energy so far?”
“No, no relationship between Psychic and Dark trainers and
ki.
Why?”
Red puts the pencil down and flexes his wrist to relieve the ache. “Just thinking out loud. You know my perspective on pokemon types reflecting emergent properties…”
“Ah, yes, I see. Are you reconsidering something about it?”
“Sort of. I’ve been starting to group the types as ‘substantive’ versus ‘descriptive,’ because it helps them make more sense. Like, Water type is substantive, while Flying is descriptive. One is inherent to a pokemon’s genetics, or biological composition. The other is just a description of a property they have.”
“So a pokemon that’s strong is considered Fighting, a descriptive type, but there is nothing inherently “Fighting” about it, unless
ki
energy proves to exist independent of psychic powers. I imagine you classified Psychic pokemon as descriptive too?”
“Yeah. But now… I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it after I learn more.”
“I’ll let you know if I find anything interesting out.”
“Thanks. In the meantime, I think that’s all the questions I have for now.”
“My advice is to not worry too much about the bigger questions yet. Break the mystery down into smaller problems, and work at solving those. Put the clues together from the outside in.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll be starting with spinarak anyway.”
“Good luck Red, and don’t hesitate to message me again if you think of something else.”
“I will. Thanks again, Professor. For everything.”
“Anytime. Goodnight.”
“Night.” Red closes the call and puts his phone away, ear throbbing from holding it against his shoulder. He finishes writing out his thoughts, and after a few minutes has a page with a flowchart of sorts on it:
Hypothesis: Some biological metric the pokedex classifies as “Other” influences strength of a pokemon’s psychic powers.
Step 1: Find multiple pokemon within a species that exhibit psychic powers.
Step 2: Determine what the relative strength of those powers are between them.
Step 3: Measure their biological metrics to check for correlations between psychic power and Other.
Step 4: If it does, repeat steps 1-3 for another species. If it doesn’t, repeat steps 1-3 with pokemon exhibiting ghostly powers.
Red frowns. He’s going to need a lot of spinarak.
When he gets back to the clearing, the group is still talking about Power Force Ten.
“I’d want the Lightning Plate for sure,” Matthew says. “The superspeed alone makes it awesome.”
“More awesome than
flying
?” Leaf says. “Sky Plate for me, for sure.” She looks at Red and grins. “Assuming Sky Powers are a thing, of course.”
He smiles back as he sits, feeling considerably more at ease than he had upon first entering the clearing. “Hey, if something like a Sky Plate really exists, far be it from me to decide whether it makes sense. Clearly my view of reality is what’s flawed.” Red takes out his water bottle and drinks, easing the ache in his throat.
“What about you, Red?” Allie asks. “What Plate would you get? Fire?”
“Psychic,” Blue guesses.
“Actually, I’d choose the Fairy Plate.”
Everyone looks surprised. “For the Fairy Type? Those are a myth,” Matthew says.
Red doesn’t remark on the irony. “Maybe. But if Fairy pokemon actually exist, then they should have their own Plate, right?”
“I guess so,” Allie says. “But why do you want it? What would it do?”
“Exactly. What would it do? If it exists, I’d want to find out.”
“I heard legends where they controlled light, like Luxia,” Leaf says. “Turned it into a weapon.”
“I read a book where they could charm others into doing what they want,” Matthew says. “Like mind control.”
The others begin debating what possible powers the Fairy Plate might grant. Leaf turns to Red after a few moments, looking at him speculatively.
“You seem in a better mood.”
He shrugs, then nods. “Had to get something off my chest I guess. Spoke to my mom and Professor Oak.”
“Care to share?”
“Later,” he promises, and she seems satisfied with that.
The conversation continues, then slowly winds down. They arrange for who will take what watch, and Red volunteers to go first, since he woke up so late that morning. After another few minutes of quiet talking punctuated by more and more frequent yawns, the others slip into their bedrolls and drift off one by one.
Blue, who has second watch, is the last to fall asleep. “Want me to wait up with you, Red? Pull a double shift?” he says, voice low.
“Nah, get some rest. Thanks though.”
“No problem,” he mumbles, yawning and turning onto his stomach, arms under his pillow and beside his pokebelt.
“Hey Blue.”
“Hm?”
“Just wanted to let you know… uh… I spoke to your grandpa. I know you’re dark.”
Blue lies quietly for a moment. “That so?”
“He didn’t mean to let it slip, but… well, there’s something I need to tell you. I was kind of embarrassed to before.”
“What’s up?”
“I should wait to tell Leaf too. I just wanted to let you know that I know.”
Blue shrugs his shoulders. “Daisy is too. She doesn’t let it bother her, and I’m over it.”
Red relaxes a little. “Oh? Good. I think it’s kind of cool, in a way.”
“Yeah. Gives me an edge against psychic trainers.” Blue shifts deeper into his bedroll. “Remember to wake me on time.”
Red smiles. “See you in a bit.”
As the sounds of the others’ quiet breathing surrounds him, Red takes his phone out and he finds Leader Giovanni’s email address on the Viridian Gym’s site. Then he checks the blog and notices there’s a different address there. Probably better to use that one, since this isn’t concerning gym business.
He thinks over what he wants to say to catch the Gym Leader’s attention. He probably gets hundreds of emails a day. What sorts of things would he instruct a human filter to pass on to him?
Red remembers a podcaster who gets a lot of mail going over his criteria for “Delete, read, or save for later,” and decides it’s as good a set of guidelines as any:
Esteemed Leader Giovanni,
My name is Red Verres, and I’m an apprentice of Professor Oak’s. I have learned a lot from your blog about the responsibility and values of pokemon trainers and citizens, and want your advice on something…
He succinctly summarizes the events at the flower field. It bothers him a bit to namedrop Professor Oak, but he knows that’s just his ego again. He wants a response, and without something early on to distinguish it, there’s little reason for the letter to even reach Leader Giovanni.
…Professor Oak insists that I did all I could. Part of me wants to believe him, but another part is wary of doing so. I think if I do, it would be too easy to excuse myself for not thinking of something that could have worked, and shirk heroic responsibility in the future.
So I was hoping to get your insight on the matter, if you have the time to respond. If you were in my place, with the resources I had, what would you have done?
Thank you for your time,
Red Verres
By the time he finishes, his hour’s nearly up. He does some reading on Theory-Induced Blindness, then puts his phone away and wakes Blue.
“Lucky bastard,” his friend mutters as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. “First and last watch are always the best.”
Red grins as he slides into his own bedroll. “I can stay up if you want, keep you from nodding off.”
“Nah, I’ve got to refresh myself on caterpie lifecycles. Night bud.”
“Goodnight.” Red covers his eyes with one arm to block off the light, quickly sinking into sleep.
Ranger Akio rides his meganium through the forest, the swarm of the beedrill so loud he can’t even hear his own pokemon’s pants for breath. He glances back and sees them coming, a shifting mass of yellow and black, red eyes seething hatred at the prey that stays just beyond their claws.
Once they’re far enough back, he grips tighter with his thighs and reaches both hands down to his pokebelt. With meganium’s pokeball in one hand and arcanine’s in the other, he slowly rises to his knees, plants one foot on his pokemon’s back, and leaps off, pointing it at the plant pokemon and shouting “Meganium, return!” and “Arcanine, go!” in quick succession.
From one direction, his meganium disappears in a flash of light. From the other, his arcanine rockets out of the ball in his hand, crimson fur bright in the brown and green forest. Akio lands, leaps, and spins onto the fire pokemon’s back, digging his heels in to command him forward-
-and instead gets knocked to the ground, a line of pain etched across his side as the lead beedrill buzzes past him. He tumbles over the grass as his pokemon roars and spews fire at the swarm. Half a dozen fall, but the rest quickly bury the arcanine in a tide of piercing stingers. Akio grabs another two pokeballs and opens his mouth to command them open, but instead a cloud of blood sprays from his lips. He looks down and sees the armblades of a beedrill piercing his lungs. His pokeballs fall from numb fingers as the green blades withdraw, not a beedrill’s after all, thicker and longer, like those of a scyther, and Red’s father falls to his knees-
Red wakes with a cry, kicking at his bedroll and crawling out of it, gasping and trembling as he feels his body for puncture marks.
“What is it?! Are you alright?”
Red looks up to see one of the twins staring at him in concern, one hand on her pokebelt. Fourth or fifth watch, then. He looks around to see if he woke anyone, but the rest are still asleep. Red rubs the cold sweat from his face.
“Fine. I’m fine. Just a nightmare. Sorry.”
“Oh… okay. Um. Do you want to talk about it?”
Red shakes his head and crawls back into his bedroll. “No, I’m okay. Sorry again.”
“That’s alright.” She looks uncomfortable, but sits back down and picks up a book beside her.
Red’s heartbeat begins to slow. He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing until it evens out again, but he can’t go back to sleep without picturing Luke or Ranger Akio or his father.
Eventually he sighs and takes his phone out to check his mail. He scrolls past some daily reports and newsletters, then spots one in particular.
No way…
Heart racing for a different reason now, he opens the letter from Leader Giovanni, cautioning himself not to get too excited, that it’s probably just an automated response.
But when it loads, the message on his screen reads:
From what details you have provided, I would have acted as you did. If that is not sufficient to your sense of responsibility, and you still fear that you acted out of cowardice, consider this: is there any amount of money that would have convinced you to try? -G
Red lies awake into the next watch change, thinking about it. He eventually responds simply with
No,
and afterward sleeps until morning without dreams.
“So, what if we cut off Blue’s finger?” Leaf asks as they walk.
Blue glances at her, then steps to the side of the road so Red is between them. “I’d tell Squirtle to bite off two of yours, is what.”
Leaf grins. “She’d have to get through Bulbasaur first. My point is, would a psychic be able to lift it immediately after?”
Red scratches his hair, considering Leaf’s question. The morning dawned with clear blue skies above, and after a communal breakfast, they said goodbye to Allie, Matthew and the twins and resumed their journey north. Once they were on their way, Red filled the others in on the details of his spinarak capture, and his conversation with Professor Oak.
“It’s a good idea-”
Blue steps farther from him too.
“-but hard to test, obviously. From what I read, cut hair and nail clippings lose whatever protection they have as soon as the dark type moves away, since the ‘dead zone’ they passively emit doesn’t extend past their skin. And psychics have reported that the dead zone fades shortly after death, though that’s medical death, not brain death. So I’m not sure how long a severed body part would retain it.” Red puts on a speculative look and peers intently at Blue’s hands, stroking his chin.
“Hey!” Blue says as Leaf laughs, and slows his pace so that he’s behind both of them. “Keep your beady eyes to yourself and find a pokemon to chop up for your experiments.”
Leaf’s laughter cuts off, and she frowns over her shoulder as Red mutters “beady eyes?” to himself. “That’s disgusting! You’d have to do it while it’s still alive to test it.”
“You just suggested chopping off my finger!”
“It was a hypothetical! Some pokemon are actually butchered alive.”
Red blinks. “Are they? Which?”
Leaf grimaces. “Shellfish meat has a bad taste if it’s killed before it’s cooked, so they often boil or chop up living ones.”
“At least they’re killing them for food,” Blue says.
“Is that supposed to make it better?”
“Uh… doesn’t it?”
They start to argue over the ethics of eating pokemon, but Red is too distracted by her example to get involved. He pulls his pokedex out to see if there are any dark-type crustaceans.
“If you care about what happens to your pokemon you must recognize they’re capable of feeling, so why is it alright to kill them for food when we don’t have to?”
“I care about my pokemon because they’re
mine
, pokemon get hurt and killed in the wild all the time.”
“So that’s an excuse to hurt more of them?”
“It’s a fact of nature. Even plants can feel, if feeling is all you care about, well, something’s gonna die no matter what you eat-”
“Found one,” Red says to cut off their argument before it escalates further. “Crawdaunt, Water/Dark. A group of psychics went to different restaurants preparing them and reported that after they were, er, chopped up, their parts kept their own dead zones for a short time after being separated, but before the crawdaunt died.”
Leaf looks faintly nauseous. “Well, that’s that, then. If the deadzone is tied to the body parts, then it can’t be something in the mind.”
Red shakes his head. “Not necessarily. We don’t actually know the mechanics of how it works. What if the source is the mind, and the field it subconsciously covers the body with just takes a while to fade?”
They continue to discuss it for the rest of the morning, all the while keeping their eyes peeled for cocoons, webs, or nesting pokemon as they travel. Despite the lower chances of running into pokemon together, no one suggests splitting up again.
Short of blind luck however, Red despairs at finding a hoothoot or noctowl before they leave the forest, let alone some of the rarer pokemon like pikachu or budew. They’ve been walking at about 3 kilometers an hour, and would likely leave the forest by tomorrow afternoon. Thinking of the bird that flew overhead last night, he’s more frustrated than ever that he’s the only one among them without a flier. He’d rather not settle for a pidgey or spearow, neither of which are capable of mental attacks.
In the meantime they bring their own pokemon out and train with them as they travel. Leaf sends her rattata from one bush to another on her side to hone its precision in following directions. She eventually nicknames him “Scamp” after he tries to grab a bit of pokepuff from Blue’s shroomish. The fungal pokemon waddles along beside them on its stubby feet, dutifully sending clouds of different spores and powders over bushes Blue wants to check for hidden wilds.
Red decided to summon Charmander for some physical training. The fire lizards’ strongest muscles are in their hind legs, vital to help them leap out of harm’s way while young and launch themselves into the air when they grow wings.
Once Charmander manages to grab the bit of pokepuff Red holds near his chest, he lifts the next bit to eye level.
“Jump!”
Charmander leaps, biting at the air before he falls back to the grass.
Blue smirks. “Speaking of losing fingers…”
“Come on, Charmander, you can do it. Jump!”
Charmander crouches, then leaps again, snagging the pokepuff.
“Good job Charmander!” Red tears off another piece and lifts it above his head. “Again, jump!” His pokemon tries, again and again, but can’t go higher than Red’s head. He growls and leaps again, snapping at the air before falling to the grass, breathing hard.
“Go on boy, you’re getting higher. Jump!”
Charmander looks at the pokepuff, then him. He makes a gurgling sound, and suddenly starts climbing Red’s leg.
“Hey!” Red stops walking, stretching his arm higher as his other hand reaches for his pokemon. “That’s cheating!”
Charmander pays him no mind, crawling around his side to avoid his hand, tail kept carefully apart as he makes his way up Red’s shirt, then leaps off and grabs the pokepuff. Upon landing, the fire lizard happily curls up on the grass and munches on his prize. Red sighs.
“So are you going to punish that?” Blue says. “Since he was supposed to jump?”
“I wouldn’t,” Leaf says as she tosses a berry to Scamp. “Might discourage creative problem solving.”
Red nods. “Guess he’s had enough jumping for now.” He rubs the soft hide on Charmander’s head, then returns him to his pokeball as the others walk ahead.
Red summons his spinarak for the first time since he caught it. As soon as it’s out, he avoids looking directly at the face-like pattern on its back. He feels his thoughts shying away from the memory for fear of feeling its echo again, but the problem with trying not to think of something-
dark
alone
Red focuses his gaze on one of its legs, quickly bending down to check if its wounds from before healed properly. He can’t quite bring himself to touch the arachnoid, and simply pulls some jerky out, shredding it into small bits for it to eat.
Something simple to start… “Spinarak, string shot!” he says, pointing at the branch of a nearby tree. The bug turns to see what he’s pointing at, then shoots its webbing up, attaching a line to the branch. “Climb!” It scuttles up the string until it can hang from the branch. “Return.” It drops and scurries back over to him. “Good job.”
Red drops the meat strips, and suppresses a sudden shudder as its mandibles clack audibly. He’s glad bug pokemon don’t react as positively to physical affection, because he can’t bring himself to treat it as warmly as his rattata or charmander. And that’s even putting aside the-
cold
hurts
Red shakes himself, breath catching in his throat. This is going to be harder than he thought.
Bug pokemon always creeped him out. Just the thought of his spinarak crawling up his body or resting on his arm makes him break out in goosebumps.
I need to desensitize
myself
, Red realizes.
Pokemon professors need to be capable of studying all kinds of pokemon. Professor Oak doesn’t get squeamish when handling venonat, or paras.
Unfortunately, Red never mastered that particular brain hack. He knows the theory though: small exposures in safe and calming circumstances until he no longer feels an aversion to that, then moving on to more extreme circumstances.
Red sighs and tells his spinarak to follow him as he catches up with the others, then begins training it in basic webbing commands: string shot, trip lines, web traps, slowly working his way up to the more complex traps and obstacles. The other two watch his new pokemon curiously for a bit, but if they notice the way Red avoids looking directly at or touching it, they don’t comment.
The hours pass, and the sun rises to its zenith. Eventually the trio finds a clearing to stop in for lunch. There’s a small boulder resting beside a nearby tree, and Blue points at it as the other two feed their pokemon, then withdraw them.
“Shroomish, Leech Seed!”
His pokemon’s soft body contracts, then pulses, the dimples in its fungal dome sending out half a dozen seeds over the rock. A gel around the seeds causes them to stick, and soon they split open. Thin roots snake out to find the minuscule pits and wedges in the stone, and within few seconds a dozen small cracks are heard. Leaf steps closer and kneels to watch, keeping her hands away from the glistening roots as it they slowly press into the boulder.
But soon the vines stop growing, and the seeds fall off one by one, the ends of their roots wilting. Blue frowns and sends his pokemon to eat them. “That wasn’t particularly impressive. In the vids I’ve seen, leech seed can eventually bring down even an onyx.”
“Well, there’s a difference between ‘living’ stone and ‘dead’ stone. This,” Leaf says as she knocks a fist on the boulder, “Is just rock. It’s virtually devoid of nutrients for the roots to absorb, and is much harder for the digestive enzymes of the leech seed’s roots to break down. But living stone is basically like really hard chitin. It’s still organic.”
“Damn. I wanted to get a sense for how well it would work on Leader Brock’s pokemon. ” Blue pulls out some berries for his shroomish once the pokemon finishes eating the barely grown plants.
“The leader of your Rock Gym is named ‘Brock’?”
“His name’s Takeshi actually, but he goes by Brock.” Red says. “Don’t any of your Leaders use nicknames?”
She smiles. “Yeah, our Flying Gym leader’s is Skyla. So what kind of Leader is Brock?”
“Very involved locally,” Blue says. “The city loves him, which means anyone who wants to be mayor there has to hold his favor.”
“So much for the separation of powers.”
Red shrugs. “The people have spoken. Thankfully he seems smart and competent, so things in Pewter have been going pretty well. They have a lot of civic pride.”
Blue withdraws his shroomish, and the three remove their facemasks and take out food for lunch. Leaf has some bread, cheese, and tomato slices, and Red realizes that he hasn’t seen her eat any meat. Granted, most of their trail food consists of fruit, rice balls and granola. Rather than put her on the spot about it, he tests his hypothesis by offering her some jerky, which she politely turns down. After hearing her objections to the way pokemon are treated, he wonders if she avoids eating any pokemon at all, even the plants and water types.
After they eat, Leaf steps away for a bit to call her mother while Red quickly confirms that Zapdos’s storm is still safely north of Pewter. Blue begins setting up some virtual training for his new pokemon, and Red checks his mail.
He looks at the message from Leader Giovanni again before going to his new messages. It’s still hard to believe that such a huge figure had actually taken the time to respond to a random message by a fan. Red doesn’t consider himself easily star-struck after growing up knowing the world famous Professor Oak, but Giovanni’s accomplishments are just as impressive in their own way. More than that, he has a unique way of rationally looking at the world, and Red always learns something new by reading his blog posts.
Red goes to his new messages and sees one from Professor Oak:
Hello Red,
I sent an email to Elite Agatha last night, and she responded to me this morning. Psychic attacks are generally felt as mental, while ghostly attacks are experienced as emotional. This seems like an antiquated conception of the division between the mind and emotions, which is why we call both mental attacks, but she insists the difference is noticeable to those sensitive to such things, however fine the line is to others.
I’ll ask some others just to verify, but this is Agatha’s area of expertise, and if we take what she says as a working hypothesis for now, the description you gave of the attack makes it seem more emotional than mental. Hard to be sure though. I would make finding out your top priority.
Safe travels,
Sam
Red puts his phone away. “Hey Blue, wanna do me a favor?”
“What’s up?” Blue taps at the pokedex screen, gaze intent.
“Would you mind letting my spinarak use its mental attack on you?”
Blue’s fingers pause, and he lowers his pokedex a bit to look at Red. “Say that again?”
“I’m still not sure if it was a psychic attack or a ghost one, and since you’re dark…”
“No.” Blue turns back to his pokedex.
“I don’t mean right now, but after I train it a bit-”
“Sorry. I’ll pass on testing out its poison too, or Charmander’s fire.”
Red laughs. “Come on, seriously. It won’t affect you at all if it’s psychic, and you’ll barely feel it if not.”
“No shit? I didn’t realize.” Blue raises the pokedex a bit higher, leaning back against his bag so his face is hidden behind it.
Red’s smile fades, brow furrowed. “Why not?”
“I just don’t feel like it.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“Sure it is. Not my concern if you won’t take it.”
A hot flush spreads through Red’s chest. “What’s your problem?”
“An annoying bidoof who can’t take no for an answer.”
And ignites. “I guess it was too much to expect a rational justification from you.”
“Guess so.”
Leaf rejoins them, looking a bit apprehensive. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Blue’s just being a self-centered jackass.”
Blue lowers his pokedex and sits up with a scowl. “You asked me for a favor, but
I’m
the self-centered one?!”
“You refused without even explaining why!”
“Sorry
professor
, better get used to the fact that you don’t always get to know everything!”
Leaf steps forward, palms out to both of them and looking a bit shocked. “Woah, guys, calm down…”
Red can’t remember standing, but Blue is too, and he cranes his neck to look at him around Leaf. “If you’re not going to supply a reason for your actions,” Red says as blood pounds in his ears, “Then you can’t complain if I come up with my own.”
“I can if you’re calling me selfish for not obeying your every command!”
“‘Every command?’ Excuse me for assuming you’d want to help me get my researcher license!”
“Well excuse me if I don’t like being experimented on just because I’m dark!”
Red’s anger hits a wall. “What? That’s not-”
“Yes, it is! I’m just a test subject to you now, aren’t I?”
“Come on, you know me better than that! Besides, you said you were over it!”
“I
lied
, you idiot!”
The two of them are breathing hard as that last shout fades away, and as Red tries to think of something to say, Blue makes a sound of disgust and grabs his water bottle before striding away,
“Wait, Blue-”
“I’m gonna take a leak, Red. Mind if I have some privacy?”
Red stops following, cheeks hot as he glances at Leaf. She’s looking after Blue with a mix of puzzlement and sadness though, and when she turns to Red there’s a fierce light in her eyes.
“You. Explain.”
“It was… I just asked him if… ah, hell.” Red sighs and sits back down, wanting to simultaneously punch Blue and apologize to him. “I asked if he’d mind me testing my spinarak’s mental attack on him. When I told Blue I knew he was dark last night, he said it doesn’t bother him any more.”
“Did you consider whether he was putting on a brave face?”
Red rubs his face. “Not at all. He’s right, I
am
an idiot.”
Leaf lowers herself to a crouch, leaning back against a tree. “I don’t think taking your friend at his word makes you an idiot. It was a mistake. If you did consider it but ignored it, that might be a different story.”
“You don’t know Blue the way I do. In retrospect it’s obvious that it would bother him more than he let on, like the fact that he didn’t tell me himself after all these years.”
Leaf has a brow raised. “Is it really that big a deal, here? There’s some prejudice in Unova, but…”
“When my mom was our age, it was illegal for them to hold public office,” Red says. “People said someone with a dark mind could hide any corruption from psychics. Like mind reading’s reliable enough to detect that anyway, right? It was stupid superstition at the heart of it. Dark pokemon have pretty much always been seen as evil in Kanto, and a lot of villains in our movies and shows are dark. Things are a bit better now, but you’ll still meet some that make a big deal of it.”
“Wow. That kind of explains why he kept it secret though, doesn’t it?”
Red shakes his head, anger returning. “Even from me? Talk about lack of trust!”
Leaf frowns. “Red… don’t take this the wrong way, but how many other friends do you have, besides Blue?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Can I make a prediction? Or speculation, rather?”
Her phrasing helps Red take a step outside himself. “Uh… yeah. Go ahead.”
She picks up a dead leaf and begins to slowly shred it with her fingers, gaze down. “I know I just met you and Blue, so let me know how far off I am. You made a few friends when you were younger, but none of them really kept up with you in school as well as Blue did. After he lost his parents and you lost your dad, it became more than just a rivalry. Blue didn’t focus as much on academics, but he’s still smart, and you both had the same drive. Took your goals seriously. Other kids became hard to relate to, and eventually you started to spend most of your time with him or older researchers and lab assistants. But they weren’t really your equals, while Blue was.”
Red is watching her with a mix of embarrassment and admiration. “Okay, you’re not far off at all. In fact your model is surprisingly good considering what info you have. What made all that so obvious?”
She smiles. “Not just you. I think that summary fits him too. I’ve never heard either of you refer to others your age when you talk. Your past agreements or arguments all seem to be with each other. Other than family members, it’s like there’s no one else for either of you. You guys aren’t just friends.”
Red feels a bit uncomfortable as she talks, then distinctly nervous by the end. “Woah, woah, you’re not saying… it’s not like we’re…”
Leaf looks puzzled for a second, then laughs. “No, I don’t mean it like that! I’m just saying, if you were just close friends, he probably would have told you. But beyond that, you guys act like brothers, and brothers sometimes have a sense of rivalry. My guess is, he didn’t avoid telling you out of lack of trust, but because he was embarrassed at being seen as lesser.”
Red thinks back to how he felt after his spinarak blasted him, careful not to think of the blast itself. He hadn’t wanted to tell Leaf and Blue because he hadn’t wanted to admit his weakness. It was only the necessity that made him do so. He wonders how many other important sides of themselves people hide from each other, even those they care about, out of embarrassment. It’s easy to say “He should just trust me” when it’s not you that feels ashamed.
“Yeah. I get it.” Red sighs. “So you think I should apologize?”
“Damn right you should.”
Red gets to his feet as Blue walks back into the clearing. “Hey man, I’m really s-”
“Forget it.” Blue waves a hand. “Let’s just drop it, alright? We should keep moving anyway.”
“Uh… sure. You got it.”
Shit.
Despite all that, he still hoped to perform the spinarak test. Now he can’t think of a tactful way to bring it up. Red’s movements are aggressive as he packs his bag, but he keeps his irritation off his face as they start walking again.
It’s so frustrating to have the answer to a question so close, and be unable to test it. The itch to know is still there, and it gets worse the longer he tries to think of alternate ways to determine the attack type, all of which are significantly less precise. Worst case, he could just wait to find another normal or dark type to test it on, but a pokemon wouldn’t be able to communicate what it had felt. He finds himself getting angry at Blue again for refusing. Maybe he could arrange to accidentally-
Red slams the door on that train of thought, a sick feeling in his gut. Even knowing Blue would be immune or resistant to its effects, it’s a horrible thing to think of doing to his friend.
To anyone!
he screams at himself.
That’s Mad Scientist thinking! That’s the kind of thing that gets people branded as Renegades!
Red forces himself to take out his notebook and start writing about something, anything else, as they walk. His hands are shaking a bit.
I’d never do something like that,
he assures himself.
L
east of all to a friend. Never.
The kilometers pass steadily underfoot as afternoon gives way to evening, and each of them gets some training in with the rest of their pokemon. Blue and Leaf train with their starters and pidgey, but neither takes out their beedrill, wanting to do some extensive virtual training with them first. Having fewer pokemon than the others, Red brings Charmander back out after finishing with his rattata’s training, and lets the two of them get used to concurrent orders as they walk. After a couple hours, his rattata has gone through three pokepuffs and Charmander two, but they’ve mostly stopped reacting to his words unless they’re prefaced properly. Red is impressed by how much smarter his well-bred Charmander is compared to the wild rattata.
Eventually the sun begins to set, and they find another Ranger Outpost to camp by. They stop at the outpost itself, a small collection of buildings where they can pick up some free traveling rations and food for their pokemon, courtesy of their Trainer IDs.
There’s no spare room for uninjured travelers in the buildings themselves, so the three set up camp within the wards again, using a trio of handlamps to light the perimeter before laying out their bedrolls in a loose triangle. Red calls his mom briefly to assure her he’s still alright, then checks CoRRNet with some trepidation for any news in the area he might have missed. All seems quiet in the forest, however. They’re about twelve kilometers from its northern edge, and fifteen from Pewter. Zapdos seems to have swung to the west, and Pewter is no longer in a state of high alert.
“I’ll take last watch,” Blue says as he finishes eating, then slips into his bedroll and turns to his side before waiting for a response.
“Okay,” Leaf says. “Night.”
“Night,” Red echoes. Despite saying they’d put the fight behind them, Blue was distant all afternoon. Red isn’t sure how long he’ll stay upset, but he’s willing to wait at least a day before poking at it. Normally after a big fight they would keep their distance and cool off for a bit, but that’s not really an option here.
He turns to Leaf. “You tired?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll probably stay up for a bit. First one to fall asleep gets second watch?”
“Deal.”
They lie down and open their pokedexes. Red looks up efficient ways to set up webbing with spinarak, wondering how to make use of it tonight. He could put a bit of pokepuff in it to draw prey. It would probably work on caterpie and other bugs, but a hoothoot would free itself within seconds without spinarak hanging around nearby to distract or attack it after it’s caught.
He closes his pokedex and starts sketching out different web patterns that might better secure a bird pokemon. He could have two sets of vertical lines to the sides of the main web to snare its wings, but what about the talons?
It’s hard to use a bug pokemon’s skills to try and stop a flying type. They got lucky before with Bulbasaur and the pidgey, and Bulbasaur was badly hurt all the same. Red frowns, thinking of psychic and ghost and dark interactions again, and begins writing them all out, then categorizing all the pokemon types.
Substance:
Normal, Fire, Water, Plant, Electric, Poison, Rock, Metal, Bug, Ghost
Descriptive:
Flying, Fighting, Ground, Dragon, Psychic, Ice
“Whatcha writing?” Leaf asks, voice low.
Red cranes his neck to look at Leaf and sees her lying with her hands behind her head, staring up at the dark. He turns back to his notebook and reads the lists out loud.
“Huh. That’s an interesting way to divide them.”
“Remember our conversation a couple days ago? When we just set out?”
“Yeah. You think of the types as emergent properties rather than fundamental aspects.”
“For some, yeah. But I’m not sure if I’m right in all of them.”
“Ground being descriptive does seem odd. But why wasn’t Dark listed?”
Red sighs. “Because I have no idea where to put it.”
He hears her shift and sees her lying on her side to face him, so he turns to do the same. “From what we learned today, it seems like a fundamental aspect of their biology.”
“Possibly.”
“Probably.”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe probably. The way their immunity works is moderate evidence for it. But there’s other evidence against. Before, I would have said Dark Type was descriptive for the same reason Psychic is. That there’s nothing inherent to the biology that interacts uniquely with certain elements or substances, the way water conducts electricity or metal is harder than rock. Is every cell in a psychic type psychic? Probably not: all the phenomenon we observe with psychics relate to their mental powers’ strengths and shortcomings, not their biology. So I thought Dark types were similar, because other than their unique resistance and immunity to ghost and psychic phenomenon, they don’t really have any unique interactions.”
“But that’s not actually true,” Leaf says. “You have Fighting down as Descriptive-I understand why, I remember your point from earlier-but even if it’s just a label put on anything that is really muscular and agile, fighting pokemon tend to have a clear advantage against Dark pokemon, even the physically tough ones.”
“But is that because of something unique to the Dark typing, or just an interaction of the individual species? There aren’t really many physically strong Dark pokemon. Some are very fast, and some are bulky, but by and large, they’re not
strong
. So what if it’s just the result of that?”
“But then other strong physical types, like Rock-”
“Think outside the bounds of the typing system for a moment: is there
any reason
that a Fighting pokemon’s punch should be so much harder for an umbreon or mightyena to recover from than, say, a heavy rock thrown at them, or a body slam?”
Leaf takes a few moments to think about it, eyes staring down. Red waits patiently for her to finish setting aside the assumptions their cultures surround pokemon types with.
Eventually she looks up and says, “No. But from all we can observe, that’s just the way it is.”
Red slumps back, arm covering his eyes. “I know,” he moans quietly. “It doesn’t make sense!”
Leaf laughs, hand over her mouth. “If the evidence doesn’t match your beliefs…”
“Right, right.” Red sighs. “Just because something doesn’t make sense to me doesn’t mean the world’s wrong. It just means my model of the world is off somewhere.”
“Why do you care about this so much anyway? It seems like the kind of thing a competitive trainer would obsess over.”
Red feels himself get defensive, then realizes she’s asking out of genuine curiosity. After only having Blue to discuss things like this with for so long, he’s not really used to that. “Because it confuses me, and things that confuse me are the best warning flags I have to unknown unknowns.”
Leaf smiles. “Unknown unowns? You think there are more than twenty-eight?”
Red grimaces, lips twitching up. “That was a terrible pun.”
“Inown.”
Red groans and mimes throwing his pencil at her. She ducks her head, then comes up grinning. “So you mean it’s the way you realize there’s something you don’t know that you don’t know?”
“Right. When we feel confusion, it’s the result of some new data that’s at odds with our model of how reality is. So either our model is flawed for not being able to account for the new stimulus, or the stimulus is false.”
“Like if Blue wakes up tomorrow and starts reading science journals?”
It’s Red’s turn to cover his laugh, and he turns to glance at his friend’s still form. Blue’s breaths are steady and even. “I’m still holding out hope he will eventually, but if it was something sudden, then yeah.”
“And since your model of Blue includes a disinterest in science articles, then maybe that part of the model is wrong.”
Red nods. “Just the first few times though, after which my model of him will have updated, and it won’t be confusing anymore. Alternatively-”
“Alternatively, your model of the article might be what was wrong. Your confusion would be from ‘why is Blue reading something he normally finds boring?’ but maybe it’s about something relevant to competitive battles.”
“Have we been reading the same blogs?”
“Not in this case, but it makes sense. Except, what do you mean by the stimulus being false? Like if it’s just an illusion of Blue, or a hallucination?”
Red smiles. “That’s a possibility, though a very low one. More likely is that he’s just pretending to read an article to irritate me.”
She raises a brow. “Does he do that?”
“Not really. Though when we were younger he once started carrying around a notebook and randomly scribbling in it every time I did or said something.”
Leaf buries her laugh in her arms. “It’s not funny,” Red says, indignation fighting his own smile. She nods without looking up, and his smile wins out. “Okay, it’s a little funny. Anyway, that’s why I’m so interested in pokemon types. They’re a major clue to the way the world really works, and the more they don’t make sense, the more I wonder whether what we know is really accurate.”
Leaf is still smiling when she raises her head, but her tone is serious. “Have you considered whether we just can’t understand it? If it’s just something unknowable?”
Red shrugs. “Sure, but what’s the use of that kind of thinking? Just throw our hands up and stop trying to figure things out? There may be limits to what our flawed and feeble minds can do, but until there’s a sign we’ve reached it, I don’t see the point in being pessimistic.”
“Just checking to make sure. It’s at least worth recognizing when you might be on a dead end path.”
“Yeah. What about you? Doesn’t the weirdness of typing interest you at all?”
Leaf turns to lie on her back again. “Sure. But then, everything interests me. That’s kind of my problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was raised by two generations of professors. Mom just got her title and lab last year, but she’s always been a researcher. Grandpa specialized in pokemon population distributions when I was a kid, so we traveled all over Unova when I was growing up.”
Red refrains at the last second from exclaiming over how cool that must have been. Her mood is too melancholy, so instead he just says, “What was that like? I’ve lived in Pallet my whole life.”
“It was fun, for the most part. I made a lot of different friends… but I had a hard time relating to them, and always had to move again soon. I had a lot of cool experiences and opportunities, but never stuck around in one place long enough to really feel like I belonged, or focus seriously on a single project. I’m interested in a lot of different fields of study, but not really an expert in any of them. I’m good at living outdoors. I’m an okay fisher, back when I fished. I’m good with pokemon, I’m good with numbers. I liked gardening, but wasn’t so good at that. I’m okay at programming, I actually enjoyed it a lot, but I only had a few tutors spread out over the years and there was never much time to really learn it formally or practice much.”
Leaf goes quiet after that, and Red keeps the silence, waiting. Eventually she says, “I want to find something I’m really
great
at. I want to be an activist, maybe go into politics, but I’m too young to be taken seriously in most fields other than as a trainer. And I felt like my worldview was too tied to Unova’s culture. I wanted a wider perspective, to see how other regions think about pokemon and human interactions. I had the idea for a book on the legends of different cultures because I like writing, and Grandpa’s research on Unova’s legends always fascinated me. The way people describe the old stories of Zekrom and Reshiram’s battles as a clash between Truth and Idealism, or how they ascribe meaning and purpose to the Forces of Nature when they go around causing disasters.”
Red smiles a bit. “Well, you came to the right place if you’re looking for parallels to that.”
“Yeah. Comparing the different views on your Storm Trio and our Weather Trio should be interesting. Speaking of which, are you and Blue really planning on heading into the storm if Zapdos comes?”
“Yeah,” Red says after a moment. He doesn’t bring up his contingency plans in case Blue might not be fully asleep or wakes up at any moment. It occurs to him that he could send her an email, give her an idea of his plans and enlist her help. “But like we said, we’re not going to just rush at Zapdos and try to take it down. We just want to help others, for now.”
“Still, you’ll need well trained pokemon just to handle any wild pokemon rampaging due to Pressure. Do you think three pokemon are enough?”
“No, I don’t. We’re not likely to find new pokemon training ours while we travel though.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“What makes you think I have one?”
Leaf smiles. “Unless your notebook is full of nothing but doodles, you’d better have
something
.”
Red smiles back and pushes himself to his elbows. “You know, I actually do. And you might be able to help with it…”
Red wakes to the feel of a hand shaking his shoulder. There’s a second of disorientation, then he scrambles off his belly and looks up at Leaf, who’s smiling. “Getsumthin?” he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. “Caterpie again?”
“Nope. Say hello to your first flier.”
Red blinks at her, then pushes himself to his feet and turns to the branches above, where Leaf is shining one of the lamp lights. The second web he instructed his spinarak to weave is still up there, and the pokepuff he’d climbed up and put there is gone. In its place…
Red grins. A hoothoot hangs tangled in the web, sleeping. Its feathers are covered in the sleep spores Leaf’s bulbasaur had coated the web with.
“Awesome,” Red says, mind coming fully awake as he gets out his pokeball. “When-”
“Just now. I heard its wings, then it struggled a bit in the web. I think its beak was full of the pokepuff, because it didn’t make much noise. We should set up another one, maybe we’ll get another!”
“Yeah, let me just-”
“What’s going on? We under attack?”
Red and Leaf turn guiltily to Blue, who’s staring blearily up at them. They forgot to keep their voices down.
“Sorry Blue, everything’s fine. We caught a hoothoot.”
Red turns back and aims his pokeball, but the web is too far up. He set the first one lower so they could see it in the light, but a caterpie crawled into it before he even fell asleep. Leaf insisted he take it after giving up his chance at the beedrill, so he caught his second bug pokemon. The second web was put higher, and between the long branches of two trees in hopes of being more accessible to a flier rather than a crawler.
Red puts his pokeball away and begins climbing, and Leaf shines the light on the tree to help him see.
“Oh, nice,” Blue says, getting to his feet and rubbing his face. “Hang up another and catch me one, would you?”
“Sure,” Red grunts, limbs burning as he pulls himself up to the branch parallel with the web.
“We actually hung another two,” Leaf says, pointing. “Nothing in them yet though.”
He straddles it and drags himself carefully closer, then takes out his pokeball and aims it. After a moment it pings, and he lobs it onto the sleeping pokemon. The ball absorbs it in a flash of light and falls to the grass below. “That’s five. Told you I’d catch up to…” Red trails off as a second flash registers to his side. He turns, thinking one of them had caught another that appeared just then, but they’re both looking up at him.
“What is it Red?”
“Thought I saw something. You guys didn’t-”
The night briefly lights up again, and suddenly Red has trouble breathing. His heart races in his throat as he automatically starts to count, feeling his body tremble.
0… 1… 2… 3…
“What was that?” Blue turns to face the direction of the flash. To the west.
4… 5… 6… 7…
“Red! What’s wrong?” Leaf asks.
8… 9… 10… 11…
Red stares out into the darkness of the trees, and sees another bolt of electricity light the distant forest.
Red feels his tension draining the longer he counts, and as another flash of electricity arcs, closer but
silent
, he sags in relief. “It’s okay,” he says, heart still hammering from the kick of adrenaline. “There’s no thunder.”
“What?”
“It’s not lightning. Must just be some pikachu howling at the moon.” Red begins to feel excited. Pikachu are hard to catch, but if there’s one out there exhausting itself…
“Pikachu? Those electric mice?” Leaf asks.
The next flash is closer. Over Blue’s description of the pokemon and its evolutionary line, Red can hear a rapid series of dangerous sounding crackles that echo through the air, along with a much louder
crack
of something else. Wood?
Then he sees another flash to his right, with that crackling pop of electricity much closer. Red turns to it with a frown and sees yet another one, so close the light can be seen between the trees. “Hey guys-”
A klaxon comes from all three of their phones, the harsh sound sending a flood of icewater through Red’s veins. He opens his mouth to yell that they’re here,
inside the wards
–
-a light grows in the distance, the yellow shape at the center of it leaping from tree to tree, trailing electricity as it bounces past them to their right-
-Leaf spins toward it with one hand at her pokebelt, her lamplight blocked by her body a bit and letting Red better see-
-more lights in the distance, three, four, five of them, growing as they zip through the forest in every direction, some along the ground and others in the tree branches. The electric buzz is suddenly everywhere, arcs of white light crackling between the pokemon and racing down the trees in a series of pops and a shower of splinters. Leaf and Blue reach for their pokeballs, but there are
too many
–
Rods!
Red scrambles for the trunk so he can slide down and reach his bag-
Too slow, jump!-
He readies himself to push off, hesitates at the sight of the distant ground-
-and suddenly the clearing is full of light as electric rodents zig and zag around them, there in a flash and then gone past. A stray bolt hits one of their lamps by the bedrolls, shattering the glass as the bulb blows, and then one of the bigger lights leaps toward Red’s branch-
“
Red, jump!”
He shoves off unevenly-
CRACK
-into a moment of panicked free fall, twisting midair until he lands. Red’s mind is full of a sudden, sharp agony, the feel of some crushing weight, and then sinks into darkness.
Blue knows he’ll always remember three things about that night: the smell of burnt air, the look on Red’s face just before he fell, and the period of sheer panic immediately afterward. The hateful feeling of helplessness.
“
Red, jump!”
Blue yells, then throws an arm over his eyes as an electric bolt flashes down the tree. An instant later there’s an explosive crack, and bits of bark pepper his arm and face in a stinging hail.
There’s a thud and a crash, and Blue lowers his arm, blinking against the after-image of the bolt. The raichu dashes away, leaving a scorched furrow down the tree where the bark had blasted outward from the flash-boiled sap. The thick branch Red had been sitting on is broken about halfway.
Blue’s heart nearly stops as he spots Red lying facedown under it, hat beside him.
No, no nonono…
“Shroomish, go!” he yells as he dashes forward, reclipping the pokeball and skidding to his knees to grab the branch. “Guard!” More lights are still racing through the forest as the snap and buzz of electricity fills the forest over the sound of their phone’s alarms.
Blue grunts, muscles burning as he slowly gets to his feet and lifts the branch. The acrid smell of ozone and burnt wood have replaced the forest smells that had been all around them just moments ago. A rapidly diminishing part of Blue is slightly in shock, wondering if he’d actually woken up at all, and this all a chaotic nightmare. The rest of him is busy struggling to get the branch off Red, dream or no dream. “Leaf!” He can just manage to lift it, but the smaller branches spoking off make it too hard to shift-
-and then Leaf is there, tugging at the other side until they can throw it to the grass away from Red. Blue checks Red’s pulse and lets his breath out in relief.
A pikachu races by closer than the others, and his shroomish sends a cloud of spores at it, far too slowly. Leaf’s Bulbasaur growls and holds his vines out at the ready while she kneels beside Red, a revive capsule already in her hand. “Turn him over, gently.”
He does so, carefully as he can. Red’s body is limp in his steady hands, but halfway through the turn Red’s eyes fly open as he screams in pain, back arching.
Blue screams with him, a release of tension as much as fear as he puts him down on his back. “
Shit,
sorry! What-?!”
“His arm,” Leaf gasps, and Blue sucks in a sharp breath as he sees a dark bruise already covering an unnatural bulge in Red’s left forearm.
Red whimpers and rests his head on the grass. “Broken,” he groans, and takes quick, shallow breaths that come out in pained noises.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Leaf asks, swapping her revive capsule for a potion. She sprays it over the bruise to reduce some topical pain and swelling. “Did you get shocked?”
“No,” Red grits through clenched teeth as his right hand grips his other shoulder to keep it still. “Wasn’t touching…” he pauses to take a shaking breath, “When it landed…”
Blue moves the lantern down to check his pants for burns anyway. His heart is still racing, but relief makes him light headed. “Lucky asshole.”
“Yeah… gotta stop… climbing trees…” Red makes a sound that’s half sob and half laugh. He closes his eyes tight as tears slide down from their corners. Blue almost looks away, then forces himself not to. If Red has to bear it, he can’t turn away, even if it makes him feel wretched and embarrassed for his friend.
And scared. Pikachu and raichu continue to run through the forest all around them. Most are distant, little more than flickers of light between the trees, but some pass close by, and the three of them are sitting targets like this. “We need to get you to the outpost.”
Leaf looks at him. “How? Carry him?”
“If we need to…” Blue hesitates, then lets a frustrated breath out. “We’d be even worse off if attacked.”
“We’ve got some painkillers in the bags, but I don’t think we should move his arm.”
“Painkillers would be good,” Red wheezes, and begins taking quick, deep breaths.
“Hey! No hyperventilating!” Blue is about to go for their bags again when another electric glow races through the forest toward them. A raichu leaps from branch to branch over the trees a stone’s throw away, its electricity strong enough to streak down the trunks with an explosive
pop
that leaves the bark charred. For a moment it looks like it’s heading straight for them, but then it’s past them. As soon as it’s gone, he dashes for their backpacks, grabs all three, and rushes back to the others. He pulls a local anesthetic and anti-inflammatory from his first aid kit, then hesitates as he looks at Red’s arm. He remembers his training, mostly, but it’s hard to make out the wound with all the discoloration.
“Give me.” Leaf takes the syringes and injects them carefully around Red’s wound, hands as steady as his when he’s handling pokeballs. “I helped mom take care of our pokemon.”
“I have too,” he says. “Just not people.”
“Most of it’s the same as normal types.”
Within seconds, the trembling tension in Red’s body eases, and he lets a breath out in a long, shaky sigh. He opens his eyes and looks up at them. “Oooh wow. That’s better. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Just try to keep still.”
Blue picks up Red’s hat and hands it to him. “Next time try to land on your feet.”
Red takes it and stuffs it in his pocket. “Nah, I’ll just aim for you to break my fall.”
Another light zips by there and past them before he and Leaf can do more than turn toward it. Blue’s heart pounds in his throat, and his hand goes to his pokebelt, fingers tracing the balls there without unclipping them. Squirtle, pidgey, caterpie and an untrained beedrill. More liabilities than help.
Instead he pulls out his phone and quiets the still-ringing alarm, then tries to call the nearby outpost. The phone beeps against his ear, and he frowns at the screen. “Signal’s going nuts.” He settles on sending an alert for assistance with the details. “Alright, I sent out our position. Should get through if it calms down for a second.”
Leaf turns off her own phone’s shrill alarm. “What’s going on, anyway? Why didn’t you guys mention these things?” She pulls out Red’s phone and quiets his too, returning relative silence to the forest.
“Hey, this isn’t exactly a common occurrence,” Blue says. “Pikachu are rare, and reclusive. Raichu even more so. The only thing that gets them riled up like this is a really bad thunderstorm, but Zapdos isn’t anywhere near us, and the sky’s clear-”
“It flew west,” Red says, right hand going up to wipe the tears and sweat from his face. “Must have gone south and set them off toward us, and each one riling up the others in a chain reaction.” There’s another crack of wood somewhere around them, and Red jerks in alarm, grimacing and putting his hand over his left shoulder.
“So the Thunder God
is
behind this.” The anger rises in him like a fiery tide, and in its wake comes relief. He welcomes the heat in his chest, the boiling of his blood, lets it sear away his weaknesses. Fear, helplessness, doubt, sadness, all are kindling for the righteous rage against the world that had taken his parents, taken so many, and now hurt his friend.
Blue watches a couple pikachu approach in a nimbus of light, and has to refrain himself from ordering an attack on them when they get close, wanting to lash out, make them pay by proxy.
He wrestles the impulse down. After his parents, anger had nearly suffocated him, tears scalding his face and throat burning with his screams. His therapist had helped him externalize it, and he still visualizes it as an arcanine, strong and dangerous as it prowls about in his chest and spreads its heat through him.
Later,
he promises.
On our terms.
It growls and paces a bit, then settles back down with a simmering tension.
“Speaking of Zapdos,” Red says behind him after the pikachu have passed. “If we’re going to be here awhile, better get out the lightning rods and plant them.” Red looks around. “You’ll have to clear that branch away first.”
“Why? It gives us cover.”
“That’s fine, but it has to be farther. Your shoes make you safe from ground current, but your pokemon aren’t, and I’m lying down. We need the rods to be farther back than the branch.”
Leaf is already at the other side of it. “Bulbasaur, come!” Her pokemon joins her, and she points. “Wrap.”
The pokemon’s vines grip it tight, and Blue joins Leaf in grabbing hold. “Okay, pull!”
They dig their feet in and drag it, struggling not so much with the weight as the shape of it, its smaller branches digging into the ground. Blue stops pulling and begins kicking at them until they snap so Leaf and Bulbasaur are able to drag it more easily.
“There you go… a bit more… Blue, there’s one near the end getting caught on a root-”
“-I see it, I see it. Watch for pikachu!” Blue grabs the branch with one hand and stomps on it, feeling sweat trickle down his neck.
Soon they have the branch moving easily, Blue measures the distance to judge if it’s far enough. Then they begin wrestling it between two trees to provide some cover and deter pokemon from coming in that direction. It’s about halfway there when-
“Incoming!”
Two pikachu run by on one side, followed by one more on the other that gets too close. Blue leaps in front of Red as its cheeks light up, but Bulbasaur is there tackling it away.
“No contact attacks!” Red yells, but it’s a distant noise, the whole world focusing down on the pokemon in front of him.
Here, there’s no anger, no loss, not even fear. When he’s battling, everything has a crystal clarity, just action and reaction. His hands already have pokeballs, expanding them with his thumbs. “Sleep powder!”
His shroomish expels a cloud of blue dust at the rodent. It leaps aside, so fast it’s just a yellow streak. Blue barely has time to sidestep to keep himself between it and Red when it sends a bolt out, hitting his shroomish and sending it tumbling backward with a cry of pain.
Blue’s left pokeball locks, and he throws just as the pikachu leaps away into the brush. It keeps running before he can toss the second. Blue lets out his breath and goes to his pokemon, pulling out a potion to spray the raw wound that runs down its domed body to one of its feet.
Bulbasaur is twitching and shaking as Leaf hovers over it with a potion bottle, lips pressed tight. “I don’t see an injury.”
“It got shocked from the contact.” Blue tosses her a paralyze heal and watches her bulbasaur’s body relax as the spray heals the nerve damage.
“Thanks.” Leaf picks up his pokeball and hands both back to him.
There’s a scampering sound overhead that makes them spin toward it, but there’s no light, and Blue realizes it must be some other pokemon running from the electric rodents. Sure enough another pikachu darts into the clearing, sniffing at their bedrolls. Its cheeks are alight with electricity, and when it turns to their second lamp a small bolt flashes out and destroys it in a pop and a shower of glass.
“Razor Leaf!”
Bulbasaur leaps forward and shakes its bulb, dislodging two flat, sharp leaves into the air. Its vines snatch them and fling one after the other at the pikachu, who leaps away to leave the rigid leaves quivering in the ground. The electric glow of its cheeks intensify, but Blue’s pokeball
pings
and he throws.
The bolt of electricity snaps through the air and hits the ball before diverting down and to the side. The ball hits its target, but doesn’t suck the pokemon in, simply rolling away half-open as a curl of smoke rises from inside.
The pikachu flinched from the hit however, and runs off. Blue sighs. Tamed pikachu are uncommon for a number of reasons. Ultraballs are shockproof, but expensive. He considered buying some, but pikachu are normally so rare…
They remain on alert for another few seconds, but none of the other pokemon are near them. Blue finishes dragging the branch in place while Leaf gets out Red’s two lightning rods, then her own. Blue gets his out of his Container, and they start to extend and plant them.
It’s hard shoving them through the root-filled grass, but eventually all four rods are towering above them in a rough square. He takes a full can of repel and sprays it in a slow circle around the perimeter. A bit of tension eases from Blue’s shoulders as he finishes and steps back into the middle of rods. “Alright. We should be good until the Rangers get here.”
Red looks around, then up at the tree branches. “That won’t stop the determined or panicked ones. And the rods won’t help against other pokemon.”
“We haven’t seen anything else yet,” Leaf says, watching a few pulses of light bounce through the forest in the distance. “They all must be holing up to stay safe… oh… oh no…”
Blue follows her gaze. There’s a sullen red light in the distance, and the fear returns like a fist around his heart.
“What is it?” Red asks, craning his neck up to try and see.
“Fire.”
Red makes a sound between a groan and a laugh as his head falls back. “Of course. Is it far?”
“Can’t tell,” Blue says. “But I don’t think the rangers are going to get us anytime soon. It’s in their direction.”
“If that spreads to their outpost, there won’t be anywhere to get us to.”
“Hell, that might
be
the outpost.” Blue feels his nails dig into his palms as he stokes the anger back, driving away the despair and fear. Out there are others who might be fighting for their lives, people without lightning rods. People,
his people,
who need help… The stampede might end in a few minutes, or it might go on for hours, and he’s
stuck
here…
Leaf turns to Blue, face pale but set. “You should go see if you can help.”
He stares. “What? No way. I’m not leaving you guys.”
“She’s right, Blue,” Red says. “The Rangers’ first priority will be the fire, and Squirtle might be able to make a difference.”
Another pikachu runs by them through the clearing, but by the time he and Leaf turn to it it’s already leaped up a tree trunk and through the branches, leaving behind dark whorls in the bark where it touched it. Blue turns back to Red and pokes a finger at him. “We are
not
splitting up at a time like this. Staying together keeps each other safe. If we split up we’ll only lower our chances.”
“That’s a false dichotomy. Assuming there are only two options with two outcomes limits thinking.”
“If I wasn’t here you two might have gotten killed before Leaf got the lightning rods up!”
“But there
are
situations where splitting up can improve the odds for everyone!” Red grimaces and puts his head back down. “I’m a liability right now, you might survive better without me to worry about. And since you would be going for help, it improves my odds too.”
“Splitting up is how things go to hell half the time in Power Force!”
“That’s also how they save the day the other half!”
Leaf steps forward and puts a hand on Blue’s arm. It’s only then that he realizes he’s trembling. “We’ll be okay Blue. The rods will protect us from the ‘chu.” She gives a brief smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “But they won’t stop that fire if it gets here.”
Blue forces his hands open and takes a deep breath. He should go, he
knows
that, but there’s a part of him convinced that if he leaves…
In his mind’s eye he sees Luke, lying dead on the grass. One of his people, and he hadn’t been able to save him. If he’s not here and something happens, if the beedrill swarm from earlier comes by, or another fire starts…
“Aaargh!” He turns away and grabs his hair, eyes screwed shut. The sense of helplessness is choking, and he lets the arcanine rise up, fiery fur blazing hotter and hotter. When he’s able to banish the image of coming back to find Leaf and Red’s lifeless bodies, he takes a scalding breath and turns back to her. “Okay. I’ll go. But if something happens to Red, I’m holding you responsible.”
Red blinks. “Hey-”
Leaf’s gaze is steady on his. “I won’t leave him.”
He nods and withdraws his shroomish before putting his bag on, trying to ignore the feeling of dread in his gut.
I won’t lose him too. Not like this.
“I’ll be back with help as quick as I can.” He turns his flashlight on and begins to jog through the forest toward the sullen light of the fire.
He only takes a few steps when Red calls out. “Blue!”
He turns and sees Red gesturing as he says something to Leaf, and she nods before pulling one of the lightning rods out of the ground. She cocks her arm back, and throws it at him like a javelin. Blue aims his light up to follow it and snatches it out of the air before it goes over his head.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Red yells.
Blue stares at the two of them for a second, safe in their island of light, burning the image into his mind. Then he holds the rod up in salute and heads toward the fire without looking back.
Leaf watches Blue’s light fade between the trees with a painful hollowness in her chest. She can’t shake the feeling that she just sent him off to his death.
“I’m never going to forgive myself if something happens to him,” Red says.
She looks down at him and smiles. “We can argue over who deserves more guilt later if we need to. In the meantime…” She pulls one of the rods out of the earth and repositions it to form a triangle. “Tell me about pikachu and raichu. Their contact static and cheek pouches remind me of emolga from back home, but the coloring is off, and they don’t fly.” She’d always thought emolga cute when she was younger, but these are too dangerous to see that way at the moment.
“No, thankfully these don’t fly.” Red looks like he wants to shift his position, but after a moment forces himself to still. “Pikachu are their second form, the first is pichu. They’re very quick, intelligent, and vicious when threatened. They can detect electromagnetic fields, have few natural predators, and their strongest senses we share are sound followed by scent. They can fill those cheeks with positively charged ions. We’re not really sure how, but they have the ability to negatively charge the surface of an object within their line of sight.”
“So electricity jumps to their target when the difference is enough.”
“Right, but the bolts still follow the path of least resistance, so they can be redirected along the way.”
Leaf nods. “Bulbasaur and Shroomish were able to chase them off without being hurt much.”
“Plants are more resistant than we are, but yeah, a few shocks from the pikachu won’t kill you. Raichu on the other hand…” He looks up.
She follows his gaze to the blasted, burnt wood and feels a chill. “I don’t know if I agree with Blue’s idea of ‘lucky,’ but you had a close call.”
Red grimaces. “We’re
all
lucky it didn’t rain recently.”
“Though that would have helped with fires.” She turns back to the red glow in the distance. It doesn’t look like it’s grown brighter, but it’s not dimmer either. “How’s your arm?”
“Not terrible. I can barely feel it past my shoulder, except for a vice-like pressure that’s just this side of pain.”
“I’m sorry you got so hurt. If I’d gone up and caught it before waking you-”
“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my fault for staying on the branch so long.”
She smiles and sits beside him. That’s one thing she likes about Red and Blue. Besides accepting her so quick, they both have a sense of responsibility that others her age lacked back home. “You’re not exactly the best judge of what’s ridiculous.”
Red looks up at her with that strange look of his, a mix of curiosity and calculation. Like he’s testing different thoughts out in his head before giving them form and substance. He finally seems to decide on one, and smiles. “True. But don’t expect me to go along with your brand of ridiculity.”
“That’s not a word.”
He turns his nose up. “Maybe not in your barbarian lands.”
She almost misses the humor in his eyes. “I’m a wordsmith. If anyone here is going to judge the barbarism of words, it’s me.”
“Well as a ‘wordsmith,’ you should be aware that ridiculousness is a ridiculous word, so forge a new one.”
“Fine, but whatever it is, it won’t be ‘ridiculity.'”
The minutes pass as they discuss alternatives and watch the electric lights flit through the trees. Leaf is glad Red’s in a good enough mood to joke despite everything. They have enough medication to keep the pain at bay for awhile, but she’s worried over how long his arm might go untreated.
Eventually the conversation slows, and she just watches the forest around her, so subtly different from those back home. The smells are similar though, despite the less pleasant additions, and she can almost close her eyes and pretend she’s back in Unova…
She snaps her eyes open and takes a breath, realizing she was nodding off. It was close to the end of her shift when she’d woken Red, and now that the adrenaline is worn off, she’s tired.
She stands and walks in circles to stay awake, wondering if she should get some hot coffee from her Container. She’s just about decided on it when she sees two of the lights around them head their way, and runs over to that side to put herself between them and Red. “Heads up! Bulbasaur, guard!”
Her pokemon leaps in front of her, vines extended as the lights bounce closer. It’s a pair of raichu that look like they’re fighting, but not like any pokemon she’s ever seen. The two zig-zag near each other and occasionally collide, sending arcs of electricity outward into the trees on either side. The air suddenly smells like burning wood as the electricity sears through them, but thankfully none catch fire.
Leaf is tempted to send some razor leaves out to scare them off, but doesn’t want to risk drawing their attention. On top of that, she hates having to use potentially deadly attacks. But the dangers of contact attacks, and their speed at evading powders, leaves her with few options.
Her muscles tense as one runs by close enough for the copper rod on that side to draw a bolt, but keep going without pause. Leaf lets her breath out, and then-
“More on this side!”
She spins and sees a group of lights heading toward them, the one in front bigger than the others. She’s expecting another raichu, but it’s a large pikachu followed by what look like smaller ones.
“Pichu,” Red says. “Babies. They won’t come near us.”
And he’s right: the pikachu in the lead climbs up a tree when it’s a ways off, waits for its children to join it, then continues by, hopping from branch to branch.
Leaf is just about to turn away and watch for other threats when one of the pichu stops in mid-air.
It struggles and squeals in alarm, and a second after Leaf understands what she’s seeing, electricity arcs along its fur and lights up the spinarak web it’s caught in.
“What’s happening?” Red tries to turn his head enough to see.
“We’re in trouble,” Leaf says as the pichu’s family returns, bouncing around and squeaking back. She sees lights in the distance diverting, and turns in a slow circle. From every direction, pikachu and raichu are coming toward the sound of a young one in distress. “We’re in a lot of trouble.”
Red sees them too, and his hand goes to his belt. He braces his arm against the ground and says “Charmander, go,” wincing as the recoil jostles him. His fire lizard approaches him with a happy chirp, and Red rubs its smooth head briefly before saying “Guard.” He looks up at her. “I guess it wouldn’t do any good to tell you to leave and get help?”
“You guess right,” she says, pleased by how calm she sounds. It feels like her heart is going to bound right out of her chest, pulse jumping in her throat. “Anyway, I think it’s too late now.”
She wonders how long it would take for her mom to find out if she dies, and wishes she could call her. Their communication has been chilly since Leaf decided to leave home. It led to by far the biggest fight between them: not even grandpa had been able to calm things down. Mom insisted that she could begin her journey in Unova and go elsewhere later, but Leaf put her foot down. Her whole life she traveled all over the region as “Professor Juniper’s granddaughter.” She didn’t want to do it again as “Professor Juniper’s daughter.” She came to Kanto determined to find her own path and make her own name.
Instead she’s probably going to just die here in this forest, six days after arriving. Makes the whole fight seem kind of silly.
Oh well. I’ll apologize if I survive.
The first few pikachu begin to arrive, bolts of electricity going straight to the lightning rods. “We’re okay as long as they don’t rush us,” Red says. “These rods can take multiple lightning bolts. Better keep Bulbasaur back from the ground current though.”
Leaf nods, not trusting her voice as she picks Bulbasaur up and brings him closer to Red. She clears her throat as she watches more pikachu begin to arrive, a few going to the webbing to help free the now sleeping pichu while the rest begin forming a circle around her and Red. “And if they do rush inside them?”
“Well. If it’s any consolation, you won’t have to worry about Blue holding you responsible.”
“Strangely, that is kind of reassuring. Thanks.” Arcs of electricity snap between the yellow and orange pokemon, some jostling each other, the others simply sitting and staring as the occasional spark flies out and chars some grass or bark. “You know, I was congratulating myself on not panicking a second ago,” she whispers, not wanting to set the ‘chu off. “But I think it was a bit premature.”
“Nope.” Red’s voice is breathy, and she sees his eyes dart this way and that as his hand brushes over his pokeballs. “Absolutely no panicking allowed. Panicking messes up plans.”
“Got it. No panicking. So what’s the plan?”
“Um. Still working on that part.”
Leaf swallows, mouth dry. “Right. Okay. A little panicking meanwhile, then.”
A pikachu fires a bolt into a rod again, and she jumps back with a small “yip,” immediately hating herself for the sound. A second and third begin shooting out electricity too, and her embarrassment becomes less and less important as more of the pikachu begin inching forward.
Red is muttering under his breath nonstop, and she whispers, “Are you praying or planning?” He glares at her. “I just want to know how screwed we are.”
Another tree branch snaps as a raichu’s bolt rips down it, spilling the pokemon onto the grass nearby. The pikachu it lands near dash away, setting off another wave of loud crackles and pops from electric arcs that bounce back and forth between the rodents, occasionally going out into one of the rods.
“Pessimism isn’t helpful!” Red shout-whispers over the sounds, closing his eyes with a look of concentration. “It’s hard to concentrate through all the noise!”
“Less complaining, more genius ideas!” She tries to follow her own advice, cataloging what long range skills they have at their disposal.
Sleep powder, leech seed, razor leaf, gust, supersonic, silver wind
… Her only pokemon besides bulbasaur with non-contact attacks all fly, and she’s not sure if they’ll stay within the rods. “Come on, you know these pokemon better than I do! Think!”
One of the raichu, bigger than average and with a notched ear, moves closer than any of the rest, and the random bolts from the other ‘chu stop. Their pokemon growl as it edges close to a lightning rod, and it stops, cheeks glowing as its eyes fix on her Bulbasaur. Electricity bursts out of the raichu’s cheeks and into the rod, the noise like a field of angry beedrill.
“Red!”
“These aren’t my best thinking conditions!”
“So do it louder and I’ll help!”
Red takes a deep breath and begins speaking, so fast she can barely make out the individual words.
“Wait wait, go back! Why not use Charmander’s smokescreen?”
“Risk of flashover, a spark might set the smoke on fire!”
“It would do that?”
“I don’t know but now’s not the time to test it!”
The raichu stops sending out electricity, and the relative silence is a shock all its own. It pads up to the rod and sniffs at it, as if curious to know why it’s not charred. It’s just out of range of a pokeball, and she takes one out and steps a bit closer, raising the ball up.
Come on, come on…
She steps a bit closer…
Ping!
She throws, and the raichu leaps out of the way. The ball bounces along the grass and is immediately engulfed in electricity, sparks flying from it and lighting the grass on fire. The long, flat bolt shape at the end of the raichu’s tail smacks down on the fire a few times, putting it out.
“They’re too fast to be caught like that,” Red says. “Maybe they’ll just keep shocking the rods and run out of juice. Or maybe if they come at us one at a time we can fight them off. Or if-”
A pikachu dashes forward from the side and crosses between the lightning rods, and Red and Leaf speak simultaneously.
“Razor Leaf!”
“Ember!”
A glob of fire and a pair of leaves fly out and drive pikachu back with a pained squeal, and a moment later the world explodes. Leaf shuts her eyes and covers her ears as light and sound bombard them, at least a dozen bolts of electricity driving into the lightning rods in a continuous stream. The buzz and crackle is deafening, and the air tastes metallic. When she closes her mouth she nearly gags from the smell of burning grass.
When the electricity tapers off, she blinks against the after image and looks around to ensure Red and their pokemon are okay.
The four of them are on a small island of green. All around it, burns scar the ground in crisscrossing tendrils as smoke rises from the blackened grass. Another bolt occasionally snaps out from the crowd of ‘chu, but most are silent and watchful once again.
Leaf suddenly sits beside Red, legs unable to support her. “We can’t fight that,” Leaf whispers. “And I don’t think they’ll stay out much longer. Think of something else.”
Red looks pale, chest rising and falling as his uninjured hand grips his hat tight enough to bend its bill. “Resources, we need more resources. What do we have? Clothes, food, maybe it’ll distract them? Throw pokepuffs around? Phones have no signal, too much electricity everywhere-”
Too panicked, we’re not thinking clearly enough.
She tries to remember the meditation lessons she’d taken and takes a deep breath, sinking down, down into herself as best she can, drawing back in her mind so she has a bit of distance. “Too specific. Start broader. Priorities first.”
“Right. Priorities. There are threats. We need to survive the threats. We can’t escape the threats, so we have to fight them.”
The pikachu that had tried to rush them is licking the bloody line the razorleaf had furrowed down its side, and soon sends a bolt of its own out. More of them join it in a growing roar of electricity, and a few others begin creeping forward. “Fighting them doesn’t seem an option,” Leaf says, tenuous hold on her calm weakening. “Unless they have massive weaknesses. Anything?”
“We don’t have any ground types. We can’t outfight them, you’re right, but what’s left? If we can’t run, and we can’t fight, we’re dead!”
“Who was talking about false dichotomies before? Razor Leaf!” Bulbasaur cuts another pikachu as it tries to cross between the rods, and the electric storm intensifies, making her close her eyes and cover her ears briefly.
When it fades a bit, Red yells, “What, what’s left? At the broadest level, running, fighting, and talking are our options when faced with threats, and they’re pokemon so we can’t talk them down or bluff-” Red stops, and she turns to see him staring, eyes wide.
“Whatever idea you had, just do it!”
He’s already taking his pokedex out, laying it on his stomach and tapping the screen with his hand, then raising it-
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
The sound is almost drowned out by the electricity, but it somehow still cuts through it. The bolts slowly dwindle, until the ‘chu are all staring quietly.
Leaf hardly dares breathe, but she slowly takes her own pokedex out. “Name?” she whispers.
“Onix,” Red says, one finger tapping the side, then pushing with his thumb again.
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
It’s louder now, not just because of the lack of electricity. The sound is like a mountain with a throat, an avalanche’s rage.
Some of the pikachu jump, ears twitching as they look around, noses in the air. She finds the pokemon quickly in her own dex, and now she remembers it, the great rock snakes that she’d heard live under the mountains here. She raises her volume to a third its max, then slowly increases it with every repetition, switching off with Red, then overlapping them.
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
“Grrroooaaaaaarrr!”
“GRRROOOAAAAAARRR!”
The pokemon start bolting, running in every direction one after the other, all away from the promise of doom in that roar. Charmander and Bulbasaur are both vibrating with suppressed fear or tension, but neither runs from the side of their trainers like the panicked ‘chu. She can barely believe it’s happening until they’re all in flight, and she doesn’t stop repeating the sound until their light completely fades.
“It worked,” Red says breathless and half laughing as he lowers his pokedex and closes his eyes. “Ha, I can’t believe it worked, haha…”
Leaf can’t quite feel relieved yet, but she lowers her pokedex too. “Natural predator?”
Red nods, still giggling with released nerves. “I heard about it once in a documentary… to keep zubat away… not all pokemon rely on sound as much, wasn’t sure if it would work here.” He covers his eyes with his hand, tension running out of him in a long breath. “You were right, my thinking was stuck in two modes. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” She feels a bit light headed, and rubs Bulbasaur’s until his trembling slowly stops. She looks up at the web where the pichu had been caught, but its parent had apparently gotten it out and taken it away. “When I can walk again, I’m going to remove the third web before it happens again.”
Red chuckles. “They were a great idea, but I’d have only strung up one if I thought that might happen. Speaking of which, mind giving me my hoothoot? Or does Blue have it?”
Leaf blinks at him, then grabs the lamp, shining it overhead to look around. “We never picked it up. I’m sorry, Red, it just completely slipped my mind.”
“What! You mean it’s been out there this whole time?” He looks out at the dark forest.
“It must be around here somewhere.” She begins to walk in wider and wider circles. Her feet crunch over the burnt, dead grass until she’s beyond even that, trying to remember where the ball fell and where it might have rolled to.
Another pikachu appears to be headed toward them, and she’s about to rush for Red when he raises his pokedex again. The roar reverberates through the forest, and the pikachu veers off in another direction. She continues searching, stumbling through the underbrush, much of which was scorched by the stampede of ‘chu.
She smells it before she finds it, burnt foul and visceral things that make her stomach clench. She slows to a stop. She doesn’t want to keep looking. Doesn’t want to see what she’s smelling, see the result of her forgetfulness. It might just be some wild pokemon that had been caught in the open by them. She could just turn away and look in another direction… but she has to be sure.
She holds her breath and forces herself to step further into the underbrush until the light falls on it.
The pokeball lies open, sparks still occasionally spilling out. The hoothoot is beside it, half its feathers burnt off, and the limbs strangely skewed, some dark liquid coloring the grass beneath it. The ball was struck by enough electricity to force its emergency release, but it had messed with the transition back to matter, or corrupted the data template. What had emerged was dead upon reconstruction.
Bile rises in Leaf’s throat, and it’s almost too much on top of all the terror and tension of the past hour. She stumbles away until she can’t smell it anymore, then bends over, hands on her thighs as she wills the nausea away.
“Leaf? You alright?”
She takes a deep breath, then another. “Yeah!” Her voice sounds alright. She swallows a few times, then picks up the lantern and slowly makes her way back to him, working on her face until by the time she’s back between the lightning rods her expression is confused and a bit worried.
“I’m sorry Red. I can’t find it. I’ll come back and look when it’s light.”
He frowns up at her, and for a second she thinks he’d call her on it, but he sighs. “Dammit. If someone else finds it…”
“It’s okay. You never registered it, so you’re not responsible if someone misuses it.” She puts the lantern down beside him and heads for the tree, moving mechanically to pick up one of the broken branches and climb up the tree with the third web. She swings the branch through the web and twirls until the whole thing is snarled, then makes her way back down and sits beside Red.
“Yeah…” He looks so frustrated and worried that she faces away toward the sullen glow of the far off fire. Is it brighter? Dimmer? She still can’t tell, and weariness suddenly drags at her limbs and thoughts as she watches another pikachu running in the distance.
She’s so tired. Morning is so far off, and she doesn’t dare fall asleep. She’s never wanted a night to end as badly as she does this one.
Come back safe, Blue. Come back with help, and come back soon.
Hundreds of hours in simulations prepared Blue for a lot of situations, but running through a forest at night was not one of them.
Foliage rakes at his clothes and skin as he weaves around trees and tall bushes. It’s hard to move fast and hold a flashlight straight, and he also struggles to keep the lightning rod from snagging every bush he passes. He contracted it to half its length, but it’s still over half as long as he is tall.
Worst of all, even with the flashlight to spot the obvious roots, every other step seems to almost land on one. Anyone else would have a twisted ankle in less than a minute.
But Blue Oak, future Champion of Indigo, has the physical agility and reaction time of a born pokemon master, and pokemon masters do not trip and eat dirt on the way to a double rescue, even with no one around to see it.
Instead he begins to run in an odd hopping motion, feet not swinging at all as he lands and pushes off with his whole foot. It’s tiring and probably looks ridiculous, but it’s faster than walking would be, and lets him avoid a faceplant.
And after all, there’s no one’s around to see it.
Thankfully he also doesn’t trip over a pokemon every five feet like in the sims. He sees a few pikachu and raichu in the distance as he travels, but none get close enough to be a threat. The frequency of wild pokemon encounters there were always annoying, but he supposes it’s to make up for the other challenges trainers face, like hop-running through a dark forest until your lungs burn and your legs feel like lead so you can stop a fire and get help for your friends before they die a horrible death.
Assuming there’s help available, that is. The glow of the fire above the trees seems to have intensified, and soon he begins to smell smoke. He pauses and drops the lightning rod just long enough to tucks his phone between his knees and put his facemask on. Then he picks it back up and keeps going, flashlight aimed at the ground to find safe spots for his feet. In the distance he hears a voice, amplified by something as it shouts orders. He uses it as his directional reference, figuring whoever is doing the shouting is probably in charge of stopping the fire.
Just as he’s beginning to see a glow between the trees, too steady to be the fire, a pikachu zags through the forest to his right and heads straight toward him. Blue feels his adrenaline spike as he quickly jabs the rod into the ground as hard as he can and jumps back, unclipping Shroomish’s ball before his feet hit the ground. A bolt of electricity strikes his rod, and he sidesteps to keep it between him and the pikachu as he throws, world narrowing down as calm settles over him.
“Go, Shroomish.”
Even while moving and in the dark, he judges the angle right and feels the pokeball smack back into his palm as it returns. Blue feels a moment of fierce pride, which cuts off abruptly when his foot hits a root and topples him onto his back.
“Leech seed!” Blue yells just before the fall knocks his wind out. He scrambles to get his soles under him and shines the light forward so he can see the fight.
His pokemon is shooting seeds up in an arc to land around the pikachu like hail. They’re faster than the powder, and Blue sees some manage to land on the rodent, sticking to its fur and spreading thin tendrils around it. The pikachu sends shocks at Shroomish again and again, but doesn’t seem to realize why none of them are connecting.
But the electricity is still traveling through the ground, causing his pokemon to jump and cry out in pain. “Sleep powder!” Shroomish sends out clouds of spores, and the pikachu begins to dodge, sending out erratic bolts here and there as its glowing cheeks leave streaks of light through the air.
It’s hard to keep the phone’s flashlight on it, but even harder to get a lock with a pokeball. Blue watches for an opening, a slight stumble, a slow turn-
The pikachu leaps forward and begins scratching at Shroomish, the two pokemon tumbling over the grass. It seems to have given up on its electricity, or maybe it ran out, but its claws and teeth are still dangerous enough to draw blood.
“Absorb!” Blue yells as he steps around the pokemon to keep the lightning rod between him and the ‘chu, just in case. Motes of green light appear on his pokemon’s wounds as it absorbs the pikachu’s skin and blood and uses its nutrients to regenerate itself. It’s enough to help his pokemon heal some of the damage it’s taking, but the pikachu has energy to spare, and doesn’t even slow down as it leaps off and begins to jump in and out of range for hit and run attacks, quick as a blink even while blood seeps down its fur from the eroded flesh.
“Headbutt!” Shroomish shoves forward with its feet to try and slam into the rodent, but it misses and tumbles over the grass, torn and bloody from the scratches. It gets back up and tries again and again, but it’s just not fast enough to match the pikachu’s speed.
Thankfully it doesn’t have to. Blue feels a distant, savage satisfaction as he sees the pikachu stumble for the first time, finally beginning to feel its losses. The leech seeds’ vines are now firmly wrapped around it and embedded in its skin, growing fat off its blood. Most grass pokemon aren’t unusually fast or lethal, but if you can stall your opponent long enough, they’re champions at endurance matches.
The pikachu starts to go wild as it feels its life being drained away by the plants, rolling along the ground and sending electricity through its own body as it tries to get the seeds off. Blue keeps trying to get a lock, but it’s moving too erratically. “Sleep powder!”
Shroomish sends out a cloud of spores, but the pikachu leaps away, tumbling into a roll. As soon as it’s back on its feet, it suddenly dashes off into the dark forest.
Blue stands frozen for a second, torn in two by conflicting desires. Then he curses, free hand moving in a flurry
minimize-pocket, unclip-return-reclip, yank
before he’s off after it, trying not to stumble as he holds the light ahead to keep the pikachu in sight and the rod up by his shoulder, ready to jam it into the ground the second the pikachu turns toward him.
Its energetic leaps are interrupted by constant tumbling along the grass, just hurt enough that he can keep up with it, but not enough to get close. Even worse, it keeps scrambling between and under dense bushes that he has to detour around. He loses sight of it a few times, only able to stay on its trail because of the occasional flashes of electricity.
This is stupid,
he thinks as he run-hops, but he doesn’t stop. Even knowing he might run into another ‘chu or some other pokemon at any moment, even knowing that he’s running in the wrong direction from the fire, even knowing that he left the others to get them help quicker, not catch a pikachu, he can’t just let it get away. This is his best chance to get an electric pokemon anytime soon, and a rare one at that.
The pikachu finally starts to slow down enough for him to close the distance a bit, and then his foot comes down on the side of a root. He hits the ground face first, nose smacking into the plastic of his mask and sending a bolt of pain through his head. It takes him a couple seconds to push himself up and grab the lightning rod, then he’s off again, nose stinging with every breath as he looks frantically around for the ‘chu.
Nothing. A bitter frustration wells up as he slows, chest heaving as he flashes the light around, then points it away over his shoulder. He’s wasting time, he should be heading toward the fire…
Come on, a spark… just one spark…
A flash to his left and he’s off again, hoping it’s not a different pikachu, hoping his nose isn’t broken, and hoping above all that he’s not endangering his friends with this mad chase.
The spark goes off one more time as he runs forward, and then there’s nothing but the light bobbing along the ground in front of him. His eyes flick from left to right in case it turned in a different direction, but there’s nothing, and he starts to feel the despair again. It can’t have gotten far, not moving as slow as it was…
His side aches, his nose pulsing with every beat of his heart. He trips again, barely managing to keep his feet, and just as he’s about to slow and turn the light away to look for more sparks, he sees something yellow in the distance, lying still.
Blue rushes forward in a surge of triumph, jabbing the rod down and pulling out a ball. An eternity passes before he hears the ping, and then he throws, hits, bounces, captures.
“
Yes!”
He pumps a fist in the air, then falls to his knees as he clutches a stitch in his side, breathing hard through his mouth and fogging his facemask. He lets himself drop onto his side and lie still until his pulse has slowed down a bit, pulling his mask off so it rests on his head to prod his nose gently. No blood, so it’s probably fine.
All worth it.
As soon as the stitch fades, he gets to his feet and goes to the ball with a grin. With a pikachu on his team he’s got a strong play against flying and water types, which will make Cerulean Gym significantly easier. He takes out his pokedex to register it, using the light of the screen to line up their lenses.
Blue’s grin slowly fades as his pokemon doesn’t appear on the screen. Instead there’s just text listing the mass and atomic makeup of the contents, along with other basic information.
No… it wasn’t that long, just a few seconds…
He pulls the ball away, then realigns it. Again the pokedex treats it like a Container rather than a pokeball. The DNA of the leech plants and pikachu are listed, but there’s no brain activity, which means…
Blue’s hand trembles, and the lens unaligns briefly, causing the text to wipe and reappear. Not a pokemon, as far as the ‘dex is concerned. Just atoms of meat, and some plant. The seeds took too much blood, or maybe their vines entered its skull. A pokecenter could heal almost anything else, but not that. A damaged brain is unrecoverable. Dead.
Blue screams, throwing the ball at a tree. It bounces off and rolls back, and he kicks it against a bush where it comes to rest. His heart is pounding again as scalding tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he rubs them away with his palms, chest burning as his anger roars through him.
“It’s not my fault. You ran, you stupid rat, you had the leech seeds on you and you… you attacked me, I didn’t… you made me waste
all this time!
”
Blue clamps his lips shut as his yell rings through the forest.
I’m talking to a ball. A dead pokemon in a ball.
He focuses on breathing until the anger is back under control, then wipes at his face again and pulls his mask back down, tucking the pokedex away. He pick up the ball and braces his arm to release its contents, then unclips Shroomish’s ball.
“Go, Shroomish,” he says, just loud enough to be heard as he tosses it forward, arm catching it reflexively.
His pokemon is moderately hurt, but he doesn’t want to waste potions that they might need later. Instead he kneels down and picks his shroomish up, placing it by the body without looking directly at it. Some of the leech seeds fell off in its mad dash, but there are a few left, swollen and cracked. Shroomish waddles closer and begins to pick the seeds off with its teeth, crunching the soft shells to get to juicy innards.
Blue looks away, feeling his stomach churn. Within moments his pokemon’s wounds begin to glow green, body using the nutrients to repair itself.
There’s a flash of light to his side, and Blue turns to see another pikachu running through the forest, cheeks glowing like angry eyes. He watches it run off, then withdraws his pokemon after it finishes and goes to picks up the lightning rod. He turns to the body of the pokemon that was almost his. His lips tremble briefly with something fighting to come out, and he’s not sure if it’s going to be more anger or some pointless apology-
Another flash of electricity on his other side, closer. Blue takes a deep breath, then turns to the glow of the fire above the distant trees and jogs toward it, gaze ahead.
As Blue approaches the light he saw earlier, too steady and white to be the fire, this time he sees the lanterns hung here and there from the trees. Around them is a thin haze of white smoke, and as Blue gets closer he begins to see it in the beam of his phone’s light. Soon it’s thick enough to see around him like fog, and by then there’s enough light to put his phone away. Once it gets noticeably warmer, he finds the first trainers and pokemon working to contain the blaze beyond.
Blue stands and watches for a moment, panting for breath and slipping the lightning rod snug between his bag and his back along his spine so he has both hands free. Ahead and to the right, a sandslash is digging along the side of a trench to widen it, tearing up the grass and bushes in its way. A sudden crack makes him turn toward a falling branch, and he sees a primeape jumping from tree to tree above with its trainer. Others on the ground quickly drag away any uprooted or broken plants to keep the firebreak clear of anything that might burn. Some of them, especially the rangers, have bright orange fire suits on, but everyone has some kind of breath mask.
He’s close enough for him to make out the words of the person with the megaphone he heard, their voice made strange and alien by a facemask and the amplification. “
Second squad, flare up to the east!”
they yell, loud enough to cut through the distant roar of the fire and various other shouts of trainers to each other and their pokemon. Blue follows its tone of command to a Ranger standing beside a fallen log with a megaphone in one hand a tablet in the other. When he gets closer, he sees she’s an older woman, greying hair cut short beneath her Ranger cap.
She glances at him as he approaches, then looks back to the screen. “Pokemon?”
“Squirtle, pidgey, shroo-”
“Phone.” He offers it to her, and she opens the map and sets a marker on it before handing it back. “Head west, find Ranger Malcolm.”
“My friend has a broken arm, he needs hel-”
“Is he alone?”
Blue pauses, irritated. “No, there’s someone with-”
“Then they’re as safe as they’ll get until this fire is under control. Check if their distress call came through.” She tilts the screen to him.
Blue’s anger almost erupts, but one look at the digital map makes him swallow it. The fire is a mass of thermal colors in the otherwise dark forest, with pinpricks of light showing people and pokemon. A river runs from northeast to southwest, creating a natural barrier for the fire on that side, while the Rangers and trainers spread out over a long, uneven half circle to contain it in the other directions.
The CoRRNet outpost is gone, lost somewhere in the middle of that bloom of color.
“Is this live?”
“Mostly. The pikachu and raichu knocked out the local tower, and it’s hard to get a steady signal.”
A graphic overlay shows different colored pings over various spots, and after a moment Blue finds their location, then traces his finger over the screen in the direction he came. “That one,” he says, pointing to the distress signal that marks where they made camp.
So many…
His friends’ red marker is just one among dozens blinking in and out of existence, crying for attention. He can see some pinpricks of light there though, so assuming it updated recently, at least he knows they’re still okay.
“We have their location then. They’ll get help when we can spare it.” A message pops up on the screen beside one of the lights to the east side of the fire, and she raises the megaphone. “
Squad five, raichu attack to the east!”
She lowers it and continues watching the screen. “Get moving trainer. Head back to your friends or go find Malcolm.”
Blue stares at her grim face for another moment, her attention wholly on the screen in front of her, and turns away with a sick feeling in his stomach as he begins to run toward Malcolm. The fire is so big… Red and Leaf would be okay.
As he gets closer, the smoke in the air hangs thick. The diffuse illumination is tinged with yellow and red as the lamps grow less frequent and the fire’s light grows closer. It makes visibility a bit difficult again, lack of light replaced with too much smoke and shadow.
As he runs he catches glimpses of others around him, some widening the firebreak, others nursing burned pokemon. The earth trembles beneath his feet, and he sees a rhyhorn emerge from the smoke. A Ranger sits on its back, her hands tapping the ridges of it shoulders to direct it toward the fire. Two trainers walk out of the smoke to his right with with their arms around a third’s shoulders, the middle trainer’s legs burned through his pants. Blue looks away quickly and checks his phone to adjust his course a bit farther from the fire, breath loud in the facemask as he pushes himself to move faster.
When he hears a new amplified voice shouting “
Tree coming down!”
he turns toward it and jogs around a particularly dense clump of bushes in time to see a pinsir finish wrenching a tree out of the ground, its huge horns digging into the bark. Its trainer gives a whistle, and it releases the tree and steps back to let the whole thing fall.
The crash is enormous, but as soon as the tree settles a handful of pokemon and their trainers set at it, hacking the branches off and carrying them away. The trees here are dense enough to stop the firebreak from continuing, but they’ve brought down about a dozen so far, and the pinsir is already moving on to another.
Blue jogs over to the coordinating Ranger and waits until he finishes speaking with a pair of others. Blue realizes he can see the smoke in the air moving subtly. They’re downwind, though thankfully it’s not a strong breeze.
The two trainers run off, and Blue steps up to the Ranger. “Ranger Malcolm?”
He frowns and looks at the tablet for a moment before shaking his head. “Squirtle might be useful, but it can’t hold enough for what we need. Can your pidgey create a whirlwind?”
“Not yet.”
“Have you got a firecoat?”
“No.”
“Any ultraballs?”
“No…”
“Ever fight a fire before?”
Blue just shakes his head, frowning.
“Well, we could use more hands to keep the firebreak clear. Just head over to-”
“Hang on, you want me to
carry branches
?”
The Ranger’s gaze flicks up from his tablet, eyes cool. “Is that a problem, trainer?”
“I left my friends to stop the fire and get help to them quicker, not fetch and carry.”
“Why are you wasting my time then? By all means, stop the fire.” He turns back to his tablet.
Blue grits his teeth. “Look, I know my pokemon aren’t the best for this, but I’m telling you, you’d be wasting me on pick up duty. I can give cover to others, stop ‘chu-”
“I’m not here to appease your ego, kid,” the Ranger says without looking up. “I’ve got over sixty-” He stops as Blue feels the wind pick up. Malcolm raises his megaphone. “
Southwest breeze,
fire line at five hundred meters and closing! Forward squads, fall back!”
“I want to help,” Blue insists after it’s lowered.
“It’s not about what you want, it’s about what we need. You don’t have the skills or pokemon to do what’s needed, which means you do what you can. If you don’t like it, you can go play hero somewhere else.” He turns as another Ranger approaches, and the two begin analyzing wind patterns.
Blue stomps away, half intending to head back to Red and Leaf and half deciding to find another coordinating Ranger to offer his help to. He can’t just run around helping at random. For one thing he might do more harm than good. For another, he needs to be officially recognized to get any prestige from this.
Most Champions are barely known before they reach the League, and are little more than figureheads once they gain the title. Instead of leading, of pushing society to the next step, the Championship title is treated like just another badge. A footnote in what they do after. Even those like gramps and Giovanni are known more for what they did after they relinquished their title.
It’s worse than pathetic. It’s a damned
waste
.
Gym Leaders can do more than just protect their lands and train others. They can change the face of
entire cities
with the power of their personality and vision of the future. When they’re loved and trusted by their people, they deserve their title: not “Protector,” or “Teacher.”
Leader
.
Blue isn’t going to be a figurehead. He’s going to lead Kanto and Johto into a new age. An age without fear. Without calamity. An age of action, rather than reaction.
An age without the Storm Gods.
And to bring the people with him, to make them
want
to go with him, he needs to be the kind of person they’re willing to follow into a storm’s very heart, so they can rip it out.
All that starts here, helping however he can. Showing what he’s capable of. Who’s he to demand a more important task? He hasn’t earned their trust yet.
He can’t even catch a pikachu without killing the damn thing.
Blue takes a deep breath, then lets it out. When the anger is all but gone, he turns to walk back toward the Ranger. As he does, two women jog over to them through the smoke, one tall and willowy under her windbreaker, the other muscular and dressed in a judogi. The Ranger looks up as they approach. “River side?”
“Secure,” the taller one says, voice heavily muffled. She’s wearing a mouth filter and goggles instead of a full face mask, making it hard to tell her age. “But we had some trouble with raichu that came by.”
“What happened to Pam and Derek? They were supposed to give you cover.”
“They never showed up.”
“What? I sent them to you 20 minutes ago.” The ranger runs a hand through his hair. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” the woman in the judogi says. “But my pokemon are hurt, and we’re almost out of potions. I don’t know if I’ll be able to fend off many more.”
“Hey,” Blue says as he reaches them. “Here, take this.” He pulls the lightning rod out from where it’s wedged between his back and bag.
They look at him in surprise, but the trainer takes it, relief plain as she extends the rod and practices sticking it in the ground. “This’ll help. Thanks kid.”
“I’m Blue. Blue Oak.”
Her eyes widen behind her mask. “Thanks, Oak. I’ll get it back to you after.”
“Sure.” He turns to the Ranger. “I’ll help clear the firebreak. Tell me where you need me.”
The first thing the fire teaches Blue is to fear the wind.
He walks the firebreak with Luis and Sarah, a pair of trainer siblings in their late teens. The three work together to drag fallen branches and uprooted bushes out of the firebreak, sweaty, exhausting work made worse by the oppressive heat all around them. But the occasional brush of air against his skin brings danger rather than relief, causing them all to stop what they’re doing to look around, waiting, listening for the sound or sight of the fire racing toward them, of a warning called. The last stiff breeze had come in an unexpected direction and sent the fire a hundred meters in seconds, trapping a trainer and almost killing him. It had taught them all to be wary.
The trench is wide enough to stop the fire when it goes too far in any direction, but that means they end up walking a stone’s throw away from the fire in some areas.
Passing through those are the worst, the heat almost unbearable as they widen the firebreak at its far edge. Blue watches with a hand on squirtle’s ball in case any embers are blown across. The smoke is so thick that it’s like walking through a red cloud.
“I don’t think we can move this one!” Sarah half shouts over the roar of the fire, tugging at a branch that’s twice as long as she is tall. “Any of you got a strong pokemon?”
Blue shakes his head, wiping sweat from his neck. “Nothing that can cut it, either!”
“I’ve got one that might!” Luis unclips his pokeball and braces his arm. “Go, Jaws!”
A raticate flashes into existence, the muscular rodent immediately cowering from the light and heat. Luis kneels down and strokes it, murmuring something, then guiding it toward the middle of the tree branch. He stands it and points straight at the wood.
“Cut!”
The raticate begins to chomp at the bark, oversized teeth sinking into it with a
crunch
and jerking it off to spit to the side. It grips and chews and spits again and again while the trainers watch, and eventually it manages to bore through the branch and snap it in half with its final bite as it crawls through to the other side.
“Good girl!” Luis feeds and withdraws it as Blue and Sarah grab a half and begin to drag it away. Once they have both pieces a good distance from the firebreak, they continue walking again, breathing hard and occasionally stopping to clear other things off.
The break curves away from the fire for a bit, and they take a break to drink some water and rest in the lower heat. A dugtrio approaches and passes them from behind, its trainer following the three bobbing heads as they widen the firebreak by another few meters, barely visible claws sending grass flying as it burrows up and down. Blue and the others quickly scoop up the clumps of grass and toss them to the safe side of the break.
“Where were you guys, when this all started?” Blue asks as they set off again.
“To the west, across the river,” Sarah says, loosening her dark hair from its messy ponytail and rebinding it tighter. “One second we were asleep, the next there were pikachu everywhere. One of them ran right over our friend, got caught in her sleeping bag.” She grimaces and looks away.
Blue looks at her, then Luis. “Is she…”
“We fought them off and got her to the Outpost, but by then it was already ablaze. They stabilized her, but…” He shakes his head, eyes angry and desolate. “One of the Rangers strapped her to his pidgeot and took off for Pewter. They’re worried there might be permanent nerve damage.”
Blue doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing, fighting the fear for Red and Leaf that rises up in him. Even if he gets help to them, he has no idea how bad Red’s arm is. What if it doesn’t heal right? A one armed trainer is at a serious disadvantage, and far more vulnerable in the wild. Would his journey be over already? Over before it really began?
The thought makes him cold, even in the stifling heat around them. He always figured Red would end his journey as soon as he got his Researcher’s license: he’s a good trainer, but he’s not, well, Blue. He’s better suited in a lab or writing books. He’ll probably even become a Professor some day. But experience in the field is essential to be a researcher, and if he gets crippled this young…
Blue chases the fear away with anger. Red would be fine, and one day he’d pay the Storm God back for this… But his strongest rage seems so insignificant against the nearby blaze, a charmander throwing embers at the sun, and he can’t shake the niggling fear for his friends.
Blue feels the wind pick up again, and the three of them immediately tense, watching the fire and preparing to run.
“Shit.” Luis points. “It’s headed toward the break, that way.”
He’s right. Blue can feel the direction in the caresses of air, stoking the fire and blowing burning debris in that direction. They begin to run along the trench, listening to the fire crackle and roar as it spreads through the trees.
Then the fire is visible again, a glowing light through the smoke. Blue begins to hear a faint popping sound, and looks around with a hand at his belt. It doesn’t sound like the electricity from earlier… “What is that? It sounds like it’s coming from the fire.”
“It’s… nothing dangerous.” Luis shakes his head. “We heard it earlier. Metapod hanging in the trees…”
Oh.
Blue’s glad Leaf isn’t around to hear it. She cares about pokemon so much that it surprises him how competent she is in a fight. Even coordinators like Daisy don’t think of pokemon the way Leaf does. Unovans are strange.
Blue pulls out his phone for any messages that might have gotten through to him from the others, but the screen’s illumination makes it hard to make out details through the smoke. He puts his phone away and shoves his worries away again. “Another branch up ahead.”
The night drags on, an unending journey through smoke and heat. Another sandslash, or maybe it’s the one from earlier, eventually comes by to widen the break another few meters. A few minutes later they find a tree that the sandslash dug around, and wait for a trainer with a pokemon that can knock it down to come by so they can help clear it. In the meantime, they drag a huge bush that was uprooted off the firebreak and onto the grass. Blue’s muscles protest as his breath catches in his throat, and when Luis shouts that they’re clear, lets it go with a gasp, arms burning.
He leans his hands on his knees to catch his breath, closing his eyes against sudden dizziness. A hand touches his shoulder, and he looks up to see Sarah holding a water bottle.
“Go,” she says and points away from the fire. “Get away from the heat and rest a bit. We’re waiting here anyway.”
He wants to argue that he’s alright, but she and her brother haven’t treated him as lesser just because he’s younger, and he can tell she’s not doing so now. Besides, the sight of her water bottle makes him realize how parched his throat his. “I’ve got my own. Thanks.” Blue stumbles away until the heat is more bearable, near the outer edges of the lamp light. He puts his back to a tree and slides down to the grass, one hand digging his water bottle out of his bag.
Blue lifts his mask and takes a long drink. After the first swallow his throat seems to open up, warm water pouring down it almost faster than he can swallow. When his lungs start to burn for air he stops and secures his mask again. He pours the rest of the water over his hair before resting his head against the trunk and closing his eyes. His interrupted sleep is starting to catch up to him after laboring in the heat, and he struggles not to doze off as he lets his muscles rest.
He hears the crunch of footsteps approaching, and waits for Luis or Sarah to say something. Their steps are slow, almost awkward. When he hears them in front of him they still don’t say anything, Blue opens his eyes. He sees nothing at first, nothing but the white and brown and green of smoke and trees, and then his heart stutters in his chest.
A shiftry stands before him, over two meters tall hunched over, taller even than gramps. Its white mane of fur fades into the smoke perfectly, drawing his eyes to a bark covered humanoid body nearly as thick as the tree he’s sitting against. The branches that make up its arms are extended outward, fanning the air around it as it hop-steps delicately from one T shaped foot to the next, leaves rustling.
The leaves’ razor sharp edges are stained red, blood smeared across their stems.
Blue’s hand inches toward his pokeball pocket, heart pounding as the pokemon takes another step closer to him. He doesn’t know what sense it used to find him, but just as the smoke gives it incredible camouflage, it doesn’t seem to be able to see well in it.
Shiftry, Dark/Grass. Known as the ‘sinister pokemon,’ they excel at picking enemies who are weakened or at a disadvantage. Low defenses, but agile and deadly, capable of brute force mental attacks…
The shiftry balances from one foot to the next, legs moving with an awkward grace that reminds Blue suddenly of the way he’d run through the forest. As it hops a bit closer, the razor sharp edges of its leaves slice through the smoke, first one way and then the other in sweeping gestures that buffet him with gusts of air.
Blue wonders if it’s trying to fan away the smoke to see better. His fingers trace over his pokeballs, plucking one out and expanding it with this thumb. Can a pokeball catch a shiftry? Some of the smaller ones, maybe, but this one looks too big. Either way, it would buy him time to get a pokemon out. Squirtle, shroomish or caterpie wouldn’t stand a chance. Zephyr could distract it and do some damage, but not enough.
That leaves one choice, risky as it is. Pokeballs train even the most vicious pokemon to not see people as targets, but it’s not a sure thing, and that doesn’t mean they’ll follow orders well.
Suddenly there’s the sound of voices, and the shiftry goes still, turning toward them. Panic constricts Blue’s chest, and he barely stops himself from calling out a warning. It might kill them in seconds if they walk near it unsuspecting, but it would kill him even quicker if it notices him. He turns the ball’s lens to face it, other hand putting down the water bottle and going to his belt… the ball isn’t pinging.
Smoke is causing too much interference.
He holds it up a bit, putting it closer…
“Blue, you ready?”
The shiftry turns its back on him and Blue shoves himself forward, holding the ball straight out toward it. It pings just as the shiftry leaps away, and the ball strikes it in the back and snatches it out of the air.
Blue rolls away before it even hits the ground, drawing his beedrill’s pokeball and getting to his feet to watch as the shiftry’s rolls to a stop. He has a brief moment of hope, and then the ball shudders and wiggles.
Ah shit-!
“Blue!” Luis and Sarah materialize in the smoke, pokeballs in hand.
“Get back! Shiftry in the ball!”
“What b-”
The shiftry explodes back out of the ball in a flash of light and an unusually loud bang that hurts Blue’s ears, the emergency rematerialization blowing the two halves of the pokeball apart. It stumbles on its awkwardly shaped feet, seeming disoriented from the sudden change.
“Go, Beedrill!” Blue yells as he throws the ball high up. It opens with a flash, and as he catches the pokeball, his pokemon falls to the ground in a limp heap, wings moving slowly. Blue stares at it in horror.
I forgot, the sleep powder…
“Go, Prince!” Luis shouts.
“Go, Rafflesia!”
The shiftry focuses on the nidorino and gloom that suddenly appear beside it, leaves fanning out as the trainers catch their balls and yell simultaneously “Poison Sting!” and “Acid!”
Blue rushes to his beedrill as the fight begins. He opens the pouch in the side of his bag and pulls out bottles until he finds the awakening potion, shoving the rest back in and spraying the beedrill. Its delicate wings beat a bit faster, arms and legs twitching as it struggles toward consciousness. Blue can see some spores still covering it, and begins to carefully brush them away, not sure if an awakening potion would work while it’s still covered in the stuff. How do insects breathe? Should he be focusing on the head? He’s about to ask Red when he remembers he’s not here, and his hands brush faster, ignoring the unnerving feel of the bug’s chitinous body under his hands.
The shiftry gives a grinding, cracking roar, like tree bark twisting against itself. Blue looks up and sees the shiftry swing at Luis’s nidorino, leaves drawing bloody furrows along its hide. The shiftry isn’t looking good, mane and skin covered in dark patches where the gloom’s acid has burned it. Sarah’s pokemon shoots stream after stream of the caustic liquid out, hissing and bubbling on the shiftry’s skin.
“Double Kick!” Luis yells. His nidorino leaps and spins in the air to slam both hindlegs into the shiftry’s knee. It roars as the bark cracks and buckles, and its retaliatory swipe misses the nidorino as Luis’s pokemon leaps away. Another spurt of acid hits the shiftry’s leaves, almost dissolving one of them completely.
From all appearances, they’re winning. Strong as the shiftry is, the pokemon they chose are well suited to the fight, and they have it outnumbered.
So why is Blue still so tense?
Because shiftry are called the “sinister pokemon” for a reason. They target the helpless, and don’t fight fair.
“Horn attack!”
Why isn’t it using its a mental attacks?
Blue’s heart beats faster and faster as the shiftry spits seeds toward the gloom at an incredible speed, the hard shells striking it without much effect.
“Poison powder!”
Blue’s hands are paused above his beedrill, heart racing to a painful pitch. They’re missing something. What?
What?
Why is it staying to fight when it’s so outnumbered?
“Oh, hell,” Blue whispers, and turns slowly around in a circle. He sees nothing but smoke and trees.
Nothing but smoke and trees.
The ball is already in his hand, already cocked back, already sailing out. “
Go, Zephyr!”
Blue yells, and as soon as he materializes, “
Gust!”
His pokemon loops haphazardly midair so that he’s behind Blue, then begins to flap faster and faster, thinning the smoke in front of them as he blows it away.
The whiteness sticks in one spot ahead of him, and a second later his eyes adjust to see it for what it is: the mane of another shiftry. Another solidifies to Sarah’s right, and a third closer to Luis, like optical illusions made real.
Three… four…
Blue spins around. Now that he’s looking, he can see the shiftry that was creeping up on him through the smoke.
Six.
Six shiftry against three of them, and his only pokemon that can stand against them is asleep. Luis and Sarah stare in shock as the trap is revealed, and then step back to back, hands going down to their belts.
The revealed pokemon seem to realize their cover is gone, and then the forest rings with their grinding roars as they close in from all sides.
The shiftry rush at them through the swiftly thickening smoke, and the moment of shock shatters with the sound of their roars. Blue can feel his heartbeat in his throat, but it’s adrenaline that fills his veins, not fear. Now he knows what he’s up against. Now he can act.
“Go, Lep!”
“Go, Pauletta!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Blue sees Luis summon a doduo and Sarah an aipom. She yells, “Square!” and Luis echoes her, and their pokemon, including the nidorino and gloom, take positions in front of their left and right hands, covering all four corners as the shiftry close in.
Then Blue has to focus on his own opponent, who leaps toward him in startlingly quick hops. His left hand unclips squirtle’s pokeball as the right points at the shiftry. “Wing Attack!”
Zephyr dives and begins buffeting its eyes with its wings as its talons and beak tear at it. He aims his ball to the side, bracing with his other hand. “Squirtle, go!” As soon as his pokemon materializes, he clips its ball and points at the beedrill. “Soak!”
The turtle falls to all fours and opens its mouth, shooting water in a wide spray that drenches the bug. He hears the yells and cries of the other trainers and their pokemon as they fight, but his entire focus is on his battle. The shiftry is swinging at Zephyr, cutting itself up with its own leaves as the pidgey dodges and flits around its head. The smoke billows and gusts as Zephyr’s wings beat at it, making it hard to make out exactly what the shiftry is doing. Blue prepares to give another command, but the last one seems to be working for now.
Squirtle’s deluge slows to a stop as it runs out of water, and the air here is too dry for it to absorb any more moisture through its skin. Blue returns it to its ball, watching as beedrill begins to move less sluggishly. “Beedrill! Poison sting!” Its wings move faster as it shakes the water off them, but only lifts for a second before sinking back down.
Come on, get up!
The shiftry fighting Zephyr roars, then bends its knees and leaps back to get clear before swiping clumsily forward with both arms. When Zephyr flies above the sharp leaves to continue pecking at its eyes, the shiftry’s forward momentum immediately stops. “Climb!” Blue cries, but it’s already reversing the feint, leaves slicing up quick as a blink as it bounds back like a spring loaded toy.
Blue unclips and points Zephyr’s ball as his pokemon falls to the grass, covered in blood and with a wing half shorn off. “Return!”
He’s fine, he’ll be fine once I get him to a pokemon center-
“Go, caterpie! String shot!” The green bug looks pitiful against the towering tree monster, but it dutifully sends a sticky stream out. The shiftry blocks it with one arm and leaps forward, but gets drawn up short when the arm tugs against the ground where the string had fallen and stuck.
Beedrill’s wings buzz as it tries again to lift itself up, but it still doesn’t last more than a couple heartbeats. The shiftry cuts the string and leaps aside to avoid a second, and as Blue aims caterpie’s pokeball at it and opens his mouth, the shiftry leaps forward and cuts his pokemon in half.
Blue stares in shock for what feels like seconds, but can’t be because the shiftry doesn’t pause in its forward momentum, bounding around the beedrill and slicing at him.
Wait, hang on-
Blue’s hands are already moving ahead of his thoughts, dropping his caterpie’s ball to the grass and pulling out an empty one as he leaps to the side to avoid the shiftry’s attack.
Pain lances down his side as the edge of the leaves cut through the protective mesh under his clothes, and he cries out as his thumb expands the ball and aims it. He bites down on any further screams so he can hear the
ping,
throws-
only
one left-a
nd hits the shiftry from the side.
It vanishes in flash of light, and Blue collapses to his knees, hand scrambling at his bag.
Zero sudowoodo one sudowoodo two sudowoodo three…
He pulls a potion from his bag and sprays it on his side, losing count of the seconds as the relief washes through him. He pushes himself to his feet and scrambles toward his beedrill, who keeps lifting up then sinking back down.
Out of time.
He grips the beedrill around the middle and heaves it toward the rocking pokeball on the ground, narrowly avoiding its lashing blades and stinger. The ball disgorges the shiftry in a blinding flash and a
bang
just as his pokemon descends on it in a frenzy.
The bug’s stinger and arm blades pierce the shiftry’s rough skin again and again. It roars in pain and swipes at his pokemon, but the leaves only scratch its exoskeleton, and the beedrill just keeps attacking.
But it’s still being injured, little by little. One of its legs gets cut off by a swipe of the shiftry’s leaves, and half of its wings get cut off from another. Blue thinks furiously of what standard commands his pokemon learned in the ball when he registered it. “Beedrill, climb! Beedrill, back! Beedrill, Twin Needle!”
His beedrill doesn’t respond at all, and Blue’s heart sinks as it continues its self destructive frenzy. The tip of one armblade breaks off in the tree pokemon’s chest, bleeding clear ichor, but it doesn’t even seem to notice. A beedrill should be able to bring a shiftry down in most cases where it catches one by surprise, but whether because of its nature, the circumstance it was caught in, or its lack of training, his has gone too berserk to make efficient, decisive blows.
Blue hears one of the other shiftry roar and turns to the others. Two shiftry are lying still on the ground, but the aipom and nidorino are gone, probably withdrawn back into their balls. As he watches, Sarah’s gloom shoots acid at one of the remaining shiftry, who keeps trying to evade with middling results. Luis’s doduo weaves into range and gets a pair of pecks in at his opponent’s elbow, severing the whole arm before leaping back out of the way of the other arm’s swipe.
It wails in pain, and its eyes suddenly glow as if lit from within. Within a second the other shiftry’s eyes are glowing too, and Blue feels a rush of fear as the two trainers and their pokemon suddenly stagger and collapse.
He turns to his own opponent and sees its eyes also glowing. His beedrill falls to the ground and twitches spastically, and the shiftry leans on its branches as it keeps its gaze on the bug, trembling and bleeding from over a dozen wounds.
Blue doesn’t stop to think: he grabs his caterpie’s ball as he runs toward Luis and Sarah, holding down the button and saying “Release Caterpie!” as his other hand takes out his last empty ball and expands it.
The shiftry with both its arms turns to him as he approaches, but he feels nothing, and soon he’s close enough to hold the balls forward so they can lock.
Come on, come on…
The shiftry seems to realize something is wrong, legs bending as its eyes lose their light and it prepares to leap at him. The two pings go off almost simultaneously, and Blue throws just as it attacks. The shiftry bats the ball to the side, but not fast enough to avoid it opening and sucking it in, while the other simply gets nailed in the back and captured.
Blue runs forward and kicks first one ball, then the other, sending them sailing through the smoke before he rushes to Luis and Sarah. “Hey! Get up!
GET UP!”
He shakes Luis, who groans and presses his palms to his eyes, before going over to Sarah and doing the same with her.
Sarah quickly recovers, one hand rubbing her temple as the other picks up her gloom’s ball. “Return!” She clips it and picks out another ball. “Thanks Blue. Where-”
There’s an explosive crack and a flash through the smoke, and within moments the shiftry rushes back toward them. “Go, Ribbon! Quick attack!” Her newly summoned furret slinks between the shiftry’s feet in a dizzying whirl, biting and scratching while narrowly avoiding its return swings, not giving it a chance to focus a mental attack again.
A second explosive crack sounds, and Luis gets to his feet to face the oncoming shiftry. Blue turns back to the one with his beedrill and feels a jolt go through him.
His pokemon and the shiftry are both lying on the ground, completely still. He rushes back to them, hand unclipping beedrill’s ball. “Return!” He takes his pokedex out and aligns the lens, heart hammering in his chest as the screen shows weak but positive vital signs, and then:
No Neurological Response – Brain Patterns Critically Disrupted
Gone. Two of his pokemon, gone in minutes.
He looks over the shiftry’s wounds, some leaking a strange, thick blood, the flesh around others dark with poison. As the battle rages behind him, Blue mechanically sends his beedrill back out and orders the ball to release it. The shiftry isn’t moving, and he approaches it from behind and kicks the crinkly, tough white hair that drapes down its back.
It feels like kicking a log, and the shiftry rolls a bit onto its stomach. Dead too.
There’s a roaring in his ears, and it takes Blue a moment to realize it’s not something he’s actually hearing. He takes a deep breath as the anger boils up through his detached calm, trembling as he restrains the urge to kick the shiftry again and again and again.
Instead he turns back toward Luis and Sarah in case they need more help, but they’ve brought the last two shiftry down. The doduo seems to have pecked its way into its opponent’s eye socket until it reached the brain, but it got terribly cut in the effort, and one of its heads seems to still be suffering from the mental assault. Luis finishes applying a bottle of potion to the slice along its breast, then withdraws it. And Sarah…
Sarah sits with her pokemon draped over her crossed legs, stroking its long, sleek body. As Blue gets closer he sees the wide, dark stain in the grass, and realizes the furret’s neck is covered in blood. Its head was cut almost completely off.
She looks up at him as he approaches, crying quietly behind her mask. “Your pokemon?”
He shakes his head, not trusting his voice. Luis comes up behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sarah. We’ll give Ribbon a proper burial later, but right now we need to warn the Rangers. There might be more shiftry out here, especially if we’re near a seedot nest they were guarding.”
She nods and puts her pokemon’s body down, whispering something Blue can’t make out. Then she stands and points a ball at it. “Good girl, Ribbon, r-return.” It gets absorbed in a flash, and Sarah turns away, one hand clipping it to her belt as the other goes to rub at her face beneath her mask.
“You alright?” Luis asks after a moment, gesturing at his side.
“Oh.” Blue looks down and prods at his wound, wincing a bit at the tender scab under the drying blood. “Yeah. I’ll get it checked out later, but it didn’t go too deep.”
“Lucky. No,” Luis shakes his head, then winces, hand going up to rub his temple. “Sorry, my head’s still a bit scrambled from their extrasensory assault. I’m sure luck had little to do with it. We’d probably be dead right now if not for you. Did you stay out of their line of sight, or are you psychic?”
Blue takes a breath, then lets it out. “Neither. I’m dark.”
Luis blinks. “Oh. Right. Well, good.”
Blue watches Sarah check each of the shiftry, cautiously approaching and kicking them the way he had.
Here it comes…
“So, did you, uh, sense them?”
Blue looks at him.
“Is that how you knew? I’d heard that dark people can sense dark pokemon.”
Somehow Blue doubts that’s exactly what Luis heard. “That’s not how it works. We don’t have any mental powers, even where dark pokemon are concerned.”
“So how did you know they were there?”
Blue feels a bloom of heat in his chest, and imagines himself stroking a growling arcanine back to peace. There probably isn’t an undercurrent of suspicion in Luis’s tone. Blue’s probably just imagining it. “I just had a bad feeling, that’s all. The shiftry shouldn’t have stuck around when it saw it was outnumbered.” Blue looks at the original shiftry and is surprised to see it’s still alive. Despite being covered in acid burns and poisoned wounds, its chest rises and falls as it struggles weakly to move with its shattered leg.
“Well you were by yourself at first, weren’t you? How did it find you-”
“I don’t know,” Blue snaps. “But I didn’t draw it to me, if that’s what you’re implying. That’s just a myth.” He walks away before Luis can finish his surprised denial, heading toward the original shiftry.
“What are you going to do, Blue?” Sarah says as he passes her, voice still thick with sorrow. “Be careful!”
Blue stops just outside its reach, watching as it notices him and tries to attack with a sweep of one arm. It moves sluggishly, the remaining intact leaf dropping to the grass after a moment as it collapses onto its back again, breathing shallowly. Whether from blood loss or the poison in its system, it’s clearly dying.
He watches its yellow eyes slowly fill with light, a flickering, uncertain glow. He meets its gaze without blinking, and the light slowly drains away, leaving it staring blankly upward. Its chest still rises and falls, and Blue can hear the rattle of its breath as it struggles to draw in the next one.
Blue notices he has the pokeball in his hand, the one that held his beedrill. But it’s useless here, the shiftry are just too big… even the one that was missing its arm had broken out eventually, though it had taken a bit longer…
“Come on Blue, let’s head back.”
“It’ll die if we leave it here.”
And all this would be for nothing.
A total waste, like the pikachu that was almost his.
“What do you want to do, just heal it and let it go?”
“No. That would still be a loss.”
I refuse to lose again.
Blue eyes the shiftry that’s missing an arm, then looks back at the original that had set the ambush. Luis’s next question is just an annoying buzz as he carefully steps forward, then kicks the shiftry in the shoulder and leaps back.
The pokemon stirs weakly, emitting a rumbling cough and fanning its arms once before collapsing with a wheeze and going still, eyes closed.
Luis looks at him with wide eyes. “What did you do that for?”
“I’m going to catch it.”
Sarah’s brow creases. “You can’t, it won’t fit in a pokeball.”
“Then I’ll make it fit.” He takes a poison antidote and potion bottle from his bag and begins to spray the shiftry’s wounds. “You guys go ahead if you want, I’ll catch up.”
They don’t respond, merely standing and watching as he finishes treating the shiftry’s most serious injuries. When he finishes, he puts the bottles away and goes over to the severed arm of the shiftry Luis fought. He lifts it carefully, the barklike flesh rough beneath his hands, and brings it back to the living one.
“What are yo-”
Blue stands on one of its hand-leaves before it can recover too much and
swings
, the sharp leaves biting into the thin joint of its shoulder.
“
Blue!
What the fuck-”
The shiftry groans and thrashes a bit, but doesn’t try to retaliate, so Blue swings again and almost completely severs the arm. It hangs loosely by a bit of flesh, and Blue suppresses the revulsion rising in his throat, feeding it to the fire in his belly as he sidesteps and
stomps
down, snapping it off. The shiftry shudders, but lies still.
Blue hears a step behind him and turns, expecting Luis to take a swing at him, but Sarah has a hand on her brother’s shoulder. The boy looks sickened and angry, but she just stares at the shiftry with red-rimmed eyes.
Blue takes out the potion bottle again and sprays the oozing stump, then goes to the shiftry’s other side. “Plant pokemon can heal practically any wound, if they have something to absorb from. That, plus some help at a pokemon center, and it should be fine.” He steps on its remaining arm and chops it off with only two whacks this time.
“But this is…”
Blue glares at him. “Would you rather it die? That’s better?”
Luis is silent, but Sarah says, “I would.”
He turns to her, frustration about to boil over. “I’m sorry about Ribbon, but-”
She shakes her head, staring at the original shiftry. “Ignore me. It’s not the one that killed her, and it dying won’t bring her back. Do what you want.”
Luis is staring at his sister with a mix of pain and alarm, but he stays mercifully silent as Blue turns back to finish butchering the shiftry’s remaining limbs, then cutting at its thick, heavy hair. He expects the pokemon to wheeze its last breath at any moment, but it’s a tough one: it passes out shortly after its first leg is gone, but keeps breathing.
When Blue finishes dragging away its limbs and brushing the long cloak of its hair away, the remaining torso and head look relatively tiny. He takes out his last pokeball, hefts it for a moment as he considers… should he chop off its nose too? More of the thighs? But no, he doesn’t dare risk any more damage. It’s time to roll the dice.
He aims the pokeball until it
pings
a lock, and with an underhanded throw, it captures the remains of the plant pokemon.
Blue watches the ball bounce to the ground and roll to a stop, feeling hollowed out as he waits… and waits… and finally, slowly, lets his breath out a bit. Enough. It was enough.
“It worked,” Luis says, sounding a bit shocked and about as sickened as Blue feels.
“Not yet.” Blue takes out his pokedex and lines up the lenses, face blank as he watches the screen for the inevitable error-
His shiftry appears, information registering. Its vital stats are listed in critical levels, its mental activity subdued… but there. It’s alive. Alive, and his now.
And its first memory of its new master may well be him chopping it to pieces.
Something inside Blue loosens, the rage that he’d locked away pouring out in a scalding flood, diluted by nausea and sorrow and triumph. He wants to dance and cheer at having caught such a powerful pokemon, wants to sit and weep his self-loathing away. He wants to go back to the forest fire and throw the ball into the heart of the blaze.
But he can’t afford to lose control, not yet. Sarah and Luis are going to talk about this to others, and he needs to make sure the stories make him appear strong, determined. There are different ways he could react to this, all of them genuine, but still mostly within his control. Would it be better to look more relatable? Willing to do what’s necessary, but not callously? Would they respect him more for a moment of weakness, or would it just diminish what he’d done?
In the end he clips the ball to his belt, then lets himself slowly fall to his knees, resting back on his ankles with his fists on the grass to either side, head hanging. His legs were feeling unsteady, and it feels nice to just close his eyes and breathe for a while.
After a few moments, he feels a hand on his shoulder. He opens his eyes and looks up to see Sarah staring down at him with concern. Luis is behind her, looking less repulsed than a moment ago. Blue probably confirmed some of the nastier stereotypes of dark people to the older boy, but there’s not much he can do about that. He is who he is: he can’t change the fact that he’s dark. After tonight, he’s not sure he would even if he could, though that will probably change again eventually.
“You okay?”
Blue nods and slowly gets to his feet as Sarah removes her hand. “That’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he says, voice hoarse. He clears his throat and lifts his mask to his forehead, then rummages in his bag for some water.
“Where did you learn to do a thing like that, Oak?” Luis asks. “I can’t imagine your grandfather thinking of it.”
Oh, he’d think of it alright.
As for
do
it, well… depends which stories you believed.
Blue decides not to share that. Instead he finishes the bottle and tucks it away again before fixing Luis with his best glare, shoulders straight and chin up. “Well I’m not my grandfather.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“He’s a great man. I’m going to be a greater one.”
Luis doesn’t look impressed. “Greater than the first Professor in Indigo? You’re not like any researcher I’ve ever met.”
“That’s because I’m not a researcher. I won’t ever be a professor. My grandfather was Champion in your parent’s day, and I’m going to be Champion in yours, but that’s where the similarity ends. My skill is as a battle trainer, and my priority is to win, whatever it takes.”
“If this is what winning looks like, I wouldn’t want to have to face you,” Sarah says, looking around at the shiftry’s limbs.
Blue shakes his head. He has to make them understand. “I’d never do this in a match or tournament. This was about survival. The shiftry’s, and eventually mine. I’m stronger for having it on my team.”
“Which will help you become Champion.”
“Becoming Champion is just a means to an end. It’s not my ultimate goal. On its own that wouldn’t make even things like this necessary.”
“Then what does? If being Champion isn’t enough, what is it you want?”
He meets her gaze. To tell, or not? Is it too early to set such high expectations? He might get mocked, laughed at, before he even has a chance to prove his capabilities.
Better to wait. Better to reveal it after he has a few badges at least, has demonstrated his skill.
He opens his mouth to say something generic about protecting the region-
Groooaaaaaaaaar!
All of them duck, kneeling in combat ready positions as they scan their surrounding. The mighty roar fades, and the smoke around them is suddenly ominous once more.
I can’t use Zephyr again, he’s hurt…
“I don’t think that was a shiftry,” Luis says after a moment. “Way too loud.”
Blue shakes his head. “It sounded familiar, but… it wasn’t a venusaur…”
The earth rumbling roar echoes through the forest again, and this time Blue recognizes it. He lets his breath out in relief. “Finally.”
“Is that…?” Sarah slowly straightens, hand falling from her belt.
“Onix. An enormous one, by the sound.” Blue smiles, relief easing the last of his tension as he heads back toward the fire. “Looks like Pewter finally showed up.”
“Did you hear that?”
Leaf nods, standing and looking in the direction the roar seemed to come from. “Is that the real thing, or is someone else copying our trick?”
The two of them have been waiting over an hour since Blue left, quizzing each other on pokemon trivia to keep themselves awake and vigilant. Occasionally a ‘chu gets close enough to use the pokedex again, and they began experimenting with different sounds, one of them keeping onix on standby in case the golem or nidoking roars don’t work.
They haven’t been able to try many though, as the number of ‘chu running around their area of the forest seems to be dwindling. As they reduced, other wild pokemon have passed by in growing frequency, but luckily none have come near them.
Now the onix roar sounds again, and goosebumps run up Leaf’s arms. Something about hearing it triggers a primal fear in her hindbrain. She can imagine that sound traveling and echoing through each chamber of the rocksnake’s body before releasing in a hammerblow of sound and fury.
“I think it’s the real thing.” Red cranes his head in the same direction, then plops it back down. “Which means Leader Brock or one of his lieutenants might be close by. Maybe they’ll have enough people to send someone here soon.”
“I hope so. The fire doesn’t look like it’s gotten much smaller.” Leaf looks at Red. His face has been pale since he fell out of the tree, but it’s showing more and more strain as the night goes on. “You holding up okay?”
He grimaces. “Arm is starting to hurt, that’s all. Is there any more…”
Leaf worries at her lower lip a moment. “Yeah, but I don’t think we should use it unless that dose wears off completely. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Red props his pokedex back up on his chest. Another half hour of trivia passes, Red randomly scrolling through pokemon files and turning a listed fact into a question, then Leaf doing the same for him. At first they stuck to local pokemon to help Leaf get more familiar with the native species, but eventually they drift farther.
“Why do some basculin have red stripes and some blue?” Leaf asks.
“Um, one’s salt water and one’s fresh water?”
“…You’re guessing, aren’t you?”
Red smiles. “Yeah. Am I right though?”
“No. We actually have no idea.”
“What?!”
“As far as we can tell, yeah, it seems pretty random.”
“How was that a fair question, then?”
“You should have just admitted that you don’t know!”
Red grumbles, scrolling for his own question. “Hm… ah, here. What’s the maximum horizontal airspeed velocity of a swellow?”
“Um… I think it was about 290 kilometers an hour.”
“Nope. Says 274.”
Leaf frowns. “That’s not right. Wait, is it a Unovan swellow or a Kanto swellow?”
“We don’t have swellow here actually, the closest live in Hoenn and Sinnoh. Are they faster in Unova?”
“Yeah, look.” She goes to its page on her dex and shows him. “Huh. The tails look a bit different.”
“Yeah, I can see that one on mine too,” he flicks the picture aside and the Unovan swellow takes its place. “But there’s only one number. I think we found a bug, or at least an oversight.”
Leaf smiles. “In yours, yeah. Mine’s fine.”
“Well it
is
still in beta,” he says defensively. “Guess I’ll write a ticket for Professor Oak.” He begins to awkwardly prop the dex up on one upraised knee so he can navigate and type one handed.
“You want me to?”
“No, it’s okay. Are you hungry, by chance?”
“Yeah, I could use a snack.” She takes some granola bars out of her bag, settling it down just inside the circle of unburnt grass. She unwraps one and puts it on his stomach, then opens her own and begins to munch on the sweetened grains, stomach gurgling.
As they eat, a spark through the trees to her left makes her grab her pokedex. She’s about to press the button when a pichu dashes out of the bushes across the clearing where they originally set up their sleeping bags, closely chased by a spearow.
The bird pecks and claws at the small yellow rodent with its hooked beak and talons, blood flying as the pichu squeaks and scrambles away. Leaf drops her pokedex and reaches for her belt, but then the fight is abruptly over: the pichu leaps away to get a moment of respite, and its red cheeks glow before lancing a bolt out at the spearow, who drops out of the air and tumbles along the ground. It tries to rise, but the pichu sends another bolt at it, then another, and the spearow lies still, the sickening smell of burnt feathers filling the air.
Leaf stares, hand over her mouth. The whole thing had happened in the space of seconds, too fast for her to do anything. She watches the pichu send another spark out into the grass, seemingly at random. It’s ragged and bleeding, and begins to crawl along the grass in a pained daze. Its nose wriggles as it sniffs its way toward them in a slow zigzag, and as it gets closer, she can hear a faint squeak with every exhale.
Her chest feels tight. “Red…”
He has his neck craned at an awkward angle to watch. “Yeah. Got a pokeball?”
“I do, but it’s too far to get a lock.”
“Do you think its parents might be nearby?”
“I think they would have shown up by now. Maybe it fell out of a tree and got left behind, or they were attacked by other wild pokemon…”
The pichu stops moving, ears twitching as it looks at them. It seems poised to flee, and Leaf’s pulse quickens.
If it runs off into the forest with those wounds, it’ll die.
“Red, got any shock potions?”
“A couple.”
“Could I have one?”
“Sure. What are you going to do?”
She opens his bag and finds one, pocketing it. “I’m going to try to catch it.”
He looks at her. “By leaving the rods? Bad idea, Leaf. It’s not as strong as a pikachu, but it can still put you down with a strong enough bolt, and then you’re just another spearow.”
“I’ll have to risk it. It needs medical attention, and I can’t just leave it out there to die.”
“And what am I supposed to do if you do get shocked? Just scare it off and leave you lying out there?”
The pichu’s ears cock to the sides, then forward again. It’s too far for Bulbasaur’s sleep powder, even if she wants to risk sending him out, which she doesn’t: the sound and light would probably make it run off. But Red’s right, it’s too risky to leave the protection of the rods.
She could take one out and move it forward with her, but she would need to constantly be planting it for it to be of any use: she can’t react faster than the pichu can shock her. But if she could bring the pichu closer…
Leaf kneels down and begins breaking off little pieces of the granola. She discreetly draws her hand to the side, then tosses a piece of the granola forward, moving only her wrist.
The pichu dashes away into the dark as the granola piece bounces over the grass, and Leaf’s heart leaps into her throat. “No! Come back!” She wants to chase after it, catch it before it runs itself to death… but she can’t leave Red here alone, even with the rods. There might be other spearow around. She swallows her sorrow and sits back down, staring at her granola bar and trying not to cry. First the hoothoot, now this…
“Leaf, look!” Red says, voice low.
She turns and sees the pichu returning, slowly crawling toward the bit of granola. Hardly daring to hope, she watches as it sniffs at the granola, then chars it with a quick spark of electricity and begins nibbling. Only then does she break off and toss out another piece, then another, each closer than the last.
She takes out a pokeball once it starts to get close enough, but doesn’t throw it right away. If the pichu sees the ball come at it, it might run for good.
Instead she rolls the rest of her granola bar over the blackened grass so that it comes to rest past it. Once the pichu crawls over to the bar, Leaf quickly removes her shoes and socks.
“What are you doing?” Red hisses.
“Be right back,” she whispers, and starts to slowly move to the right toward the pichu’s side, bare feet making almost no sound over the dead grass. Red looks frustrated, but doesn’t say anything, simply raising his pokedex up, ready to sound the onix roar.
The pichu shocks the granola bar, inspects it, then does it again. From this close she can see the bloody scratch that runs down its back, and as soon as Leaf is outside of its peripheral vision, she expands two pokeballs and points their lens, holding her breath…
Pi-ping!
The pichu twitches and turns to the sound, but she’s already throwing, the first one straight ahead, and then turning the hand with the second up to toss it overhead at the last moment, so that it arcs carefully up, then down onto the pichu.
The pichu doesn’t dodge, sending a jolt at Leaf that travels through the first ball before hitting her like a burning, tingling punch that goes straight from her outstretched arm and down her left side, into her foot and out into the ground below. She collapses in pain as Red cries out, but even as she grits her teeth over a scream, she sees the flash from the pokeball, hears the rush of energy as it absorbs the pichu.
Ha… gotcha…
Her eyes water as she curls into a ball. Swords of Justice, that
hurt!
“Leaf! Leaf are you okay!?”
“Think so… ” Leaf carefully checks her hand, then foot. There don’t seem to be any visible burns. “Yeah… I’m okay…” The left side of her body feels tense and sore, and she uses her right hand to take the shock potion out of her pocket, spraying them over her hand and arm first, then tucking them under her shirt to spray the rest of the wound down to her foot, skipping her leg. She feels the pain and soreness fade through her body, first on the surface, then into the deeper tissue, and eventually in her leg as well, though not as much.
“Is your heart beating normally? What about your lungs, are you breathing alright?” Red stares at her anxiously as she stretches her arm, then tries standing up.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just some soreness.” She limps over to the pichu’s ball as Red sinks his head back in relief. Leaf smiles as she picks it up, then returns to sit beside Red, tugging her socks and shoes back on.
There’s a warm glow in her chest that she’s fairly sure doesn’t have to do with being electrocuted. Unlike those that follow Ghetsis back home, she believes catching and training pokemon can be fundamentally for their own good as well as people’s, as long as they’re treated with respect. Especially since tamed pokemon usually live much longer than those in the wild, even without counting the time spent in stasis in the pokeball.
Saving a pokemon from what would have been a sure death, however, makes this the first capture that she feels unambiguously good about.
It almost makes up for the hoothoot that died from her forgetfulness.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” Red smiles. “Also, congratulations! They’re pretty awesome pokemon, as you had plenty of occasion to see tonight.”
“Thanks. You guys said they’re rare, right?”
He grins. “Oh, yeah. Viridian Forest is practically the only place they’re native to in Kanto, and normally you’d be hard pressed to find any. I’m a little jealous, to be honest: I’ve always wanted one.”
She looks at him, and something in her gaze makes his smile slowly fade. “What?”
“Red, if I asked you to do something for me, but didn’t tell you why, would you do it?”
His pale, strained face becomes guarded. “That depends on what it is. But if you need help with something…”
“I do.” She looks down at the pichu’s ball, then smiles and holds her hand out. “Could I see your pokedex for a minute?”
Red raises a brow, but hands it over silently. His curious expression turns to shock as she aligns the lens with the pokeball. “Wh-hey, Leaf, what…?”
They watch the screen fill with the image of the sleeping pichu, the pokedex listing its mass, length, and other vitals. It’s dangerously low on blood, but nothing a pokemon center can’t fix. She places it back on his stomach, then meets his confused, wondering gaze. “He’s yours now. I want you to take him, okay?”
“I can’t… Leaf, get your dex and transfer it, him, over. I can’t accept that, why would you-”
“You can, and you will. Promise me you won’t do anything drastic, and then I’ll tell you.”
Red’s brow creases, and she can almost see the gears turning in his head as he tries to figure out what and why…
“I reserve the right to keep arguing with you over this after, but… okay. I promise not to do anything drastic. Now why did you do that?”
“Because your hoothoot is dead.” Leaf looks away from him. “It’s my fault. I forgot that you caught it, I forgot that it was on the ground. It got electrocuted when all the ‘chu were here. I… found it while I was walking and I didn’t… I couldn’t tell you…” Her head dips down and she closes her eyes, throat tightening. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Red, this is the least I can do to try and make up for it.”
There’s silence, and after a moment she gets her emotions under control and takes a deep breath before looking up at him. He’s staring at her with a mix of shock and something she can’t interpret. “Are you angry?”
“I’m… a little upset that you lied,” he says carefully. “But no, I’m not angry. I understand. And I won’t say not to blame yourself, because I don’t think you’ll listen if I do. And because maybe it’s okay to, a little bit.”
Leaf nods, some tension running out of her. “Thanks for understanding.”
“But Leaf, I still don’t think you should give him to me. A hoothoot for a pichu is hardly a fair trade!” He blinks at her expression, quickly adding, “Unfair for you, is what I’m saying! Not as in the value of their lives… you know what I meant! If you want to make it up to me, you can catch another hoothoot, but pichu are rare, and you got yourself shocked catching it!”
“And you got your arm broken catching that hoothoot.” She smiles. “Come on, we’ve given each other enough pokemon at this point. Think of it as payback for giving up your chance at one of the beedrill.”
“I didn’t want them anyway.”
“Still. Please, keep him. It’s the only way I’ll be able to have any peace over it.”
Red wipes the sweat from his face and grimaces. “You shouldn’t argue with someone who’s injured, you know.”
“So just say yes.”
“I… oh, alright! I’ll keep him.” Red lets out a breath, fingers rubbing over the red half of the pokeball. “Thank you.”
They sit in silence after that. Another distant roar sounds after a few minutes, and Leaf wonders if Blue’s alright. The weight that had been over her heart since finding the hoothoot is partially lifted, and she watches with Red as he examines his new pokemon’s information.
Red has rarely found himself at a loss for words, but ten minutes after Leaf registered the pichu she caught to him, he still can’t quite think of the right thing to say. So he just reads over its information with her, and slowly gets used to the idea that he really has one now. He didn’t lie when he told her he always wanted a pikachu: when he was younger he imagined catching one and naming it Faraday, or Tesla, or Ayrton if it were female. Maybe he’ll go with Volta?
He’s a bit sad that the hoothoot he caught is dead, but he didn’t really have a chance to bond with it, or even consider it
his
yet. He knows Leaf feels much worse about it than he does, so he tries not to dwell on it. He soon has something else on his mind anyway.
The pinching pressure in Red’s arm grows worse and worse as the night passes, and eventually real pain starts to bleed through the numbness. The excitement with the pichu distracted him from it for a bit, but an hour later he’s struggling to last another minute without asking for more medication. He doesn’t want to risk any adverse side effects from using too much too soon, and tries to lose himself in their trivia game again.
Just as the pain begins to get unbearable, he hears the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. “Leaf-”
She’s already standing, a pokeball in each hand as she faces the direction they’re coming from, waiting to see what the newest threat is. After a moment Red realizes the ground is shaking, and dread fills him until the rhyhorn steps out from the darkness between the trees and into the light of their lamp, the trainer on its back looking down at her phone.
The relief is so strong it actually makes the pain go away for a bit, and when the trainer looks up and smiles, he smiles back, though it probably looks more like a grimace. “Got a distress signal from this area. That’s you, right?”
“Yeah. Did Blue send you?”
“Sorry, don’t know who that is. I’m from Pewter, came to help with the fire. We’ve got it under control now, and the pikachu around here seem to be gone.” She slides off her rhyhorn’s back and withdraws it, then walks over to them. She gives the lightning rods an appreciative look, then seems to notice all the burnt grass. “Wow. What happened here?”
“It’s a long story,” Leaf says. “Can you help with his arm?”
“You bet. Why don’t you tell it while I work?” She takes a container out of her pocket and opens it on the grass beside Red. Inside its box there are a bunch of medical supplies, and after taking a few moments to examine Red’s arm and ask some questions, she gets to work as Leaf explains what happened.
Red closes his eyes in relief as she gives him another local anesthetic, this one stronger, and something to reduce the swelling. He barely feels it as she realigns his bone and puts on a cast.
“Okay, that should do it for now. Let’s get you to Pewter, and they’ll take care of the rest.”
Red just nods dreamily, exhaustion and the lack of pain making him nod off. He thinks he hears something about Leaf staying behind to wait for Blue, and feels a note of alarm about that, but when he opens his eyes to say something he realizes he’s strapped onto the back of the rhyhorn as they travel through the forest. It’s surprisingly comfortable, and before he can say anything to the rider (
I don’t even know her name…)
he’s already drifting back to sleep.
When the gods came upon the earth, it was a single, massive lump of solid stone, floating through the Great Dark. So Brock’s great-grandmother taught him as a child, practicing his basic sums as she knitted a sweater with mesmerizing fluidity. Iron and tin, gold and silver, granite and obsidian, all the metals and minerals blended and fused into one cosmic body. The gods had argued over how they might shape this world, and were still not decided when they reached it. Kagu-tsuchi wished to scoop out the earth’s insides like an egg, and fill it with magma until it became a sun. Watatsumi wished to pound rain upon it until the stone eroded and pitted, and craters formed for lakes and oceans that would cover its surface. Every god and goddess had their own preference for what the world should be, and what manner of creatures they would fill it with.
Soon the argument became more than words, and each god began to form it as they wished. Fire filled its core so that the whole planet glowed, until water fell on the surface to cool it before it burst. Lightning blasted the stone into soil, and plants grew and sucked up the water before it washed all else away. It was a time of endless strife, and the gods were so busy trying to dominate each other that a hundred thousand years passed without a single creature they created surviving to birth a new generation.
It was the god and goddess Haniyasu-Hiko and Haniyasu-Hime that decided to fashion creatures that could live even in such endless turmoil. Though the fire filled its belly, still the stone was there. Though the lightning blasted pits in it, still the stone was there. Though the waves and rain pounded it to sand, still the stone was there. Though the greedy roots cracked it, still the stone was there. And so, they made their beings from stone, which weathered all things, cracked and scorched and pitted and split, but still there.
The rest of the gods’ creatures, crafted from other elements, lived where they could, but the stone people were capable of surviving in the most environments, and spread the farthest. Eventually the gods exhausted themselves into a stalemate, and left to regain their strength on the way to another world. The various creatures and demigods that they had crafted and left behind reached a relative peace of their own, and lived in their domains. As generation after generation passed, the people of stone softened and became flesh and blood. But just as the bones of the earth remained stone, so did the bones of the people, hard and strong enough to stand against the storms of the gods with a straight back.
“That is our legacy, Takeshi,” his great-grandmother told him in her native tongue, thin hands ceasing their waltz to grip his arm with surprising strength. “Stone endures.” Her thumb dug into his skin, not enough to hurt, but so she could feel the bones beneath his flesh. “Inside you lies the strength of the very earth itself. Others have forgotten their ancestors, but our people will always be the children of stone.”
Gym Leader Brock, who no one alive still calls Takeshi, sees the forest around him in the green glow of infrared. More than that, he can feel it through the pokemon he rides. Aeosis’s body winds between the trees, but his sides are so wide that they constantly strip the bark clean off the trunks he brushes against. Sharp cracks come from all sides as smaller trees and bushes snap and get trampled under the onix’s many segments.
“Brock!”
Again and again throughout the forest, trainers stop what they’re doing and look on as the massive rock snake passes by, almost sixty meters long from head to tail. The boulders of its body are the height of a tall man, and from his saddle a few segments behind the onix’s head, Brock’s messy brown hair bobs just below the tree branches.
“Leader Brock is here!”
“Brock! Brock and Aeosis!”
“At your side, Gym Leader!”
Brock uses the metal claws at the end of his gloved fingers to tap a quick pattern on one of Aeosis’s neck boulders, and the onix raises its head up and roars, a response to the trainers they passed and a rallying cry to those ahead.
It took under twenty minutes to rouse and mobilize the Gym and any volunteers from Pewter once Brock got the emergency alert from Viridian. Brock was filled with pride when he stepped outside his gym and saw the size of the crowd waiting. Nearly twice as many as the last Tier 1 threat, and plenty of familiar faces.
He wasted no time sending out support teams to different parts of the forest based on the Ranger requests, only retaining five groups of five to ride with him toward the biggest fire, where the most help will be needed. A few have peeled off to assist Rangers they passed, and one from each group formed an escort unit for a group of injured trainers.
By the time Brock can see the glow of the fire above the trees, he’s down to five groups of three, each trailing his onix to either side on their own mounts. The others ride a variety of types to be prepared for any situation. Those from his gym tend to favor rock types, but few rock pokemon are fast enough to keep up with an onix.
“Sir, some trainers eight degrees to your left, around what might be a downed tree.” Jarod’s voice murmurs from his earpiece. Brock’s Third is flying above the canopy and looking down with thermal imaging goggles. With the reception out in this part of the forest, the radios are their only way to relay information and help navigate. “I think they’re trying to shift it.”
“Got it.” Brock switches frequencies to the others. “Turning left. Watch the tail.” He taps a subtle rhythm to the left of Aeosis’s neck, and the onix forges a new path through the trees, barely caring about foliage density. Brock’s body is high up enough to avoid most of the brambles and bushes that survive his pokemon’s passage, the rest scratching harmlessly at his armored leggings.
Soon he spots light ahead, blazing in the green tint of his goggles, and he quickly tugs them off until they hang around his neck. Within moments they’re at the downed tree where the the lanterns are hung. The trainers around it are standing at the ready, their pokemon prepared for a fight. Once they spot Brock on Aeosis’s back, their shock and terror gives way to relief, and one of the younger men leans against a tree with a hand over his eyes. “Oh, thank Arceus…”
Before Brock can ask what their situation is, one steps forward. “Leader, our friends are trapped under-”
Brock’s heart sinks. The trunk is nearly as thick as Aeosis, and anyone caught under it would be crushed like a caterpie. But his fingers are already moving in a rapid pattern on Aeosis’s neck. “Stand far back, all of you.” There are some branches extending from the trunk, and it’s possible the broken ones under it are holding some weight off…
They withdraw their pokemon and scramble to the sides as Aeosis rears up, then lowers his gaping maw over the trunk and bites down. Brock grips the handle on his saddle tight with one hand, then taps again to tell Aeosis to lift.
The tree rises slowly as Aeosis brings his head back up. Brock is lifted too as the segment he’s seated on rises, bringing him partway into the canopy. As soon as there’s room, a couple of the trainers begin to crawl under the tree, one holding a lantern. There’s a cry of relief, then dismay, and the others quickly join them to assist in bringing the bodies out.
By then his gymmates and volunteers have arrived, and a few get off their mounts to help. There’s the flash from under the tree of a pokemon being withdrawn into their ball, though in what condition Brock doesn’t know. Once everyone’s out from under the tree, Brock taps another command, and Aeosis drops the trunk with a
crash
, its middle imprinted with the onix’s triangular bitemark.
Some of the trainers are weeping over one of the bodies, while others surround a second, an unconscious girl whose arm was crushed. The grass is dark with blood in some places, and the smell of it fills the air around them.
Brock turns to the only trainer still standing. “What happened here? Did a raichu bring down the tree?” The woman doesn’t respond, staring in disbelief at her dead friend.
Brock feels a stab of empathy, then pushes it aside. He unstraps himself from his saddle and falls to the grass with a
thump
that gets her attention. She suddenly seems to realize how close she is to the massive onix, grief and shock joined by sudden fear.
He steps up to her and puts his hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name, trainer?” he asks, putting his will into his tone and grip, the same will that allowed him to catch and train the largest onix in Kanto.
The woman snaps to attention, eyes alert in a face full of loss. “Aiko, sir.”
“What happened here, Aiko?”
“It was… some breloom, we got caught up in their fight with the ‘chu… one of them shot seed bombs out. The trunk was already damaged by other attacks, and the seeds ripped right through it. Brought the whole thing down… we tried to get out of the way, but… Suki…” Tears gather in the trainer’s eyes, and she rubs them away with one hand, stifling a sob.
He squeezes her shoulder, gently but firm enough to bring her focus back to him. “What happened to the breloom? Are they still in the area?”
“Two captured, the rest fled when the tr-tree came down.” She takes a deep breath, then another. “Same with the ‘chu. We didn’t… we haven’t seen them since, but they ran that way.” She points, and her hand is steady.
Brock nods and looks at his people. “Gestov, Mark, stay with them and get the injured to a hospital. Paula, Avanni, see if you can find the breloom and ‘chu.”
They confirm, and he turns back to Aiko. Her face is full of loss and pain, but her eyes are clear, her breaths steady. Satisfied, Brock lowers his voice, speaking with quiet confidence. “Thank you, Aiko. I know your heart is heavy, but the others may yet need your strength to survive the night. Can I count on you to get them through this?”
“I… Yeah. Yeah, I won’t let them down.”
“I know you won’t.” He squeezes her shoulder again, thumb feeling her collarbone. “You have the strength of stone.”
She bows her head. “Thank you, Leader.”
Brock returns to Aeosis and climbs up its boulder segments until he’s back in the saddle. From so high up, he projects his voice for all to hear. “Tonight has taken much from you all, but it’s not yet time to mourn. We don’t know how extensive the rampage is, but the nearest Ranger Outpost has been destroyed, and you can’t stay in the forest. My people will lead you to Pewter, where you will be safe. Courage, for a little longer! Dawn is coming!”
Most of the trainers are looking at him by the end, brushing tears away or standing again, heads held high. Brock turns Aeosis toward a clear path through the trees, and they swiftly leave the gathering behind, his followers waiting until the onix’s long body and tail is gone before following.
Once he’s away from the lights, Brock puts his goggles back on, bringing the forest into green tinged sight again. One hand goes to his ear, and he switches to his Third’s frequency. “Jarod, some breloom may be in the area. Keep an eye out and relay to Paula and Avanni.”
“Yes sir. Be aware, you’re approaching the smoke surrounding the fire. I can’t see through it.”
“Got it. Stay clear for now.” He switches to general chat. “We’re approaching the fire. Groups four and five, spread out and circle around to lend support to the Rangers at different points. Groups two and three, disperse and check for distress signals to assist trainers wherever you find them. Without a steady signal to update them some might be obsolete, but keep looking.” Brock barely ducks in time to avoid a branch that sweeps just over Aeosis’s horn. “Group one, with me.”
A few moments later he sees the smoke, lit by scattered lanterns and the fire at its heart, and then they’re plunging into it. He guides Aeosis with taps of his fingers, a few on the side to turn him toward the denser smoke, and another quick pattern on his back to slow him down. The smoke makes his infrared goggles worse than useless, and he takes them off so he can see by the distant, diffused glow of the fire. As they get closer to the center of it, the light grows, as does the heat in the air.
Within a minute though, Aeosis begins showing signs of distraction, swinging his head around and growling. Brock looks around in the smoke for what might be upsetting his pokemon. Onix are used to navigating in the pitch blackness of mountains and deep within the earth, but maybe the ethereal lights and the thick smoke are making him twitchy.
Aeosis suddenly slows to a stop, and there’s a sharp crack as his pokemon’s head swings around, the horn on his forehead messily splintering a branch into pieces. Brock feels bits of wood rain down on him, and the stoney skin beneath his saddle vibrates with the onix’s growl as it peers into the smoke to their side. He taps a pattern along its skin, frowning. “Aeosis, calm. Forward.”
The onix’s agitation fades slightly and they travel deeper into the smoke, but before long Aeosis becomes unruly again. Brock begins to worry at his behavior. Combined with the low visibility around them, he’s not sure they can avoid crushing someone in their path, and soon he taps the command to stop.
“Something’s got Aeosis riled,” he tells the others through the radio as he unbuckles and leaps to the grass. “I’m dismounting.” Aeosis rears up once he’s clear, head snapping more branches and making them fall in a series of crashes that are almost lost in the onix’s roar.
“Aeosis, down!” Brock yells once the sound fades, ears ringing. He looks around, but can’t spot any threat that his pokemon might be responding to. He reaches forward and taps the command against its body, but the onix doesn’t heed either.
The Gym Leader quickly grabs the nearest boulder segment of its body and begins climbing, fingers gripping the edges to pull himself up and up, past his saddle.
Aeosis sways and turns a bit, an automatic reaction rather than an attempt to shake Brock off. He holds on tight until Aeosis is steady again, then reaches up to the last few boulders so he can grip the horn on its head. He braces his feet against the onix’s right jaw so he can look it in the eye closest to him.
The onix’s head is a bit bigger than he is, its eyes each the size of his fist. The smoke makes it too hard to see the shape and size of his pokemon’s pupil, and Brock has to go by other cues to judge his pokemon’s mood.
“Aeosis! Down!” He taps out the command on the rocky skin of his pokemon’s head as he says it, staring into the onix’s right eye as best he can through the thick smoke.
Its jaw opens, and Brock kicks off, gloved fingers carefully gripping the blunt side of Aeosis’s horn. The jaws snap on empty air, and then Brock is swinging back, heels slamming into his onix just beneath its jaw.
Brock hangs on tight as his pokemon rears back, more in surprise than any pain. Before it can try anything again, he pulls himself up past its mouth until he can crouch on its snout, staring into its eyes from an inch away. “Aeosis!
Down!
”
Brock is distantly aware that his remaining gym members have arrived, fanning out in a loose circle as they watch. They know better than to interfere, but if Aeosis begins to rampage…
His pokemon shakes its head to the side. Not hard, barely a fraction of its full strength… but its full strength is enough to topple a building. Brock is whipped around its horn, the rough edges scraping his heavy gloves as he holds tight to avoid being flung off. He distantly hears yells of alarm from the others as the wind whistles in his ears.
He lands with another doubled kick on its jaw, pain jolting up his legs and pelvis, shoulders and wrists aching. “Stay back, everyone!”
Aeosis growls, eyes rolling to Brock’s new position on his left side. Brock’s hand goes to the heavyball at his belt. He could return Aeosis, get him under control where it’s safer… but that would have to be after tonight, since it would be impossible to find a space big enough to release him within the forest.
Worse than that, it would prove that he’s incapable of controlling his own pokemon.
His hand goes past the ball and unzips his pocket, then pulls out some small quartz shards. He presses them against the pokemon’s lips, letting its taste buds there feel the crystals. Aeosis makes a sound of hunger, and Brock whips his hand away just as his pokemon opens his mouth and snaps at the air.
A drop of sweat rolls down Brock’s neck, easily attributed to the diffuse heat of the nearby fire. “
No
, Aeosis. Our people need us, and you will listen to me,
now!
Down, Aeosis,
down!”
The only sound is the rapid beat of Brock’s heart as his pokemon shifts its head from side to side… then lowers itself to the grass, laying out flat with a crash that nearly dislodges him.
He holds on for another few seconds, and then slowly steps down, ignoring the pain in his legs, merely glad that they’re still steady. He brushes the quartz against its lips again. “Good, Aeosis. Very good.” His pokemon opens its mouth, and he throws the crystals into its maw for it to crunch and swallow. Aeosis makes a contented sound from deep inside the long caverns of its body.
Brock strokes the ridges above its eyes until it closes its lids in satisfaction. Only then does his Second approach, dismounted from her dodrio. “What happened?” Sharzad asks.
“I’m not sure.” Brock looks around in the thick smoke again, where the other gym trainers have formed a loose semicircle. “Everyone, scout out in pairs, and stay alert!” They begin to move in expanding loops, disappearing between the trees as they explore outward.
Sharzad approaches and strokes Aeosis’s other eyeridge, long black hair tied back in a heavy braid. “What is it boy? What got you so spooked?”
Brock smiles as his onix responds positively to her touch, some of his tension fading. That had been far too close for comfort. Luckily Aeosis seems fine now.
Despite how responsive Aeosis often is, it would be a mistake to treat him like any other pokemon. No matter how much they trained, the onix’s temperament remains wildly unpredictable at times, and with so much power even the slightest mistake can be disastrous. The thought of what Aeosis would do if he ever went on a true rampage has kept Brock up many nights, and compelled him to spend more hours training the onix than the rest of his pokemon combined.
A year before, Brock fought a fully grown tyranitar that came down from Mount Silver. Four stories tall, each of its feet the size of a car, able to level a building with a sweep of its tail. He commanded Aeosis to wrap around it, hoping to bind it into submission for long enough for help to arrive. But after a few seconds of grinding, there was a massive crack, and the tyranitar’s struggles ceased. Brock stared in shock as his onix began feasting on the broken granite skin of its opponent, the enormity of the power he had harnessed truly registering for the first time.
Ever since Brock captured the legend of Mount Moon two years ago, he became something of a mythical figure in Pewter. It helped him expand the gym’s power and influence, but many of the residents began treating him with a deference that bordered on worship, which was distinctly uncomfortable. A number of the city’s citizens, especially the older ones, viewed Aeosis as a god, the progenitor of his race. Brock tried to convince others to work with the onix, but most were too afraid or reverent to attempt it.
As he told anyone who would listen, such talk was foolishness. A god would not be captured and tamed like any other monster, however perilous it had been to accomplish. Like the storm birds, they would be forces of nature beyond human control.
In private though, he can occasionally admit how that might describe Aeosis after all. Sharzad was the only one besides Brock willing and able to train the onix. She explained that in her home region, the onix grew nearly as big more regularly than in Kanto, though she admitted to never seeing one quite his size. It gives Brock a measure of peace to know that if something happens to him, Aeosis would be in good hands.
“He’s probably just unused to the smoke,” she says after a moment, reaching into the pouch at her waist and feeding Aeosis a small amethyst. “Maybe if he went underground he would feel more comfortable?”
Brock rubs his chin. “Maybe. He could submerge just enough that I could still ride him, if we’re careful. But it would heavily damage the tree roots, and-”
“Leader!”
Brock’s hand goes to his ear piece. “Go ahead Wallace.”
“We found two trainers, dead. They weren’t absorbed or eaten, but their bodies have long, deep cuts.”
Brock relays the info out loud, and Sharzad swears under her breath, hand at her belt. “Killing without feeding. The only things in the forest that come to mind are shiftry.”
“And they would be virtually invisible in the smoke.” Brock switches to general chat. “High alert to all points! There may be camouflaged shiftry around us.” He switches to group one’s frequency. “Regroup everyone. With any luck Aeosis scared away any that were near, but don’t take any chances.”
“Return!” Sharzad’s dodrio disappears in a flash of light, her hands moving in a blur. “Go, Skydart!” Her huge fearow bursts into existence mid air, and she catches its ball with one hand as her other points outward, spinning in a slow circle. “Whirlwind!”
The fearow caws and tips into an angled spin, flapping wings barely able to fit in the limited clearing Aeosis created above them. The gusts of air send the smoke billowing outward in every direction, and the shiftry are suddenly there like a magician’s trick.
Brock counts five of them standing well away from Aeosis, and when he turns to look look back the way they’d come he sees another dozen approaching the many segments of the onix’s body, possibly more hidden in the smoke farther back. They must have been following them for awhile, more and more drawn to gather for a slaughter.
The ground practically quakes with Aeosis’s growl, but he doesn’t lose control again, glaring at the plant monsters with dilated pupils. Brock and Sharzad exchange a look, and then she holds both arms up and yells “Fly!”
Her fearow swoops down and grabs her arms in his talons, lifting her off with a few beats of his powerful wings. Brock leaps up onto Aeosis’s saddle and straps himself in with one hand as the other goes to his earpiece. “Everyone, use wind to push away the smoke,” he says in general chat.
Smart enough for an ambush. Probably even smart enough to recognize a type advantage.
“Aeosis, Bide.”
His onix immediately surges around into a coil, Brock holding tight as they whip around and around over Aeosis’s lower body with the grinding sound of stone on stone. Within moments, the pokemon’s entire length is wrapped in an ascending circle, with Brock riding the boulder near his neck at the top, well above the bulk of the onix’s body. Aeosis continues to churn slowly in place, letting them watch all sides.
If the shiftry were distracted by the sudden movement, they get over it quickly. Some bound forward, sharp leaves extended, while others stay back and begin to spit seeds out. They crack against Aeosis’s sides without leaving a mark, but moss and roots swiftly grow where they struck, spreading their way between the boulders as the forward shiftry slash and hack at him, their sharp leaves tearing against his rocky skin and leaving behind lines of acid that etch into the stone of his hide.
Aeosis’s body vibrates as he growls, but Brock taps out his custom command again.
Bide, just a little longer…
Shiftry are some of the most subtle and cunning pokemon around. If Aeosis just rushed at them, they would use their speed and agility to keep their distance, harry his sides and rear with quick strikes. It might take hours, but eventually they would whittle the titanic onix down.
More and more of the shiftry close in, covering Aeosis’s outer coils with acid scars and roots. Brock keeps his body low and slides his arms into straps along the saddle to avoid any seed that might shoot higher, and to be prepared for what comes next. He watches one of the shiftry in the distance finish spitting seeds out and leap forward to use its leaf blades.
A mirthless grin peels Brock’s lips back. Smart as the shiftry are, humans are smarter. And combined with his training and guidance, the prey they trapped is far too large for them.
Aeosis trembles beneath him and coils himself tighter, almost as if he’s trying to shrink into himself, and the shiftry’s attacks grow more frenzied, most of the remainder swooping in for the kill.
Now.
Brock’s claws tap six times against Aeosis’s skin.
GROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAARRR!
Brock keeps his eyes tightly closed as he’s whipped left and right, body tied so securely to the saddle that he’s in more danger of throwing up from nausea than he is of getting flung off. He’s long since grown used to the disorientation however, and simply holds tight and endures it while his onix unleashes the rage it had built up.
First the tail, swinging out in an unwinding arc that sends shattered shiftry sailing through the air, most already dead before they smash into trees. Then the head, darting left and right, rising and falling again and again to chomp down on the plant pokemon that had avoided the tail. In less than ten seconds, over twenty shiftry lie dead and dying, some chomped in half, the rest broken and battered into pulp.
Brock suddenly tastes eggs, hears a creaky door, feels the chill of the winter wind. A kaleidoscope of colors explode behind his eyelids, and his nose feels stuffed with cut onions, the acidic fumes melting his brain into jelly as the sensations all shift, then shift again, then overlap in a maddening mix. His skin feels both hot and cold in overlapping waves, and his sense of gravity completely unhinges so that it feels like he’s clinging to the saddle to avoid falling into the sky, then feels the pull to his left side, then all directions at once.
Aeosis makes a sound of confusion, slowing to a stop and writhing spastically. Brock struggles against the whirlwind of sensations and opens his eyes a crack as he bounces up and down. The three shiftry that remain are standing far back, and through his goggles, their eyes glow a brilliant green.
His pokemon suddenly flips himself over, rolling into a tree and collapsing its trunk over his back. The spike on his head keeps his foremost boulder segments from touching the ground, and ensure that Brock isn’t crushed in his carefully located saddle. Brock doesn’t know what sensations his onix is being overwhelmed by, but he can feel his own mind scrambling under the assault, and he grits his teeth as he struggles to stay conscious-
At first his brain interprets the high pitched screech as just another hallucination, but then the mental attack abruptly ends. Brock’s whole body sags, and he opens his eyes again to see Sharzad and Skydart diving at a shiftry. They stop mid-air, and there’s a flash before they fly back up. The shiftry they dived at is gone.
The others look up and around, but Skydart dives at them from the other side this time, and silently. He flaps his wings to stop just above them and hover for a couple seconds, displacing the newly gathered smoke. Sharzad hangs one handed, the other holding a greatball out so that it locks on to one of the shiftry, then tossing it for the capture.
The last one tries to spit seeds out at the fearow, but Sharzad shouts “Drill Peck!” and lets go, rolling along the grass as Skydart dodges the seeds and strikes, beak piercing straight through the shiftry’s eye and into its brain.
Brock looks away as the shiftry topples to the ground and the bird pokemon’s long, cruel beak darts in and out to feed, stomach queasy enough. Sharzad collects her great balls and stuffs them in her bag, then goes around to all the shiftry spread out in a circle around them. A couple more get captured as they lie bleeding and broken, but the rest are apparently dead.
By the time she approaches, Aeosis and he are mostly recovered, and Brock has unstrapped himself to feed the onix some more gems. “You two alright?”
“Yeah.” He rubs Aeosis’s eyeridge, then checks his wounds. None are serious enough to warrant medical attention: the onix’s hide is so tough that the acids had burned themselves out before penetrating far. “Nice timing.”
She smiles. “They’re vulnerable when they link up to do mental attacks. Do you think there are more around?”
The Gym Leader frowns. “I doubt it.” Shiftry are fairly rare, and while groups of them ambushing trainers aren’t unheard of, it’s strange to see quite so many. “In fact I’m surprised there were even this many in one area. They must have come from all around…”
The others have begun to arrive, staring around at all the dead shiftry and murmuring in surprise and alarm. Wallace approaches Brock, holding a pair of IDs. “The trainers we found. I marked their coordinates for later.”
“Well done.” He reads their names, Pamela Harris and Derek Watson, committing them to memory and studying their pictures as best he can in the dim light. Their deaths had warned him and his gymmates of the danger they faced. The least he could do is know who they were.
“Everyone else okay?” Sharzad asks, and the others confirm that they hadn’t encountered any trouble. “They must have all been drawn to Aeosis.”
Brock nods and puts the trainer IDs away. “Let’s get going then, before any more show up.”
The fire is a fearsome thing, burning hungrily for kilometers and constantly threatening to spread further. The Rangers and trainers have done a good job with the firebreak, but even with dozens of them working together, they could only expand it outward a bit at a time.
Aeosis almost doubles its size in one lap, then doubles it again in another two.
Brock stands on the onix and holds onto his horn as he tunnels just a bit beneath the surface, guiding him along the edge of the firebreak by tapping on it. Grass, roots and bushes are no obstacle, and the occasional tree takes only a few minutes to uproot and push aside.
After about an hour, the firebreak stretches far enough to safely contain it in every direction. Brock returns to Ranger Haru, who thanks him profusely for his aid. Most of the other rangers and trainers have begun to disperse, some to rest farther from the heat and smoke, others toward preregistered distress signals. Brock already sent the remainder of his group along to help them, and now that the fire is contained, he begins to search for a trainer or Ranger that might recognize the trainer IDs they found.
Someone eventually tells him he saw them with Ranger Malcolm, and when Brock tracks the coordinating Ranger down, his face falls as he takes the IDs.
“Yes, I sent them out,” he says taking his cap off and wiping at the sweat on his forehead. “Those damn shiftry… we had some others encounter them too.” He gestures toward three trainers, two boys and a girl, who are helping with some final cleanup efforts.
“Really?” Brock eyes the trainers, impressed. There probably hadn’t been as many as had attacked him, but they all seem fairly young, one of them especially so. In fact…
“Blue Oak?”
The youth looks up from the branch he’s dragging, then snaps to attention. He hesitates and looks at the other two, who nod at him to go ahead before he jogs over. “Yes, Gym Leader?”
“I thought that was you.”
“You recognized me?”
“We didn’t speak, but you were with your grandfather last year when he visited Pewter.”
The young Oak nods. “Of course. I forgot.”
Brock smiles. He can’t tell if the boy is implying that he regularly forgets meeting Gym Leaders, or if he’s just being modest of recognition he gets for being with his grandfather. “I hear you survived an ambush by some shiftry.”
Blue blinks. “Yeah, about an hour ago.”
“How many were there?”
“Six.”
Six more.
“This was within the smoke, yes? How did you spot them?” Brock listens in quiet fascination, then shakes his head. “You got incredibly lucky.”
Blue stiffens a bit, chin rising as his face goes blank. “Yes, Gym Leader.”
“So did I.” Brock grins as Blue’s expression turns to surprise, and explains what happened with his own encounter. “Did you check the area, see if there was anything that caused them to attack you?”
“No, we came back to warn others.”
“Could you find the spot again?”
Blue hesitates. “Maybe. The smoke…”
Brock nods. “I understand. Well, I’m glad you’re okay. You do credit to your family name.”
Blue bows his head, “Thank you, Leader.”
Brock is about to turn away when the boy looks back up, seeming poised to say something further. “Yes?”
“You brought help, right? From Pewter?”
“I did. They’re spread out now assisting others.” Brock frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“I left some friends to come help with the fire. One was injured. If you wouldn’t mind, could you…”
Brock already has a hand on his earpiece, picking up on the boy’s concern. “Names?”
“Red Verres and Leaf Juniper.”
Brock asks over every frequency if anyone has encountered either, and gets the affirmative from Julie. “One of my people has your friend, Red, and is taking him to Pewter. She says the girl stayed behind at your camp.”
For a moment Brock thinks Blue is going to faint in relief, the young boy rocking back as his shoulders sag. He puts a hand out and grips his shoulder. “You alright, son?”
Blue takes a deep breath and nods, standing straighter again. “I’m fine. I just… thank you, Leader.”
The new sincerity in his voice makes Brock smile. He squeezes Blue’s shoulder, feeling the strength of his bones before letting go, remembering Aiko. His position often carries with it many burdens, but it’s moments like this that he feels most deserving of his title. “Thank
you
, trainer, for your assistance. Feel free to stop by the Gym, if you’re going to Pewter.”
Blue nods. “My friends and I were heading there.”
“Then stay safe until we meet again.”
The boy says goodbye to Ranger Malcolm, then the other two, and heads off into the forest at an odd hopping jog.
“What will you do now, Leader?” the Ranger asks.
“Head farther south. The Viridian Gym might need help with emergencies closer to their side of the forest.”
Especially since Giovanni isn’t usually in his city
, Brock refrains from saying. It would be uncouth to speak critically of how another Gym Leader manages their city. “Yourself?”
Malcolm sighs. “Once this fire dies down, we’ll have to assess how big an impact tonight will have on the ecology, and decide where and when to rebuild our outpost. The initial pikachu and raichu rampage that started this mess is just the beginning of our worries here. Combined with poachers that will come to take advantage of the confusion and chaos, a Ranger’s work is never done.”
“So it’s said.” Brock holds out his hand. “On behalf of Pewter, thank you for your service. If you need anything from my city, please let us know.”
The Ranger takes it. “Thank you, Leader. Your people made a great difference here, as did your onix. Good hunting.”
Brock nods and heads to Aeosis. He notices that it’s a bit easier to see than it was, and checks the time. Half past four in the morning. The sun’s rising.
Weariness numbs the edges of Brock’s thoughts, but he ignores it and remounts. “Group One, we’re headed south. Form up.”
There’s a lot of forest to cover, and a Gym Leader’s work is never done either.
Red wakes from vague dreams to find himself lying on a comfortable bed. He opens his eyes, and it takes a moment to register his surroundings. Clean white walls, bright lights, a particularly distinct combination of smells, and…
“Mom?”
She sat with her eyes closed in the chair beside the bed, and they suddenly snap open at his voice. “Red!” She moves as though to hug him, then hesitates and rests a hand against his hair instead. “How are you feeling?”
He frowns and tentatively sits up, feeling out his arm. It doesn’t hurt much, but it’s in a cast that heavily restricts movement. “Pretty well, I think. Am I on any medication, or is it healed?”
She smiles, brow still creased with worry. “You’re clean. They said it’ll take about a week to make sure it’s fully healed. You’ve only been asleep for a day.”
“
Only?
I was out a whole day? Is the fire under control? Are Blue and Leaf still in the forest? Do you know if they’re alright?”
“Yes, no, and yes, they’re fine. Calm down, Red, everyone’s safe.”
Not everyone.
But he feels himself relaxing, bit by bit. “Where are they now?”
“At the pokemon center I think. Leaf was getting her injuries treated here, and left just an hour ago. She was tenacious in finding out how you were before she went. I quite like her.”
Red looks out the window. He’s on a fairly high floor of the hospital, and can see the sun is setting over the mountains. He can’t believe he was out for so long. “When did you get here? You didn’t go through the forest, did you?”
“No, Sam brought me. He came over this morning before I even turned the news on, and we flew straight here. He dropped me off and went to get the others.”
Red recognizes the strain behind his mother’s calm expression and tone. “Sorry for worrying you. I’m glad you’re here.”
She runs her fingers through his hair briefly, seeming about to say something, then bends forward and kisses his head. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“I could eat, yeah.”
She smiles and stands up. “I’ll be right back.”
After she’s gone, Red looks around the room a bit more. His pokebelt is hanging from the wall beside him, his backpack on the dresser under the window with his hat placed on top of it. He can’t see his clothes anywhere, but the stuff he had in his pockets are in a clear bag on the nightstand beside the bed. A bit of tension he didn’t realize was there eases from his chest when he sees his pokedex in it.
Unfortunately it’s on the side with his broken arm, so he has to sit up and shift around to reach for his phone. While moving, his arm begins to ache, and he stops immediately until it fades, then moves more carefully. He never studied any medicine and has little idea of how his arm was healed, but the memory of his bone pressing against his skin makes his stomach churn. He’ll have to remember to thank the doctors that helped him when he gets the chance, and the woman that brought him here.
He finally manages to open the bag and extract his phone. He lies back and checks his messages, then finds Blue in his contacts.
Hey, I’m up.
No response for a few seconds, and then:
o shit
good to hear man
how u doin?
I’m alright. Is Leaf with you?
ya just got here
she says hi
u able to leave?
Don’t know, haven’t seen a Dr. yet. Will get back to you. Your pokemon okay?
There’s a pause, and a brush of anxiety makes his pulse speed up. Did they lose anyone?
theyre ok
still waiting on some
Red lets his breath out.
Well glad you guys are safe. I’ll let you know when I can head out.
same here man
ttyl
Red opens the local news sites and scans the headlines. Twenty seven dead, over fifty wounded, and six still missing. He looks over the names, feeling a touch of surrealism at spotting his own. And then, under deceased…
…
Fara Melissa, Kuroda Ayame, Kuroda Kiku
,
Marcone Walter…
Red is suddenly cold beneath his hospital gown.
Ayame and Kiku…
they sound familiar, but they might not be the twins they met, he’s so bad with names…
But should it even matter? He shouldn’t be more sorry for those deaths just because they’re people he met, even if it was just once. Each death is a tragedy, even if he doesn’t know them: they’re still someone’s sister, brother, son, daughter, friend. One less person who might create new art, spur new research, or just share a companionable night around a campfire with, able to sleep sound with the knowledge that you’ll keep each other safe.
Red puts his phone down and leans back against his pillow, staring up as a sick burning sensation spreads through his stomach. Twenty seven or more lost, and Red could have easily been one of them. He was worse than useless, nearly getting himself killed right at the start…
No.
He cuts off that line of thought, forces himself to think of how he used the onix roar to save himself and Leaf, and how his foresight ensured they had the lightning rods. It was a team effort, and he hadn’t been useless.
Soon he manages to completely banish the self-pity. He’s still sad about those that lost their lives, but he needs to think more constructively. Heroic responsibility doesn’t mean he should ignore the things he did right, or else he wouldn’t be able to expand on them.
Assess, evaluate, optimize…
Red picks his phone back up. First things first: be prepared for similar situations in the future.
He starts researching other pokemon in the surrounding area, first checking how sensitive their hearing is, then finding their most audibly distinct predators. The major issue is where there’s no local apex hunter: if he uses a beedrill buzz to scare off some breloom, he might attract some hungry fearow.
Maybe I should make a list of apex predators first…
He’s still working ten minutes later when a doctor arrives. She looks just a bit older than his mom, though that might just be the carefully controlled exhaustion on her face. Red realizes she’s probably been up all night and day with others from the forest continually coming in. When she gets closer, he reads Dr. Willow on her nametag.
“Good evening, Mr. Verres.”
Mr. Verres.
Feels strange being called that. “Hello. Are you the one that patched up my arm?”
“One of them, yes. How’s it feeling?”
He experimentally lifts it again and stops when it aches. “Starts hurting here, but just a bit. Thank you for all you’ve done.”
She dips her head. “Not the cleanest break we saw last night, but far from the worst. You got off fairly lucky.”
“Lucky to have such good friends, mostly.” He immediately regrets saying it. The others who died no doubt had good friends with them too. “So, am I free to go?”
“Let’s find out.” She unstraps the cast around his arm and his skin tingles as it comes in contact with the air again. Red winces as he sees how mottled with bruises his arm is, but when the doctor carefully prods at his skin he doesn’t feel any pain. She doesn’t seem satisfied though. “Not for another day to be safe. Think you can keep from moving your arm that long?”
“Do I have to stay in bed?”
“Not if you’re careful.”
“I’ll manage then.” There’s work he can do in the meantime, like researching spinarak, and maybe doing some experimenting with his.
His mom returns with a tray of food in both hands, and the doctor leaves them to it. The smell of mashed potatoes and pidgey nuggets stokes Red’s hunger to a fever pitch, and he begins shoveling them into his mouth as fast as he can move the spoon.
“Chew, Red. It’s not going anywhere.” Once she’s satisfied that he’s slowed down, his mom begins eating too, and for a time there’s silence but for the scrape of plastic cutlery and the distant sound of the hospital’s intercom.
Once his hunger is tamed and he has attention for other things, the silence begins to make him apprehensive. Part of him is glad his mom is here, but the rest is worried about her reaction to his injury.
“Well?” he says after a minute. “Are you going to try and convince me to stop? Keep working in the lab until I’m older?”
His mom raises a brow without looking up from her food. “Would it do any good?”
He smiles. “Do you have any new arguments to add?”
“No. But recent events might have changed their impact.”
Red just shakes his head.
She sets her fork down. “I heard that the three of you helped some Rangers on the way up.”
Oh. Right.
“I… it was just-”
“I’m glad.”
He looks up to see her smiling at him.
“Glad that you’re out there, helping others. Your father would be proud.”
Red stares at his tray, heart pounding. It’s the best reaction he could have hoped for, but it feels dishonest. This seems too big a thing to be brushed off as a white lie, and too deliberate to be a lie of omission. “I miss dad. A lot.” The constant ache at the back of his thoughts sharpens for a moment, and he takes a deep breath to push it back into the vault he’d constructed for it. “But I’m not doing this for him.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. “I know that, Red. That’s why he would be so proud.”
He shakes his head and pulls his hand away. “That’s not it.”
She tilts her head, brow furrowed.
“I don’t want you to have the wrong expectations. One day I’m not going to live up to them, and it’s better to know that now than be… disappointed.” She’s about to speak, and he hurries on. “And I don’t just mean that I’ll fail to save someone, or be too afraid to try. I mean I might decide against trying, as a conscious choice. Do you see? I might deliberately choose against what dad would have.”
His mom is silent for a time, and Red grows more and more worried. This is the frankest discussion they’ve had about his dad for years, and it’s the closest Red’s come to criticizing him. He should have waited, thought more about how he’d word it…
“I married your father because he was the best man I’d ever met,” she says at last. “I miss him every day. And sometimes I think that if he’d been just a bit less good, he’d still be here with us, and still be helping others.”
“We don’t know what happened that day,” Red says quietly. “That’s what you always said. Is there more to the story?”
She shakes her head. “No. It was his duty to go, and for all we know he did exactly as much as he needed to, as much as was smart to. He wasn’t the only one lost, and the others… his friends, they said he saved a lot of lives. That he just got unlucky.”
She takes his hand again, and this time he lets her hold it, her eyes as intense as he’s ever seen them. “However many lives he saved that day, he might have saved more if he lived past it. Maybe that’s just a rationalization. Maybe others would call that a cowardly excuse, but you’re not their child, you’re mine. Whatever the situation, whatever you choose to do, at the end of the day, all I care about is that you’re safe. Understand?”
A number of thoughts and situations come up that he wants to test her statement against, but it doesn’t feel appropriate just now. Unsure of what else to say, Red simply nods.
His mom smiles and lets his hand go. “Good.” She picks up her fork again. “So, tell me what happened after we got off the phone last night. I want to hear everything.”
Blue’s foot taps on the tile of the pokemon center, gaze fixed on the overhead screen above the lobby’s reception desk. He’s been watching the numbers tick slowly upward, both those currently being treated and the average wait times.
It’s been almost twelve hours since he arrived, exhausted and footsore. Gramps picked him and Leaf up from the forest once they were close enough to the city for their cells to start working again. They went to the hospital to get looked at, and while Blue’s wound took just a few minutes to inspect and finish healing, Leaf had to stay for longer. Afterward Gramps brought him here before heading back to the forest on Glory, the pidgeot moving quick as a dart through the early morning sky with only one rider.
After Blue handed his pokemon over and was given his frustratingly long wait time, he went to the lobby. It was packed with dozens of other trainers fresh from the forest, and Blue picked himself a comfortable couch to rest on. He intended to at least stay up until he heard from Leaf or Mrs. Verres on how she and Red were doing, but he was out the moment his head touched the top of the squishy backrest.
He woke around noon, groggy and in serious need of a bathroom, to find a message on his phone from Leaf. She and Red were alright, and she was on her way to the pokemon center closest to her and wanted confirmation that it was the same one he’s at. He checked the name and told her it was, then went to relieve himself and wash his face.
By the time she arrives he feels like himself again, but his pokemon are still far from the front of the queue. He stops his leg from jittering and gets up as she approaches. She’s looking much better than the night before, and dressed in fresh clothing. “Hey. Feeling alright?”
She smiles. “A hundred percent. The healing went quick, I mostly stayed to get some rest and so they could check for any lingering effects.”
“And?”
She stretches her arms up and to the sides, then twists at the waist and touches her feet one at a time. “No permanent damage. The shock didn’t go anywhere important, thankfully. How are your pokemon?”
He grunts, mood souring again. “No clue.” He points to the screen.
“Oh. And what number are you?”
“103.”
“Oh dear. I’d better go get mine then.”
They head over to the front desk, whose staff has changed a couple times since Blue arrived. New arrivals have thankfully slowed, and there’s just one nurse manning it now.
“How much longer on 103?” Blue asks the guy while Leaf hands her pokemon over in exchange for her own number.
The young man glances pointedly at the overhead monitor, which shows the numbers that just finished being treated as 82, 89, 92, 94, and 95, while the average wait time is twenty minutes. “Perhaps another few hours, sir.”
Blue grunts his thanks, and they head back toward the couches. “What number are you?”
Leaf shows him her 148. “It’s going to be a long night,” she says. “We should go see Red.”
“Did you get a chance to?”
“Just for a minute or so. He was still sleeping, but his mom was super nice.”
“Yeah, Aunt Laura’s cool.” Blue wonders what Daisy’s up to. Gramps said she was helping out elsewhere in the forest, and he shoots her a quick text to see what’s up. “Let’s get some food first, the diners at pokemon centers are usually better than the stuff at hospitals.”
They go and do so, the tables around the food corner just as crowded as the rest of the center. As they eat their sandwich and salad, Blue gets a text. He expects it to be from Daisy, but it’s Red’s picture that appears.
“Hey, he’s up!”
“Awesome, tell him I said hi!”
Blue nods, fingers already moving, and a moment later he’s staring at the text asking how his pokemon are doing. He still doesn’t know how Zephyr or the shiftry are, but he doesn’t want to tell Red that he lost his caterpie or beedrill either. Maybe it would be better over the phone, get it out of the way, but he wants to be able to tell the whole story at once, give some context. He finishes the convo and puts his phone away. “At least his arm’s okay.”
“Yeah. It’s good that he got to the hospital when he did.”
Blue frowns at the crowd around them. “Some of these people should be there themselves. Their pokemon aren’t going anywhere, even if the line wasn’t so long.”
Leaf shrugs. “Maybe they’re too concerned for them to have any peace of mind. They’ve got to make sure they’re okay first.”
“But they’re in their pokeballs. It doesn’t matter to them if they wait an hour or a week.”
Leaf opens her mouth, then closes it and spears a tomato slice, chewing with a distant look on her face. Blue takes a bite of his sandwich and gets another message, opening it with his other hand to see it’s from his sis this time.
All’s good. Got home a couple hours ago.
And here he was, worrying like a chump.
thx 4 checkin in w/ me
Grampa said you’re OK. Whine more 333
Blue snorts.
well
he didnt tell me u were home
Aww were you concerned about me?
my mistake
That’s sweet bro but I was runnin through Viridian when you were just out of diapers. Anything a newbie like you could get through is nbd
Appreciated though ^_o
Blue shakes his head and puts his phone away. “Be glad you don’t have any siblings.”
“Were you interested in seeing Red in the hospital, even if he wasn’t awake?” Leaf asks.
He blinks. “Uh. Yeah?”
“So how is that different than what they’re doing?”
Blue stares blankly at the trainers she gestured toward, and after a moment he remembers the conversation they were having. “Oh! Man, were you thinking of a response that whole time?”
“It was thirty seconds at most. Well?”
“Well what?”
“How is it different?”
Blue frowns. “Red wasn’t trapped in a pokeball in complete stasis. He might have woken up while I was there. Also I could have looked at him, seen how he was doing. It would have been reassuring.”
Leaf shakes her head impatiently and tucks some hair that gets loose behind her ear. “So let’s say you know he won’t wake up for another few days, and you popped your head in for a quick look. Is that enough? Would sitting beside him for a few hours be a waste?”
“Uh. Sort of, yeah. Red’s a smart guy, he wouldn’t mind if he found out I did more productive stuff. Hell, he’d probably agree with me.”
“What about Mrs. Verres? Would you have told her to leave him be, that he’d be fine without her waiting beside him?”
Blue shifts in his seat. “That’s different. She’s his mom.”
“So?”
“So it’s not about what makes sense, it’s emotional. That’s just the kind of bond parents have with their kids.” A pang of loneliness and pain, chased away with long practice. He knows Gramps would stay at his bed if something happened to him. So would Aunt Laura, come to that.
Hm.
That thought was kind of comforting. Is that important to Leaf’s point? He has to admit it might be, even if he still thinks it’s kind of a waste of time.
“Well that’s the kind of-”
Blue puts a hand up. “Wait. I get it.”
Leaf’s brow rises. “Get what?”
“I get what you’re saying. It hit me.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
Leaf looks skeptical, and he rolls his eyes. “No need for that look, Gramps taught me about admitting when I’m wrong long before Red turned into a pain in the ass about it.”
“Sorry.”
“Besides, I wouldn’t say I was wrong unless I really believed it.”
She grins. “True.”
“Anyway, I still think it’s different. Pokemon aren’t humans. They won’t know whether these trainers waited here or not.”
“Maybe not. But it’s not for the pokemon. It’s for the humans.”
Blue considers this, then nods. “The way funerals are for the living.” He stands up. “So, I’ve got a few hours and you’ve got longer. Let’s go see Red, now that he’s awake.”
They leave the pokemon center and begin to walk toward the hospital as twilight cloaks the city. Pewter is very different from Viridian: far more open, with all the tall buildings spread out. Cars are rare here, with the forest to the south and the mountains to every other side, so the streets are much more narrow, and the walkways wider.
Soon they pass through a residential area, where the houses are almost all made of stone. A few young kids are playing on the lawns, some with each other, others with pokemon. A marill swims around two giggling children in a portable pool, and farther along a toddler rides the back of a growlithe under the watchful eye of their parents.
Despite the circumstances, Blue suddenly feels naked without his own pokemon resting at his waist. It feels strange to be uncomfortable around tamed pokemon when he spent his whole life around them. Especially since he’s only had his own for less than a week. Is this what exposure to wild pokemon does? Makes you wary of them all?
“Oh! Look!” Leaf whispers, and Blue follows her gaze to see a woman leaning out a window to splash some milk in the shadow of her house. Leaf stifles her grin behind her hand until they pass, then says, “I can’t believe that’s really a thing. I half thought you guys were joking.”
“Nope. Me and my friend Batu used to wear black and hide in the shadows to leap out at people when we were younger. We’d get splashed with a lot of milk, but it was always worth a laugh. One time-”
Blue’s phone chimes, and he pulls it out while Leaf tries to get a hold of her giggles. He stops walking, and she turns to him with a questioning look.
“It’s the pokecenter,” he says, heart suddenly pounding. “They’re telling me to come in.”
“What, now? They can’t have finished with your pokemon so quickly.”
“Yeah.” The message doesn’t say they’re done being healed, just to report to a certain room as soon as possible. Blue swallows the dryness in his throat and meets Leaf’s concerned gaze. “I guess I’ll catch you later.”
“Do you want me to-”
“No, it’s fine. Go tell Red I’ll be there soon.”
“Alright.” She returns his wave halfheartedly, and then he turns and jogs back the way he came.
Zephyr or the shiftry? Which one did I lose? Or was it both?
Blue makes it back in less than half the time, sweating and out of breath. He quickly follows the directional signs toward D9, and soon finds himself in an intensive care unit.
Blue’s stomach is clenched up like a fist by the time he reaches the door and knocks. A moment later a doctor opens it, almost as old as Gramps, with her long greying hair tied in a braid. After confirming who he is she invites him inside the room. It looks less like a medical room and more like a computer lab, each console surrounded by periphery equipment and sporting numerous screens, and he realizes he’s in an assessment room rather than one devoted to treatment.
His pokeballs rest on a machine with spherical indents, each slot including a lens aligned with the ball’s to stream data from it to the nearby terminal. He notices that his shiftry’s ball isn’t among them.
“Hello Mr. Oak, thank you for coming so quickly. Some concerns surfaced while treating your pokemon.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Blue wipes his palms on his jeans. “So what’s up? Are they okay?”
“For the most part. I want to know about one in particular.” The doctor meets his gaze, and Blue suddenly notices how cold hers is. “Your shiftry. What happened to it?”
Blue stands a bit straighter, suddenly wary. “I told the guy at reception, it had some acid burns, puncture wounds, poisoning, and its limbs were cut off.”
“We can see that. I want to know how the amputations occurred.”
“Another shiftry’s leaves cut them off. What’s the problem? Are you able to heal it or not?”
“Your shiftry’s healing has already begun, and is going as best as can be expected. It should make a full recovery within a few days.” The nurse’s eyes are hard on his. “The question is whether it will be returned to you or not.”
Blue’s concern fades, anger taking its place. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen thousands of pokemon injuries. Often from wild battles, some from trainer brawls. The wounds to your shiftry’s arms and legs are different from the rest. We have abuse laws in this region, Mr. Oak.”
Searing heat flares through Blue’s chest, each beat of his heart pumping magma through his veins.
Calm. Steady.
“Are you accusing me of something?” he says, jaw tight.
She doesn’t flinch at his tone. “Those wounds were specific, deliberate. Another shiftry didn’t do that. I want to know what did.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“As a matter of fact it is. If we suspect trainer abuse we’re required to report it to the licensing association. You can tell me or you can tell an investigative review board, but until you do either, you’re not getting your pokemon back.”
He unclenches his fists and takes a deep breath. After Gramps dropped him off, Blue waited until he flew away, then jogged to a small pokemart nearby. He restocked on some supplies, including a few greatballs. Once outside, Blue released his shiftry and quickly recaptured it in a greatball before returning to the pokemon center.
Now he’s wishing he’d kept it in the original ball and just handed them the greatball to put it in when it was healed. “Look, I didn’t have a greatball on me when my group was attacked by the shiftry near the forest fire. I tried to use a pokeball, but it was too big. After we fought them off, this one was still alive, so I used one of the other shiftry’s arms that were severed and made him small enough to fit. He was badly wounded, and I didn’t have any other way to capture him. It was either this, heal him and risk someone else getting attacked, or letting him die. All things considered I thought this was the best option, since grass types can heal almost any wound.”
The doctor’s posture is still rigid, but her expression is a bit less severe. “You were with a group of trainers, and none of you had any greatballs?”
“No, there were only three of us,” he says immediately, while internally kicking himself for not having asked the others. He didn’t even consider it at the time. “Also we were busy last night, you know, trying to
stay alive
and keep the forest from burning down. If anyone had any before they probably used them by then.”
Her gaze lingers on his for a moment, then she nods. “Given the circumstances, then, I think you did the best you could. It helps that its wounds were promptly cared for. Just to be sure, please give me the names of the other trainers, so I can corroborate your story.”
“Oh
come on!
Why would I cut up my own pokemon and then bring him here to be healed?”
“Sir, please lower your voice.”
Blue fumes silently for a moment as he calms himself down. Just as he’s about to give her the names, footsteps approaching from the hallway make them both turn.
“Ah, there you are Blue. I thought I heard your voice.”
Professor Oak stands in the doorway, looking tired but smiling. He approaches the monitors, stripping gloves off his hands and tossing them in the trash before he examines Blue’s pokemon info. “Good, good, your pidgey healed just fine.”
Blue’s brain seems to have locked up at his gramp’s unexpected appearance. “His wing’s okay?” he asks after a moment, unable to pick beyond all the other questions.
“Yes, he’ll regain full use of it. The cut was deep, but it missed the bone.”
The doctor is staring at Professor Oak in shock, then turns to Blue. “You’re…?”
“Yeah, that Oak.”
Her cheeks flush, and she turns to the cheerful smile on the Professor’s face with a stammering apology that he waves away before it can take form.
“It’s quite alright, you were only exercising due diligence. I was hoping to have a talk with my grandson before we visit his friend in the hospital, however. Please excuse us, and message me if you need anything.”
“Of course, Professor. Thank you for everything.” She smiles and bows. “Your help has been invaluable, and I’ve never seen my people maintain such good morale in a situation this bad.”
Gramps beams at her and returns her bow, then heads for the door. Blue glances at the doctor as she gives him an apologetic look, pushes his bruised pride aside to mutter some thanks, and follows him.
As they walk through the corridor, his grandpa’s cheerful demeanor doesn’t disappear, but it does gradually fade to its normal, less weaponized form. Blue’s not sure what to say at first: did he just get rescued? It feels like he did, even though he was doing totally fine. He did nothing wrong. So why does it feel like he was let off the hook just because he’s
the
Professor Oak’s grandson?
To be fair, the Professor hadn’t said anything that could remotely be taken that way. Nor had the doctor implied it. It just seemed taken for granted that the grandson of Professor Oak would of course have the best intentions regarding pokemon wellbeing, and wouldn’t have acted in any way improperly.
Not that he’s complaining. Expectations like that will surely come in handy someday.
Still, even planning to make good use of the Oak name, Blue feels disgruntled. He was fully capable of handling this situation on his own.
Blue lengthens his strides to catch up to his grandpa. “So what are you doing here?” he asks, unable to keep quite all the hostility from his voice.
“Helping with the pokemon, of course. It’s all hands on deck from the surrounding cities, and since you all are here I decided to come to Pewter instead of help in Viridian. I arrived while you were sleeping in the lobby.”
“Ah. Well, thanks for the help back there. Saved me the whole minute it would have taken to give her the trainer’s names.”
The professor’s pale blue eyes flick toward him, and then they’re at the elevators. His grandpa waits until they’re inside and headed for the roof, then turns to him, face serious.
“You’re going to have to be more careful, Blue.”
“With what, exactly?”
“Your choice of victory conditions. There are many paths to becoming Champion, but the one you’ve chosen to walk is narrow as a razor’s edge. Stray too far on either side and you’ll get the title, but accomplish nothing with it.”
Blue scowls, leaning back against the wall and watching the numbers tick up. “You don’t think I know that? I did the best I could with what I had.”
“I believe that, and you believe that, and the two trainers that were with you probably believe that. But when the story gets out, as it certainly will once your fame starts to rise, you’re going to have to be ready to counter the unflattering colors some will paint you in.” The door of the elevator opens. “Start considering what you can do to give them something else to talk about.”
Blue follows him out, thinking it over. Gramps is speaking from experience, and Blue would have to be an idiot to ignore him. “So, what, like spread the story myself?”
“Is that the best you can come up with?” His grandpa waves at someone as they walk through the rooftop’s lobby, with its glass ceiling revealing that night has finally fallen on the city. Once they’re outside on the landing and launching area, he takes out Glory’s ball and summons the pidgeot in a flash of light.
Blue strokes the huge bird’s wing, and when it kneels he climbs onto the second seat on its back.
I can’t wait until Zephyr’s this big.
“I could help out here with you. Assist with pokemon injured in the forest.”
His grandpa smiles and mounts up before turning Glory toward the edge of the building, the pokemon’s wings spreading as it crouches for takeoff. “That’ll do, for a start…”
“Heyyy, look who’s conscious!”
Leaf turns to see Blue and Professor Oak enter Red’s room, the latter carrying a small bag. Mrs. Verres (“
Please, call me Laura”)
rises and hugs each of them, then excuses herself to get more chairs. The boys bump fists, and Blue leans on the edge of the bed to get a look at Red’s cast.
“Does it hurt if I do this?” Blue asks, extending a finger toward it.
Red bats his hand away before it can touch. “Thanks for coming, Professor.”
“Of course. From what I gather, you all did remarkably well in the forest, and I wanted to hear your stories personally.” The professor lifts the bag. “I also brought you each something. Ah, thank you Laura.” He takes the seat from her and lowers himself into it.
“You brought us gifts?” Leaf asks, excitement bubbling up in her. “You’ve already given us so much!”
“He’s just protecting his investment,” Blue says as he takes another chair to the other side of Red’s bed. He flips it around so he can prop his arms up on its back while he faces them. “Would have been embarrassing if we kicked the oxygen habit less than a week out.”
“Blue,” Mrs. Verres says, voice calm but firm. “I know you’re joking, but keep in mind that many people didn’t make it out of the forest. You’re all lucky to be alive, despite your achievements.”
To Leaf’s surprise, Blue looks genuinely embarrassed. “You’re right, Aunty. Sorry. So what’d you get us, Gramps?”
“First, for Red, an ultraball.” He takes it out and hands it to him.
“Oh Sam, you shouldn’t have!” Laura says, admiring the sleek black and yellow ball that Red takes reverently. His finger traces the small gold lightning bolt etched into its cover.
“Think of it as a safety precaution. Training a pikachu can be dangerous, and at the very least you need to make sure the ball you hold it in can handle a stray bolt.”
“Thanks Professor,” Red says. “I was going to buy one, but now I can use the money on other things.”
“May I suggest some cheri berries? Besides their medicinal uses, they can be fed to your pichu to temporarily weaken its electricity.”
“Really? How does that wo-”
“Later, Red,” Blue says. “Next gift!”
Professor Oak smiles and turns deliberately away from him and toward Leaf. “Miss Juniper. Your decision to catch the pichu at great personal risk was admirable, but exceedingly dangerous. Rather than attempt to convince you not to try such a thing again in the future, I’d rather equip you so that you can do so a bit safer.”
He hands her a clear plastic jar of some thick amber liquid, tightly sealed. “Is this combee honey?” she asks, voice hushed, and Red gives a low whistle. A cup of the stuff can sell for as much as a hundred dollars, and this looks like a whole pint at least.
“It is, of a particularly strong potency. A small dab should be enough to attract any pokemon with a sense of smell. Use with extreme caution.”
Leaf grins and carefully tucks it in her bag. “I will! Thank you!” She’s already imagining all the ways she can use it, not just to catch pokemon, but also to train Bulbasaur. On top of that, plant pokemon are very adaptive at incorporating the effects of new substances in the plants and seeds they grow.
He might even be able to develop his own attractive liquid or pollen…
“You’re quite welcome. As for you, Blue, I give you this.” He hands his grandson… a book.
Blue takes it with a frown that looks more like concentration than pique. “Nobunaga’s Ambition,” he reads from the cover, and flips through it. “Any significance here?”
“That’s for you to figure out as you read it. I have every confidence in you.”
Blue sighs as if he’d expected this, but nods and puts the book to the side. Leaf realizes he’s probably used to similarly cryptic directions from his grandfather. “Thanks, Gramps,” he says, and only sounds half grudging.
“So, what are you all planning now?” Mrs. Verres asks.
“I’m going to hit the gym when my pokemon are better,” Blue says. “Hopefully I can grab the Pewter Badge in a few days.”
“I have some research I need to do with my spinarak. If you have time, Professor, I could use some help organizing my thoughts on it…”
“Certainly.”
“And you, Leaf?”
She smiles. “The museum here has the largest fossil collection in the region, right?”
“Cinnabar might rival it,” Professor Oak says. “But it would be close.”
She nods. “I’m going to check it out. I’m really curious to know more about your region’s myths and history.” The older the better, and it doesn’t get much older than fossilized pokemon remains. She’s seen how historical evidence could alter or clash with local myths and beliefs back in Unova.
“It’s a fascinating place,” Professor Oak says. “You should all go.”
“Pass,” Blue says. “Seen it. Pretty boring.”
“I’m down,” Red says.
She smiles at him. “Cool.”
“Well, now that’s settled.” Professor Oak checks the time, then smiles and leans back in his chair, eyes sparkling with excitement. “It’s time for my payment for the gifts. I want to hear everything that happened last night. Who’s going to start?”
Leaf’s phone chimes, and her heart sinks as she sees it’s her mother asking her to call when she can. “Excuse me, I have to take this,” she says as she gets to her feet. “I’ll let Red cover my part.”
She leaves the room and finds a quiet corner of the hospital. She was putting off this conversation, but part of her is glad it’s finally upon her. After the numerous near death experiences in the forest, she doesn’t want to let some misaligned expectations get in the way of her and her mother’s relationship.
Leaf presses the call button, heart hammering as she tries to think of what to say. Should she sound calm and casual, as if nothing’s wrong? Cheerful? The usual cool and controlled?
She’s still trying to decide when the ringing stops, and her mother’s voice is in her ear. “Leaf!”
“Hi mom.”
“Oh honey, it’s good to hear your voice. I checked the Kanto news today and it showed a forest fire near where you said you were! Are you alright?”
Tears prickle at Leaf’s eyes at the naked concern in her mom’s tone, and she closes them. “I’m fine,” she says with a smile as she leans back against the wall. “And… Mom, I wanted to say sorry…”
The next morning Red finds himself alone in his hospital room and looking for something productive to do. His mom left with Professor Oak last night, Blue is gone to the Pewter Gym, and Leaf is checking out the museum. So Red sets to work looking through all the advertisements for local psychics that offer their services.
Assisting trainers with challenging pokemon or difficult to learn commands is a psychic’s most common trade, followed by testing people for psychic ability or damage. But since Red wants a psychic who’s also willing to potentially get attacked by a spinarak, he needs someone whose profile advertises being open to “unlisted requests.”
He realized after talking with Professor Oak that testing his spinarak’s mental attack would be harder than he first thought. Even if he squared it off against his rattata, since he doesn’t actually know what the attack was he can’t reliably ensure that whatever it ends up using against her would be the right one.
So the Professor suggested turning to the experts. In the meantime, Red also put up a bulletin in the city’s online forum. His advertisement asks for a five minute meeting with anyone who has a spinarak and is willing to answer questions about it and submit its data for research purposes. Since Red doesn’t have the funds to pay for their time, instead he offered the opportunity for the trainers to get detailed data about their spinarak from his new pokedex model.
“Sounds good,” Professor Oak says over the phone. “And the psychic?”
“Colan Narud. His resume looked alright, but his main qualification is that he’s available today.”
“I’m sure he’ll do fine. This will be your first one-on-one meeting with a psychic, won’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Nervous?”
Red reflects on his mood, then frowns. “Well I wasn’t before, but now that you ask…”
“I just want to warn you that psychics can be difficult to interact with.”
Red’s brow rises. There are a lot of unflattering sites that discuss psychics and their powers. He tends to ignore most of them, especially those that express superstitious fears, but he remembers commenters in more general forums that expressed a distaste for the
attitude
or
personality
of psychics. Red always figured it was a mix of unease and jealousy, but he doesn’t expect Professor Oak to have such prejudices. “Difficult how?”
“It’s like dealing with someone from a different culture, with different social norms and concepts of personal space.”
“Is he going to try and mentally hug me or something?”
Professor Oak chuckles. “More of a mental handshake. Psychics tend to dip into the surface level of people’s thoughts in much the same way we use facial tics and body language for cues about someone’s emotional state. By all accounts it isn’t entirely in their control: just be aware that what you find offensive might not be intended to be.”
“Alright,” Red says slowly. “And how do I tell if they
are
doing something I should take offense at?”
“Well actual mind reading, though difficult and unreliable, is always a conscious choice. If he seems to pick up on something too specific to glean from surface impressions, you have every right to end the interview. If you want to take extra steps to ensure your privacy, the best bet is to just keep your attention focused on your goals and the current conversation. It can help to write down questions ahead of time, and keep your gaze on them so that your mind doesn’t wander far.”
“That’s not foolproof, is it?”
“No, any more than me asking you not to think of a pink donphan would stop you from doing so. If there’s something specific you desperately don’t want him to know, you would need much more preparation and practice to avoid him learning it as it pops up from time to time in your thoughts.”
“Ah. So this is why people sometimes hire psychics through intermediaries.”
“Absolutely.”
Red’s fingers tap the plastic railing of the bed. “Would you advise against meeting him?”
“If so, I’d have said so by now. I don’t mean to bias your perspective, just prepare you.”
“Alright. Is it okay if I call you after?”
“By all means.”
“Thanks professor.”
Red paces the room after he closes the call, biting his lower lip. Is there anything he knows that he absolutely doesn’t want to be read by a psychic?
Not really. Red considers himself a private person, but as long as the psychic is as discreet as his professional confidentiality requires, he doesn’t really see any harm in having his memories or thoughts dredged up. It’s not like he has any secrets a stranger would find interesting.
Psychic Narud looks about the same in person as his pictures online, but for one thing: he appears to be much younger. Red had a vague idea that the psychic was in his early thirties, but when he walks through the door Red drops at least a decade off that. When Red meets his eyes, however, there’s a weight to them that seems incongruous with the impression of youth. The psychic has decades packed behind his gaze, like an old mind in a young body.
The thought is so odd that Red blinks and looks away, suddenly distrusting his perception. It’s a disconcerting feeling that makes him feel on edge, and Red has to unclench his left hand to extend it as they exchange greetings. He tries to focus on more mundane details.
Narud’s dark indigo hair is cut short everywhere but the front, where it hangs down the sides to frame his smooth face. He’s dressed in black shirt and pants, with a white overcoat that flares out at the collar and coat tails that trail down to his upper thighs, almost but not quite a robe. Red’s seen a few psychics wearing a similar outfit, but not all of them do. He vaguely remembers there being different schools or sects, some of which have their own dress code or uniform. There’s writing on Narud’s white coat, not in the universal Unown, but in the old regional Kanji. On the left is written “ataru mo hakke,” and on the right “ataranu mo hakke.” It’s somewhat encouraging to see a psychic so dismissive of fortune-telling.
“I confess to some surprise,” Narud says as he sits on the chair beside Red’s bed. “I expected my client to be a doctor. Is your arm your only physical injury?”
“Yeah. Do you normally get called to hospitals?”
“I do, though not for mundane ailments. I hope that is not what you contacted me for: as I mentioned on my advertisement, my fee is only half refundable.”
Red fights a frown. “No, it’s unrelated. I was injured in the Viridian pikachu frenzy.”
Narud nods. “A troubling affair.”
“Were you in the forest?”
“I was not.”
“After I meant, to help.”
“No.”
Red waits for something further, but Narud stays silent, gaze steady on his. Red realizes he’s waiting for an explanation, an excuse to justify the psychic not helping out, and one clearly isn’t forthcoming. Perhaps it’s unfair to expect one, or maybe Red’s seeking justification for the vague irritation he feels toward the psychic, with his overly formal speaking and quick reminder of his refund policy.
Chiding himself for being uncharitable, Red clears his throat. “Well, it was pretty hectic. But no, my arm isn’t what I called you for. I have two requests: first, I’d like to check and see if I’m psychic.”
“Of course.” Narud reaches into one of the discreet pockets in his coat and pulls out a deck of cards. “First, simply concentrate on-”
“Wait, I’m sorry, I should have mentioned that I took the standard tests a couple years ago.”
He pauses, then tucks the cards away and reaches into another pocket. “Indeed? Then you want me to apply the more direct approach.”
“I do.” No matter how hard he tried during the test, he wasn’t able to visualize the shapes on the cards from the other person’s mind as they stared at it. From what he read that just meant he wasn’t a natural, but there are a rare few with weaker abilities that don’t develop the skills automatically.
“Very well.” The psychic pulls a pen and a folded sheet of paper out of his other pocket, opening it. “You are aware that this will constitute a direct intrusion into your mind, and that I am not responsible for any new mental discomfort or harm lasting less than twelve hours from our meeting?”
“I am.”
“And are you currently suffering harm from any mental attacks or damage?”
“Er. I think so? I was hit by something a spinarak did recently…”
“Describe the effects.”
Red does so, and the psychic writes them down on the paper. “I believe that’s sufficient. Are you aware of what this form is?”
“Yeah, I read it online.”
“Good. Please sign here.”
Red scans the document to make sure it’s the same one from the net, then scrawls his signature with some difficulty, trying to ensure it looks like the one produced from his right hand. When he’s done he hands it back, palms slightly sweaty.
Narud examines the signature, then nods and tucks it away. “Thank you. Are you ready?” Red nods, pulse beginning to speed up as he tries to prepare himself. “Then I will begin. There is no need to do anything: please let your thoughts wander as they will.”
Red sits still and makes an effort to relax. A few deep breaths later he feels his heartrate begin to slow, but when he wonders if Narud has begun or not it begins to race again. He knows the mental scan won’t feel like anything, but after the last experience of something messing with his head-
empty
dark
Red winces at the memory, and the psychic’s eyes widen. And suddenly Red
can
feel something… except
feel
is the wrong word. It’s not a sense of pressure or temperature or texture, nothing like a physical touch. It’s like a part of his brain separate from where his “consciousness” resides is suddenly… awake.
Goosebumps rise along Red’s arms, and he has to stop himself from yelling aloud. The sensation is distinctly unsettling, like watching a movie of yourself doing something you have no memory of. His sense of
me
, the “core self” residing somewhere just behind and between his eyes, suddenly feels like it has company in his skull. And that company is movingshifting
turningtwisting
–
“Stop!”
The sensation immediately ceases. Red’s whole body relaxes and he slumps back against his pillow, breathing hard. A drop of sweat slides down the side of his face, and his left hand trembles a bit as he wipes it away. “Was that… you?” Stupid question, but he can barely think past the lingering disorientation. Part of him wonders if his body’s reaction is a “real” one to a sudden and uncomfortable experience, or specifically a side effect of the invasion.
“It was.” The psychic reaches into yet another pocket in his coat and pulls out… candy. A variety of it. He unwraps something orange and eats it, then opens his palm to Red.
Red is about to refuse, then realizes the psychic might be offering for more than politeness. He takes a honey flavored cube and sucks on it, biting down to crunch on the outer shell and let the sweet, gooey center free.
“Thanks. So, uh. Was that supposed to happen?”
Narud actually smiles, making him look even younger for a moment. “It was not outside the realm of possibility. Now that I have touched your psyche, I have both good news and bad.”
Red swallows some of the candy, its comforting sweetness keeping him from getting too disappointed. He knew it was a long shot. “Bad news first, please.”
“I apologize, but it will be easier to explain the other way around. The good news is you have the Gift.”
Red’s stops breathing. “You’re sure?”
“There is no question. Even if you did not notice my touch upon your mind, it was immediately evident from the strength of that memory. It was the spinarak’s attack, yes? As I thought. The effects of Night Shade vary heavily, and while the fears it evokes in the minds of most are generally harmless, those of us with the Gift have much more fertile ground for trauma to grow.”
A confused jumble of emotions are gathering in Red, and he finds himself grinning wide until the last line puts a damper on his jubilation. “Trauma?”
The psychic’s face smooths out. “Would it be fair to say your father’s passing was a traumatic experience for you?”
Red stares as shock and anger and the echo of deep pain rise up in him. He picked that much up from the brief touch?
No. Psychics can only pick up surface emotions and vague impressions.
“Well, you certainly did your homework before coming,” Red says, voice cold.
It’s just a guess, but the psychic dips his head in a nod, completely unabashed. “It’s important for those with the Gift to know as much as possible about our clients. We research the lives of those whose minds we will come in contact with to avoid any unexpected shocks from the use of our powers.”
“And it helps you look more mystically all-knowing.” The psychic’s eyes narrow slightly, and Red tries to force his anger down and soften his tone. “Some people might call that manipulative. Not that stereotypes are always borne of truth, but there’s a reason many people don’t trust psychics. Maybe you should be more upfront with people?”
The psychic’s smile returns, slightly bitter. “It would do little to change perceptions. People fear what they do not understand.”
“People fear what they don’t understand, yes, but that should be more reason to be as honest and upfront as possible, not an excuse to be mysterious.”
“I believe you will see the necessity of such practices after you come into your powers.”
Red’s irritation with the psychic is tempered by the excitement that rushes through him again. “What powers do I have? How can I develop them? Is there a-”
Psychic Narud holds a hand up, and Red stops. “There is still the bad news. I mentioned trauma earlier for a reason. We do not share this information lightly, but those who fail the initial test who are in fact gifted often do so because some traumatic experience halted the natural development of their powers. For many, such intensely negative emotions seems to cut them off from their abilities permanently.”
Red stares at the psychic with growing horror and, unexpectedly, shame. A week ago he hadn’t even suspected he was psychic, and was content with that. Not two minutes after finding out he is, being told he’s psychically crippled makes his gut clench up and his breaths come shallow.
“Be calm. I refer mostly to those who do not recognize their potential until late in life. You are lucky enough to have done so early, though it will still mean many years of work to undo the damage that was done. And I must honestly tell you that you may never fully develop every aspect of your powers. Some may be permanently stunted. But I believe you can recover.”
“I… see. Thank you, that’s kind of reassuring.”
Narud dips his head briefly. “The Gifted are obligated to help welcome new members however possible. Allow me to formally congratulate you, Mr. Verres. The discovering of one’s Gift is usually a great day for us, even in such negative circumstances.” The psychic smiles. “You must have many questions. Please feel free to ask.”
“Many questions” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Red is still trying to get his thoughts in order from the double discovery that he both has psychic powers and that they’re likely stunted somehow. It’s far too much to take in at once, and Red’s right hand itches to start taking notes. He’d dictate them to his phone if he didn’t have company.
“I do, thanks, but I don’t want to take up your time, and I’d like some to put my thoughts in order. Would you mind tabling that for now?”
The psychic nods, though there’s a slight crease between his brow. “Yes, the second request you mentioned. How else can I assist you?”
“You said that the effects you felt were from Night Shade. Are you absolutely sure of that? Could anything else have had the same result?”
Narud shakes his head. “Mental attacks are often misclassified into different categories by effect, as is convenient to trainers. But those with the Gift can sense their true nature, and once we become familiar with them they are impossible to misinterpret. The signature here was how it turned your own deepest trauma against you. The strength of the reaction is from an unusually high loss that runs through the very core of your identity.”
Red swallows the last bit of the honey candy, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and irritated. “I’m obviously still sad about my dad, but it’s not ruining my life or anything. Couldn’t it have just been the strength of the spinarak?”
“You misunderstand: think of your psyche like your biological body, with its own specialized organs, its own homeostasis, its own immune system. Our Gift allows us to manipulate our psyche in ways that others can not, but only after intensive practice and training. Before that point, our powers act on a purely instinctual level, and will often act independently to protect our minds from harm. Your latent powers devoted themselves to partitioning the pain of your father’s loss into its own separate segment of your psyche, and have been maintaining it ever since. This partition was weakened by the spinarak to use your own trauma against you.”
Red opens his mouth to deny the psychic’s words, then realizes he’s just reacting, not actually thinking about what’s being said. He tries to ignore his agitation, but he doesn’t like to remember the months immediately following his dad’s death. Is it possible his recovery wasn’t from his own resilience and the help of his therapist, but the effects of fledgling psychic powers? Now that he’s paying attention, he notices the way his mind shies away from the thought and comes up with excuses that reaffirm what he already believes.
“Hold on please, I need to digest this,” he says as he lies back and closes his eyes without waiting for a response. He begins to take deep breaths, simply focusing on the feel of the bed beneath him and the flow of air in and out of his lungs.
I notice that I am upset.
That’s step one: acknowledging that he isn’t thinking clearly anymore. To get back to some semblance of objective thought, he needs to follow through with the rest of the flowchart his therapist helped him construct when he was younger, using each point as guideposts to lead him back to clearer thinking.
Step two: identifying why he’s upset. Is it on the behalf of others, or himself? Clearly himself.
Step three: is he upset at something tangible, or because he encountered an idea he found offensive? Again, clearly the latter. He’s not being harmed in any way. It’s just his ego at stake. So he can take his time in responding to the offending notion.
Step four: is he upset because of something he’s afraid of being true, or because of something he knows is false?
If he’s upset at something because it might be true, then his sense of self is going to be reduced. Part of his identity is attached to his resilience. Accepting the idea that his psychic powers helped hide his trauma from him means giving part of that up.
If the truth hurts, it’s time for change. If the truth hurts, it’s time to grow.
Red rubs at the stubborn frown line between his brow and sighs. That’s the question. Is what he’s upset at true? If it is, then he’ll have to change to accommodate it. And, as his therapist would say, to thank Psychic Narud for the opportunity to grow.
He opens his eyes and turns to the psychic, who seems unperturbed by his abrupt withdrawal. “Can you prove any of this? Is there any experiment we can perform to demonstrate what you’re saying is right?”
Narud’s brow rises and he spreads his hands. “You use the words of science to clarify that which is intangible.”
“Intangible just means it can’t be felt. You’re still making truth claims about reality, and that means you should be able to support it with a prediction. Oxygen in the air is intangible too, but if you doubt its necessity to remain conscious, I could make this room air-tight and predict that you will black out.”
“The Gifted and ungifted alike require oxygen to live, but one cannot prove the existence of light to the blind.”
“Sure one can: just let them hold up an object and tell them what each one is without touching it.”
Narud shakes his head. “Your ability to see gives you an advantage over them, but you cannot prove the mechanism by which it’s gained. They must simply take your word for it.”
“I’m pretty sure there are ways to do that too, for light anyway, but I’m not asking you to prove the existence of the mechanism. I know psychic powers exist. I just need evidence to support this particular assertion.”
“Why hire an expert if you do not trust what they say?” Narud asks, sounding more curious than irritated.
Red frowns. “I hired you to tell me if I’m psychic, and I trust you on that because it’s something I’ve heard is within a psychic’s abilities. I didn’t hire you to judge whether my being psychic is what got me over my dad’s death. It’s possible that you’re just attributing something to it that is unrelated. Do you deny that if I asked a different psychic the same question, they might come up with a different interpretation of events?”
Narud frowns. “The majority would agree with me. But not everyone is equally skilled or capable of more subtle insights.”
Uh huh.
“See, that’s reassuring and all, but from my perspective that doesn’t tell me much. Just that if you’re wrong, you’re wrong in an understandable way, like the person who taught you believed in the majority perspective. Without hearing what the others who disagree with you think and why, it’s your word against theirs.”
Narud meets his gaze impassively for a few moments. Eventually he nods and looks away, gaze distant.
I probably offended him.
Is an apology in order? He’s not sure what he would apologize for: he really does need something to help change his mind, especially when it’s on a topic so entangled in his self-image.
After about a minute, the fingers of Narud’s left hand drum briefly against the arm of the chair before stopping, and the psychic frowns and shifts a bit. Red wonders if he’s having trouble thinking of a way to prove his claims. It can’t be that Red’s the first person to ask him for evidence of what he says, can it?
“If you want some help-”
“No, I have an idea of what to do. The problem is whether you are prepared for it. I am trying to think of an alternative that does not leave you a weeping wreck.”
Red stares. “Um…”
“The most straightforward method would be to remove the partition. But this would mean returning your psyche to the immediate aftermath of your father’s passing, and would certainly constitute Unprovoked Mental Harm by law. Even with your permission, I can not do it.”
Red doesn’t deride the convenience of this answer: on the possibility that Narud is right, Red absolutely agrees that it would be a terrible idea to return to such a state.
But that still leaves him without a good reason to believe the psychic’s interpretation. “If you remove a partition, can you put it back up?” The psychic gives him a look Red can’t quite interpret, and he rushes to add, “Just out of curiosity. I’m not saying I want you to.”
Narud is quiet for a moment, and finally says, “It would be extremely difficult, and severely invasive. Think of the psyche as a body again. It would be like plunging my fingers into your chest to pinch a leaking vein from your heart. More likely to do harm than good.”
Red has the impression there’s more to it than that, but the answer makes sense on its own. “It’s easier to destroy than create.”
“Just so. And that counts when dealing with one’s own psyche as well.”
“So I could learn to remove my own partition, and then build it back up if I don’t like the result?”
“Not without months of work developing your abilities. And that is assuming you can handle the result of removing the partition.”
Red smiles, and it feels bitter even to him. “I survived it before, I can do it again.”
“Can you? The spinarak’s mental attack, Night Shade, is considered a Ghost attack because it targets the emotional weak points in our psyche. For most others the effects of this are mild, but those with the Gift have our own powers turned against us. What you felt from Night Shade was enhanced, but still real. Are you so eager to experience that again in full, permanently?”
Red twitches as another echo of
alone
hurts
flashes through his mind. The original attack practically knocked him out, and he’s still getting echoes of it days later. He thought he just needed to desensitize himself from it, but apparently the damage is done.
Red’s body breaks out in a cold sweat as he imagines trying to live with it
dark
cold
permanently, and he sees Narud wince and raise a hand to rub his temple briefly. “Did you… get that?”
He lowers his hand. “I did, as before. But it is easily remedied.”
“How?”
“Amnesia. The effects of mental attacks are often compounded by repeated exposure. To increase our resilience to them, the Gifted remove the memory of them.”
“Wait, you can actually make yourself forget things? Specific things, without it affecting other stuff?”
“With training, yes.”
“But… how would you even know if you succeeded? Or messed up?”
Narud smiles. “It is difficult to explain to the uninitiated. If you would like to begin your psychic training, I am available for that as well. It is also how we could test what I have told you: when you have gained adequate use of your abilities, you will be able to sense the partition for yourself. Keep in mind however that while it is up, your Gift will be significantly weakened, and it will take you longer than usual to develop it. With that in mind, I can assure you that my rates are quite reasonable.”
Red frowns and looks down, hand rubbing at his neck. “Just to check, is the partition permanently damaged? Is this… symptom going to get worse?”
“Without renewed attack, your psyche should be able to maintain the current equilibrium. There is a chance the damage to the partition will be healed over the months ahead, but yes, there is also a chance that it will weaken, and the symptoms will get worse.”
“Also over a span of months?”
“It would require some other heavy mental shock for it to happen more quickly than that. But I do not mean to frighten you: as I said, it is only a possibility that it will get worse, and it may in fact get better. Just so long as you understand there is a risk.”
Red nods. “I appreciate the honesty.” His mouth is dry, and he reaches for the cup of water on the nightstand. He isn’t sure how long they’ll be in Pewter, and he can’t afford to keep spending money on psychic lessons right now. He could barely afford today’s hundred dollar fee. Especially if he doesn’t know how soon they’ll be useful. Maybe if he starts making money off his research, but for now it’s not really feasible. At least he knows for sure the spinarak’s attack wasn’t psychic. It kind of puts a damper on his hypothesis, but it still might be worth following through to see the results.
He puts the cup back and clears his throat. “Psychic Narud, you’ve been very helpful. Your offer is appreciated, and I’ll have to think over my situation before making a decision. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Pewter, and am still working on getting my finances in order.” Also, he doesn’t entirely like the young man. He isn’t sure if other psychics are better or worse, but it would be foolish to take Narud as his teacher just because he’s the only one he knows.
If the psychic picks any of this up, none shows in his reaction. He merely rises to his feet, hands disappearing into his wide sleeves as he bows his head. “It was my pleasure to assist you today, trainer.”
“I might contact you about another matter soon, if you’re free.”
“When you have a time and day in mind, you are welcome to check my listing. Be well, Red Verres, until we speak again.”
After the psychic is gone, Red does some research online to try and verify as much of their conversation as he can, and takes notes about their conversation. It’s unfortunate that he has to type, and one handed at that, since it doesn’t have the same memory aid as writing by hand does, but it’s better than nothing.
The results from the web verification is mixed, especially on the metaphor comparing the psyche to a biological body: many seem to find it too clinical and mundane, which is not the direction Red was expecting the criticism to come from. Most of what Narud said seems decently supported however, and when Dr. Willow comes in to check on his arm after lunch, Red asks her if they have a psychic on staff.
“Of course,” she says without looking up from his cast as she undoes it. His arm looks much better than yesterday, most of the bruises faded to yellows and greens. “Why?”
“I had a guest today, a psychic I hired. He told me I’ve got a form of mental damage from a spinarak attack, and I
do
seem to have the symptoms… I was hoping to get a second opinion.”
She gives him a severe look. “Why didn’t you report mental damage earlier?”
“Er… I sort of forgot about it?” He gives a weak smile. “It’s not debilitating, just occasionally painful. But the psychic said it might get worse, so…”
Dr. Willow mutters something under her breath as she applies ointment that makes his skin tingle. “Well, just going off your arm, you should be out of here tomorrow, so I’ll flag him for a visit when he’s free.”
“Thanks Doctor.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If you think I’m grumpy about not being told sooner, wait till you meet Psychic Laurie. Brilliant man, but not the greatest people skills. Comes with being a doctor and a psychic I suppose: worst of both worlds.”
“Seems to be a running theme.” Hopefully it doesn’t come with the territory of being a trained psychic, because now that he knows he has the potential, or “Gift,” Red is resolved to become one as soon as possible. Even if it means cracking open the vault in his head and letting out the horrors within, he doesn’t like the idea of his powers doing things without his control.
His mind is all he is, all that he really has and can ultimately rely on. And if he has to lock away some painful memories or emotions in a corner of his mind, at the very least he should do it consciously. The alternative is never knowing for sure how he feels, what he thinks, and why.
When the truth hurts, it’s time for change. When the truth hurts, it’s time to grow.
Red sighs. He always dreamed of finding out he was psychic, but instead of being excited, it just seems to come with more worries. “Nothing’s ever easy,” he mutters, not realizing until after that he said it aloud.
“Well, one thing is,” Dr. Willow says as she reapplies his cast. “But you’ve still got a potentially long life ahead of you, so better get used to it.”
The Pewter Museum of Paleontology is one of the city’s crown jewels, almost as massive as its gym. It’s situated to the far north of Pewter, where the slopes of the surrounding mountains are traced with roads and pockmarked with mansions of the city’s most wealthy inhabitants. In the deepening twilight, Red watches through the cab’s window as the museum’s external lights suddenly turn on and highlight it, so that it’s visible from miles away.
He gently massages his right arm, morbidly drawn to feeling the muted tenderness deep within it. He was released from the hospital just an hour ago, and texted the others to let them know. Blue didn’t respond, but Leaf said she was still at the museum, so after stopping by the pokemon center Red used some of his swiftly dwindling funds to take a cab there.
As he waits, Red goes over his finances. The new week is coming soon, which means he’ll be able to take out another $100 from his savings of $2,148. His mom deposits a portion of his dad’s pension into it every month, adding another five hundred or so. He did some heavy spending to get ready for the journey, but now he’s hoping to live a bit frugally to start building his savings some more.
The problem is new opportunities to spend keep popping up, like paying Psychic Narud to help with his research, let alone any lessons. At times like this the weekly allowance limit is grating, but he knows that one of the best ways to exercising self control is to have such artificial limits until they become habitual.
The best solution he can think of is to apply to a research institution for funding. He has to preregister his hypothesis and research methodology anyway, so putting in some more work for an application to some places might be worthwhile. But at this point he’s not particularly sure his original hypothesis is even worth testing anymore.
When Red met Psychic Laurie and explained the situation, the doctor grumbled and muttered to himself a bit as he felt around in Red’s mind, much the same way Narud had. Even prepared for the sensation this time it was still disconcerting, and Red was relieved when the doctor finished, even though he simply confirmed Narud’s estimation and left to see his next patient without another word.
With his spinarak’s attack confirmed as a ghost move instead of a psychic one, his own supposed psychic trauma could explain why it was so strong against him. But it doesn’t exclude the possibility that it was still an abnormally strong attack paired with a particularly vulnerable target. The high concentration of “Other” that his pokedex detected in his spinarak might still be a significant indication of powerful ability.
It’s a thin thread, and seeming thinner all the time. Still, the experiment might be worth running regardless: for the personal experience, yes, but also for the field as a whole. A null finding is still important, so that anyone else who has a similar hypothesis can look back and see his research found no correlation. Such failures are integral for the pursuit of science to march on.
Red sighs.
It just sucks to be the one to eat the cost of it, this time.
The taxi pulls up to the front of the museum, and Red hands the cabbie a twenty before stepping out into the night, tucking away his three dollars of change. It’s just his imagination that his wallet feels lighter, surely…
Red begins to climb the right side of the steps toward the museum entrance. An irregular stream of people walk down the left, mostly younger kids with their parents. About halfway up there’s a huge recess in the staircase, with a bronze statue of an aerodactyl skeleton on a podium. Red smiles as he watches a girl of about 5 reach up to grasp the last bone of its long tail, only to be shoo’d away by her father.
Red reaches the top and pushes through the glass doors, into the wide and well lit lobby. His eyes are drawn up to the dome above him, which has been painted to look like an overhead view of an excavation site, with people working to unearth some unidentified skeleton. Red hasn’t been to the museum since he was the little girl’s age, but he remembers the sense of wonder it evoked. He knows it’s had a lot of renovations and new exhibits since he was last here, and an echo of that wonder returns as he heads toward the ticket stalls.
“One please,” he says, and slides over another five.
43…
He forces a smile at the receptionist and enters the museum proper, trying to shake worries of his diminishing cash for awhile and enjoy himself. After the past few days, he figures he deserves it.
The museum is a honeycomb of interconnected sections, each chamber focusing on a different topic. Red starts by entering a long, looping hall, its outside wall showing different strata of earth with pictures and descriptions of the fossils that have been found in each. Occasionally a sample will be on display in a plastic box sticking out of the wall, and Red stops around the middle of the 64-66 million year stratum to admire the perfectly preserved skull of a baby tyrunt, each tooth the size of his fingernails.
The inside wall of the curving hall opens into different rooms that further explore the time period it’s across from. The earlier rooms each cover shorter periods of time, but once it gets far enough back, it’s not uncommon to see tens of millions of years lumped into one room. Red goes into one of the last ones, which is between the 350 million and 400 million year stratum. It’s designed to look like it’s underwater, with blue tinted lights and bubbling aquariums, to fit with all the fossils here being from aquatic creatures. A relicanth swims lazily in a tank set in the far wall, ignoring the two kids that are tapping on the glass to get its attention.
Red’s phone buzzes, and he sees a message from Leaf asking where he is. After he responds, he wanders over to one of the walls with a lot of writing on it.
From here on back in the fossil record, we find nothing but aquatic creatures. This isn’t an accident! The ocean is considered by many to be the source of the first lifeforms: did you know that there are more Water pokemon than any other type? Some scientists believe that hot ocean vents created the perfect environment for the first organisms to form. Whether that’s true or not, current evidence indicates that land creatures didn’t show up until far after aquatic ones, and the earliest specimen show many of their same features. Whether the result of natural processes or some intelligent creator, the ocean is one of the most fertile grounds for discovering secrets of the potential origin of life on earth, and clues to the origin of species.
Under the writing there’s a progression of different skeletons, each vaguely less fishy than the last, with the age marked next to each. Red moves on to the next wall, which shows specimen from this time period.
He stares at a sectioned omanyte’s shell, admiring the polished gleam of each chamber and smooth geometry of the septa’s curvature. The origin of species… it’s not hard to imagine some intelligent creator when looking at things like this. Pokemon like klink and magnemite seem far too organized to have just popped into existence on their own. Far easier to grasp the idea of a purposeful creator than the sheer, mind boggling mathematical odds of pseudo-random natural processes forming such complex, working organisms.
But you can’t just look at one thing and draw conclusions from that. Avoiding such sample bias is fundamental to science. You can support any conclusion you want if you only look at examples that fit your hypothesis.
If you examine one species in a vacuum, like omanyte, it might make sense to believe it was designed by some intelligent creator that values beauty. But if such a creator exists, they’re terribly inconsistent in exhibiting that value.
Yes, the omanyte’s shell is beautiful, by many human standards of beauty anyway. But what about a vertebrate’s skeleton? Not particularly considered beautiful. Or the chitinous form of insects, which many like himself find outright repulsive?
So if beauty isn’t a recurring theme in nature, then maybe some other value was prioritized. The beauty of the omanyte’s shell compared to the chitinous form of a spinarak might be subjective, but order is fairly objective. Life may not all be beautiful, but perhaps an argument could be made that it’s organized? Klink are living beings made of moving gears. Surely that’s the fingerprint of an organized creator?
Red snorts. Voltorb, another pokemon that came into existence more recently, are so volatile that they often live short, fairly pointless lives before exploding, without even attempts at reproduction. The route of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in non-fish vertebrate travels from the brain to the larynx by looping around the aortic arch. In adult giraffarig, that means about twenty feet of extra nerve, a particularly wasteful and pointless design, the result of chaos, not order…
Or maybe expecting gods to follow human concepts like reason and consistency is mistaken on its own, and there are multiple who care about different things, or just one that has no unified or consistent methodology. In which case, trying to understand them would be worse than useless.
But anyone could cloud any idea in contradictory or inconsistent aspects to shield it from logical examination. Not being able to understand something doesn’t affect its potential truth value at all, nor justify believing in it.
Red yawns and leans against the exhibit, surprised at how weary he is after spending so much time in bed lately. Maybe it had something to do with his psychic experience earlier. He wonders if he should tell Leaf about it right away, or wait until Blue’s around too…
The bubbling of the water tanks and the chatter of the museum visitors makes for a soothing background noise, and he rests his forehead against the cool glass of the exhibit, feeling oddly detached from himself. As the dozens of voices buzz around him, Red admires the path of the helix spiral from an inch away, musing over whether the clue to some god lies somewhere in its curves, perhaps one of order and chaos, his gaze following the loops up right down left, up right down left, up right down left…
“Red!”
He turns and sees Leaf jogging toward him with a wide grin. “It’s good to see you up and about! Isn’t this place great? Come on, you’ve
got
to see this new exhibit that’s going up.” She grabs his left arm and begins to pull him past the rest of the aquatic fossils section. “I’ve been talking to the researcher in charge of it, and it looks fascinating, especially since we’ll be passing by Mount Moon soon.”
Red lets her drag him along as his senses return. “What’s it about?”
“Another explanation for the possible origin of life!” She waggles her other hand’s fingers, voice deepening. “
Frooom spaaaace!”
Red grins. “Radiopanspermia? I thought that was proven unlikely: any bacteria that can travel by radiation pressure would be too small to survive in space without protection. Also what does it have to do with paleontology?”
“Not radiopanspermia, lithopanspermia.” They’ve exited the strata tunnel, and Leaf lets go of his hand as they walk together toward the back of the museum, past the artificial indoor dig site and theater room. “The bacteria hitches a ride on or in meteorites.”
“So not
from
space then: from another planet and then
through
space. What bacteria can survive in space? And planetary re-entry?”
“Cyanobacteria have been shown to do the first but not the second, but non-photosynthetic organisms deep within rocks to protect them have a chance to survive the exit and entry process.”
Red’s brow rises. “This has been tested?”
Leaf grins. “That’s what the exhibit is for. Many of the conditions were simulated of course, but it seems possible.”
They reach a doorway with a Coming Attraction banner over it, where a splashy cardboard graphic showing a meteor strike advertises the new exhibit. Red slows down, but Leaf walks around it and through the doorway.
“Uh, Leaf…?”
“Come on back, it’s okay!”
Red follows her, and they emerge in a half finished showroom. Most of the floor is still bare and empty, and the walls are bright with a recent coat of paint. A worker is at the top of a ladder installing some lights, and two more are pulling things out of a Container box while a fourth puts the lid back on his and withdraws it into its ball.
Leaf leads him to the side through another door, and this room is clearly much closer to being done. It looks like a small lab, with a focus on equipment and samples. An older woman is testing an unusually large and wide centrifuge on the far side of the room, her grey hair tied back in a ponytail as she peers through her glasses at the spinning machine. She’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops, and when Leaf and Red approach she looks up with a smile.
“You must be Red.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Dr. Brenner.”
He shakes it, marveling anew at how normal his arm feels. “Red Verres. What’s your field of study, Dr. Brenner?”
“Officially it’s microbiology, but lately I’ve been branching out.” She pats the edge of the centrifuge. “Lately I’ve been studying astrophysics more. It’s fascinating stuff.”
Red nods. Like math, he finds studying physics more pragmatic than fascinating, but that might just be because he’s not as good at it as he’d like to be. “We’re not interrupting anything, are we?”
“Oh, no, not at all, I’m glad for the company.” She shuts off the centrifuge, and they watch it slow to a stop. She takes empty beakers out and puts them aside. “I’m just testing the equipment before the grand opening. Would you like the not-so-grand pre-opening tour?”
“Sure. I know the basics, but I’m curious to know what you’ve got on display here.”
Leaf stays behind to read the info-placard by the centrifuge as Red follows Dr. Brenner around the lab. “Well, there are a number of aspects to lithopanspermia that needed to be verified for the hypothesis to stay viable. First off, microbial life would need to be capable of surviving the stress of planetary ejection, that is, the gravitational pressure of escape velocity.”
“Is that what the centrifuge was for?”
“Exactly. The next is survival in transit: being able to survive the vacuum of space, and the bombardment of radiation.” They approach a table with a vacuum tube on it. “Nonfunctional, of course,” Dr. Brenner says, tapping the glass. “But simulating space to test different bacteria’s resilience has led to some interesting discoveries with extremophiles. And last is atmospheric re-entry.” They move on an empty part of the room. “Which we test with-”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Red says. “This is all really interesting, but if you don’t mind me saying so, even with experimental tests to ensure it’s possible, isn’t it still too speculative to warrant its own exhibit?”
Dr. Brenner laughs, a full, rich sound that makes Red smile despite a stab of irritation. It was a serious question.
When she finishes though, she’s shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I promise. Leaf told me you worked at Oak’s lab, and here I was still treating you like a tourist.” She walks back toward Leaf, and Red follows. “Ah, the clarity of youth. And so polite about it! No, I don’t mind you saying so, especially since I raised the same objection myself. That’s partly why I invited Leaf back here to chat after overhearing her interviewing some of the museum guests.”
Red turns to Leaf. “Interviewing is a strong word,” she says with a smile. “I was just curious to know what they thought of the museum’s exhibits. I’ve been here all day, and saw some very mixed reactions.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there were a few who-”
“Why not read from your review of the museum?” Dr. Brenner says. “It was quite evocative.”
Leaf’s cheeks flush. “That’s nice of you to say, but it’s just a rough draft.”
“You wrote a review?” Red asks, brow raised. “I’d love to hear it.”
She hesitates a moment, then takes a tablet out of her bag and taps a few times on the screen. Leaf clears her throat, then reads, “‘The children were fascinated, wide eyed with wonder as they raced from one exhibit to the next, their energy often too much for the parents that trailed behind. It wasn’t hard to see why: though paleontology is often lumped in with geology as the ‘mere’ study of rocks, Pewter’s Museum of Science clearly spared little expense to bring such a potentially dry field to life’… mmm…. hang on, I went on a bit describing the place… ah, here: ‘the impact of which were most evident on their parents. Some were bemused, others curious or thoughtful. But many looked irritated, shocked, or even angry. It wasn’t long before a pattern emerged: the exhibits that discussed evidence and hypotheses on the origins of life were the most troublesome. When asked about their thoughts on the museum, the responses were fairly similar: an admiration of the production value of the exhibits, but a concern for the accuracy of the subject matter.'”
Leaf pauses, looks up at them, then closes the tablet and tucks it away. “That’s, uh, the main point. It was interesting to see so many people react so strongly to the idea that life originated in the ocean, as if they didn’t expect to see something that challenged their views so much.”
“Is it really that widespread?” Red scratches his hair beneath his hat. “I mean, this isn’t really new knowledge.”
Dr. Brenner smiles. “I think you may have an exaggerated view of just how old and widespread it is. You’re both young: things that were discovered even as little as a decade ago seem like common knowledge, simply because you’ve known of them your whole lives. And you were raised in very educated circles.”
Red frowns. He had a few friends and acquaintances in Pallet Town that weren’t connected to the lab or any scientific field… some were even adults, like his dad’s old friends among the nearby Rangers. But he can’t remember ever really talking to them about things like this. It’s possible, even probable, that his perception of what’s normal is skewed by the company he kept.
“A lot of the people I spoke to were residents of Pewter though,” Leaf says. “Shouldn’t they be a bit less surprised?”
“Ah, well, the museum’s undergone a lot of changes lately. The more we learn the better it refines its exhibits, and the ones that are upsetting people… well, they’re generally newer.” She takes off her glasses and wipes at the lens, frowning down at them.
“Is that why you raised objections?” Leaf asks. “Do you think this one’s going to upset people too?”
Dr. Brenner looks at her in surprise, then smiles and puts her glasses back on, beginning to walk around the lab. They follow her as she starts checking over the various equipment that’s set up. “There were politics involved. I wasn’t always working with the museum, I’m fairly new here, actually, but Pewter has always had a bit of a conflict at its heart when it comes to the science it specializes in and the beliefs of its people.”
Leaf nods. “From what I heard, the main spiritual beliefs of residents hold that the first people came from stone, and that the original beings that survived were mostly rock type creatures.”
“Exactly. Ever since we became capable of reviving extinct species from fossils, many were able to reconcile the new information with those beliefs, and they seemed justified, since every revived pokemon is part rock-type. But we’ve always been unsure if that was just a side effect of the resurrection process. Even if the original creatures might have really been what we manage to create in a lab, others who focus on more than surface facts notice how little the rest of the evidence matches the creation stories.”
“What about the tourists?” Red says.
“Most have their own beliefs, some of which are pretty compatible with the fossil record. But Mayor Kitto and his predecessors, along with the city legislature, always used to put a lot of pressure on the museum board to keep the controversial exhibits from opening.”
Leaf’s brow furrows. “That’s terrible!”
Dr. Brenner grins at her indignation. “Ostensibly it was to ensure the accuracy of the data, and to keep the peace in the city. To be fair, there’s certainly been a lot of complaints in the past year, and it’s been getting worse.”
Red frowns. Public indignation isn’t a justification for suppressing the truth. He supposes he might feel differently if people storm the museum and burn it down, but that seems unlikely. “What changed?” Red asks. “Why did the museum decide to shift course?”
She shrugs. “I wasn’t in the board meetings, heck, I wasn’t even working here at the time. I don’t know what the deciding factor was. But there are always rumors. I’ve heard the mayor’s the one that had a change of heart, told the museum’s board behind closed doors to open whatever new exhibits they wanted.”
“So when you said politics, you meant it literally,” Leaf says. “What does he get out of it?” Red is struck by his friend’s intensity, and he can’t quite place why it feel so familiar until he realizes she reminds him of his mom when chasing down a story.
Dr. Brenner examines a microscope, peering through the lens and adjusting it. The slides nearby are labeled
bacillus subtilis
. A poster on the wall has a grid with columns labelled Low Earth Orbit, Planetary Ejection, Atmospheric Re-entry, and Simulated Conditions, and
bacillus subtilis
has checkmarks across the board. “My best guess?”
“And your second best, if you have one.”
She smiles. “Leader Brock isn’t happy about it. Considering Mayor Kitto isn’t an idiot, I’m assuming that was either the intended result, or an understood cost. I think it’s possible that the real pressure has been from the Gym this whole time, and the mayor is starting to push back.”
Leaf whistles quietly. “Power struggles between mayors and leaders seldom end well.”
“At least the museum gets to show whatever it wants now,” Red says. “Brock has no business telling it what to put on display.” Red tries to imagine someone telling the Pallet Lab what it can and can’t study and fails. He’s suddenly glad he never had to worry about the opinions of a popular but uninformed leader, and hopes Pallet doesn’t get a Gym anytime soon.
“
Leader
Brock,” Dr Brenner says, the slightest of emphasis on the title, “Has always done what he thinks is best for our city. I disagree with his perspective, of course, but as far as I know he hasn’t made any ultimatums or commands. In the end, this exhibit is a sort of compromise.”
“How so?”
“Well, recent excavations of meteorite impact sites in Mount Moon found fossils, not just of pokemon but also microbes. There’s some debate over whether they were actually in the meteorites when they landed, and are therefore extraterrestrial, or if they’re from earth.”
“IIIIInteresting,” Red says, rubbing his jaw. People have thought clefairy and jigglypuff came from space for ages… this evidence would do even more to support that theory. “And if it’s proven that life came from rocks in the sky, that goes a long way toward supporting the idea that Pewter’s spiritual beliefs are at least metaphorically correct after all.”
“Exactly. So is it a bit premature compared to some of the other exhibits here? Sure. But speculative as it is, I plan to focus it on the science we have available, which is sound.”
Leaf smiles. “I’m looking forward to coming back when it’s finished.”
Dr. Brenner’s phone buzzes, and she checks the screen before tucking it away. “Sorry to say, I’ve got a prior engagement to go to.”
Leaf is already heading toward the exit, and Red follows her. “That’s okay, we’ve taken up enough of your time.”
The microbiologist laughs as she sees them out of the exhibit. “Not at all, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Are you leaving Pewter soon?”
Red nods. “We might stay for a few days, maybe a week, depending on how long it takes for our friend Blue to challenge Brock. Afterward we’re going to Cerulean.”
She smiles. “Well, I’ve gotten Leaf’s contact info, and sent her the location of the dig site incase you all decide to drop by and see it. I can give them a heads up: I’m sure they’ll be happy to have you visit.”
Red turns to Leaf, who’s grinning apologetically. “I know Mount Moon isn’t the safest place to travel through, but the dig site is on the outskirts. I thought, if our path takes us that way anyway…”
Red smiles back. “It should be okay, yeah. Blue might not be interested in the dig, but I’m sure he’ll be happy for the chance to catch new pokemon.”
“Thanks again, Dr. Brenner,” Leaf says, turning to her and shaking her hand again.
“You’re quite welcome,” she responds as Red does the same. “Feel free to come back anytime before you go. I’ll be here every night, around the same time.”
They wave and head for the museum’s exit, and Red checks his own phone. Still no messages from Blue. “Hey, have you-”
“No, I assumed he spoke to you. Think he’s still at the Gym?”
“One way to find out.” Red calls, and after about a dozen rings Blue finally picks up.
“Oh, Red! Hey man, sorry I didn’t respond earlier, I was, uh, a little busy.”
“That’s alright, I figured as much. You’re not at the gym, are you?”
“Oh, yeah, I am actually.”
Red checks the time with a frown as they leave the museum and begin to head down the front steps. “You’ve been there all day. Don’t your pokemon need a rest?”
“Well, I haven’t been battling for awhile. I, uh… I’m with Leader Brock.”
Red’s brow rises. “Really? I didn’t think he’d be giving private lessons on your first day there.”
“Well, normally he wouldn’t, but… we kind of fought already.”
Red stops dead, and from the expression on Leaf’s face she can hear Blue through the phone too.
The Pewter Gym’s exterior is the most imposing in all of Kanto, so large it can house half the city’s population in an emergency, with grey stone walls thick enough to withstand a charging rhydon. The walls around the front gateway are carved to resemble an onix rearing above, and walking past its threshold feels like leaving the modernity of the city around it behind.
Once inside, that idea is quickly dispelled. Despite the grey stone of the floor and walls, its doors slide open automatically, and its light installations are strong and unobtrusive, running in thin bars along the sides of the ceiling. Trainers and gym staff walk halls with the smooth gait of people with places to be and things to do, and after a moment Blue’s pace matches theirs.
As he passes the training rooms he can hear the muffled shouts of commands, and his fingers repeatedly brush the cool metal of his pokeballs as he resists the urge to unclip and play with them. Everyone he passes has a full belt of six, and the empty spots on his belt feel crippling. His shiftry is still recuperating at the pokemon center, and while it would be nice to have the fully evolved and powerful Grass type with him, it’s not likely to be obedient anyway.
Blue’s fingers brush the pokeballs to the front of his belt. Doesn’t matter. If he’s half the trainer he thinks he is, his squirtle and shroomish will be all he needs.
To be a Champion that leads the people beyond what they think is possible, he needs to be a trainer that proves the impossible can be done. The quicker he gets his first badge, and the more handicaps he has, the greater his fame will grow.
He walks straight past the auditoriums, past the demonstration rooms, the simulation facilities, and straight to the administrative offices. It’s early enough that there’s almost no one here, and he goes straight to the receptionist at the desk and puts his trainer card on the table.
“Blue Oak, here to challenge Leader Brock for a Pewter Badge.”
The stadium is small, about twice the size of a training room. A few steps beyond the entrance door the stone of the floor stops at the edge of the stadium’s walls, which contain a brownish orange soil littered with rocks and boulders of various sizes. There’s no scoreboard, no stands for a crowd, not even a podium for the trainers to stand on, just a square of slightly elevated land on each side. All in all, barely distinguishable from the kind of room a Trainer House might have.
Even still, Blue can practically feel his blood sing as he steps onto the tiny platform raised just above the field. He tilts his head up, feeling the heat of the overhead lamps on his face. The touch of cool metal beneath his fingers is electric, and the edge of his lips twitch, threatening to split up into a grin at any moment.
This. This is where he belongs.
None of the boulders are tall enough to obstruct his sight across the stadium, and Blue takes note of which rocks might provide good cover or can be climbed for a high ground advantage. His pokemon aren’t trained well enough for him to guide exactly where they go, but if they were… there’s a great mini-plateau for shroomish to rain pollen and seeds down from, and squirtle could use the sloping rock to the side to keep away from enemies-
The door across the room slides open and his opponent steps through. He’s not much to look at: a young man in cargo pants and a tank top, hair buzz-cut short. He watches Blue with a neutral expression, tossing a pokeball between his hands as he steps onto the opposing platform.
“Blue Oak?”
“That’s me.” Blue’s fingers itch to unclip one of his balls and copy the other trainer’s motions with it, or show him up with a finger spin or knuckle roll, the way the old man had. He practiced it daily and almost has it down.
“No badges, right?”
“Yeah.”
The young man nods and rotates one hand to toss his ball out without warning. “Go, Geodude!” He catches the ball when it returns and begins tossing it back and forth again. “One pokemon, first knock out.”
Blue sends out his shroomish, the detached calm descending to stifle his annoyance and excitement. This is just a preliminary check to ensure he’s not a total scrub. He plans on ending it as quickly and cleanly as possible. “Shroomish, Leech Seed.”
“Geodude, Rock Throw.”
Blue’s pokemon contracts its body before launching a trio of seeds across the stadium. The geodude moves in slow, short jerks as its arms push it forward, and one of the sticky seeds lands directly on it and begins to spread its vines.
It doesn’t seem to even notice, simply approaching the nearest rock and lifting it over its head.
“Shroomish, dodge!”
The rock is flung in an arc, easy to avoid. It bounces along the dirt and hits the edge of the stadium with a thud. “Shroomish, Stun Spore!”
“Geodude, return.” The rock pokemon is struck by its trainer’s red beam and withdrawn, leaving the leech seed and its barely grown roots to fall to the ground as the spores descend over them.
Blue frowns at his opponent. “Your pokemon wasn’t knocked out.”
The other trainer is already leaving, ball back at his hip. “The match was over. Your next opponent will be here soon.”
The sound of the closing door cuts off the response that rises to Blue’s lips. He knows gym qualifier matches are meant as tests for competence rather than full battles of skill, but what’s the point of sending someone out with a single pokemon?
Blue calls out “Shroomish, here!” to bring his pokemon back into withdraw range, then returns it to its ball. He wonders how long it would take for someone else to come out, and hops down from his platform onto the stadium. The dirt of the ground is soft under his shoes, and he crouches down to feel it between his fingers. Soon his whole hand is underground, and his brow furrows as he begins to dig. How far down does the stadium floor go?
Soon he’s elbow deep in the dirt. He pulls his arm out and brushes it clean as best he can before shoving the displaced pile of it back in the hole and standing. Would it be cheating to plant some traps for the next trainer? Probably. In a League match he wouldn’t be able to, and a wild encounter wouldn’t give him the opportunity either.
But even if he can’t manipulate the environment to his aid, as long as he knows the lay of the land he’ll have an edge against opponents, whether they’re other trainers or wild pokemon.
Blue begins walking the stadium, kicking into the dirt with the toes of his shoes. Some parts are firmer than others, and eventually he finds a spot that feels like solid stone just beneath the soil. A quick dig confirms it, and he begins to feel outward from the solid portion of the ground, noting that it goes up to the wall of the stadium. Walking around the occasional rock, he taps first in one direction, then the other, then continues on until he reaches a corner and starts a new side. After a minute of this he steps away, counting how many he takes before the ground grows softer again.
About five and a half. Hm. Apparently the trench they dug to fill the stadium with dirt didn’t start at its borders. What can he do with that?
Not a whole lot. The dirt gives digging pokemon a great advantage, while the stone would prevent all but a few rock pokemon from going under. It would also stop plants from growing, and make it harder to hide environmental hazards.
Blue continues testing the ground until the door opens again and another trainer comes through. The girl mounts the platform on her side and gives Blue a quizzical look. “What are you doing?”
“Just stretching my legs.” Blue returns to his own platform and takes out his shroomish’s ball again. “Rules?”
“One pokemon, first knockout.” She sends out a nosepass, the peculiar looking rock pokemon gathering electric charge as it marches rigidly across the arena.
Blue shrugs and sends shroomish out again. Electric shocks won’t hurt him much, and he can use leech seed and absorb to wear her pokemon down in a couple of minutes.
However, as soon as his shroomish has landed a leech seed and began absorbing the nosepass to regenerate the damage from its shocks, the trainer returns it again, barely twenty seconds into the match.
“You win,” she says, and walks out the way she came.
Blue sighs. He expected to run through the trainers until he got as high as he could, but this is ridiculous.
He hops back into the arena and sprays his shroomish with a bit of potion to help heal any residual damage, then resumes exploring the arena. Before long another trainer shows up, and after them another, and another, as he’s tested against a variety of rock pokemon.
Roggenrola, bonsly, larvitar… each is quickly withdrawn once it becomes clear that Shroomish’s spores, seeds and absorption abilities nullify the defense of their tough hides. A trainer with a dwebble gives Shroomish his first challenge, the Rock/Bug pokemon eating the leech seeds and going into its shell to avoid the stun spores, all the while inching closer and closer while Blue tries to direct his pokemon’s waddling retreat.
Once his shroomish gets backed into a corner, Blue’s calm gets tinged with worry, and he switches Shroomish for Squirtle.
If it likes to hide in its shell so much, I’ll drown it in the damn thing.
As soon as the Water type comes out however, the opposing trainer withdraws his pokemon and declares Blue the victor.
Blue rubs some sweat from the back of his neck. It’s a bit frustrating to have the battle called so abruptly, almost like he’s being cheated out of showing what he’s capable of, but for once he’s glad of it. He wants to preserve Squirtle’s water as long as possible, and generally avoid his pokemon getting tired out. It’s been almost two hours since his first battle, and the adrenaline of each fight is starting to tire him out once it wears off.
He brings Shroomish back out to give it the once over. The mushroom pokemon’s edges are drooping, its movements sluggish. Blue opens his bag and takes some food out for it, frowning slightly. Food and potions can only go so far: his shroomish has maybe another few minutes of fight time left before the exhaustion starts to really show.
Its leech seed supply is running low too. He counted eighteen seeds used, out of the roughly thirty the average shroomish stores. He’ll have to get a full count at some point…
The next trainer comes out, and this one Blue recognizes: it’s Jarod, the gym’s Third in command. The trainer is in his late 20s, with spiky orange hair and a thin scar that stands out against his dark skin. It stretches from ear to ear across his cheeks and nose, splitting his face almost evenly across the middle.
Blue stands, brow raised. “Already?”
“Brock said to keep an eye out for you. It’s clear that any more of the same would just be wasting time.” Jarod unclips a greatball as he walks to his platform.
Blue eyes the ball warily as he walks around to his. “Works for me. So what’s the deal? Another quick test?”
Jarod smiles, and casually tosses the ball forward. It spits out a graveler in a flash of light. “First knockout.”
Blue smiles back. Things are finally getting serious. “Leech Seed!”
“Graveler, Rollout.”
A jolt goes up Blue’s spine as the graveler pitches itself forward with its thick legs and arms, dodging the seeds that arc toward it and rolling toward his shroomish. “Shroomish
dodge!”
He yells, and his pokemon thrusts itself haphazardly to the side, luckily in the right direction to barely avoid the oncoming mass of living stone. The graveler rolls past and strikes a boulder close to the edge of the arena, ricocheting off and catching itself on its hands and feet before launching forward again.
Blue doesn’t give it another chance, pokeballs already in hand. “Shroomish, return!”
So that’s the game, is it?
His shroomish can’t dodge forever, and it would be hard for leech seeds or other status impairments to hit the graveler while it was moving like that. Even if one landed, it would take awhile to wear the large pokemon down. With that much weight and strength behind the enemy’s roll, his squishy shroomish couldn’t afford to risk a single hit.
Which means he needs something tougher. “Go, Squirtle!” His pokemon appears on all fours, looking around curiously until it spots the graveler. “Bubble!” he shouts just as Jarod yells “Rollout!”
The turtle sucks in a deep breath, then coughs out a stream of bubbles that float toward the onrushing graveler. “Withdraw!” Blue says, and his pokemon ducks into her shell. The graveler rolls straight into the bubbles just as they begin to lose their forward momentum and drift downward, and upon touching each a loud
bang
is heard, accompanied by a flash of light.
The rock pokemon didn’t achieve much speed yet when it hit the bubbles, and they knock it slightly to the side. Squirtle takes a glancing hit and bounces up against a rock before uncurling from her shell and returning to a ready position.
The graveler also reorients itself, light discolorations on its rocky skin where mist from the bubbles hit. It growls in irritation more than pain, and prepares to launch forward again. Blue quickly yells “Water Gun,” but Jarod says “Defense Curl” and his graveler huddles down on the ground, protecting its face so that only its back is hit. The pokemon’s stone skin turns white and cracks in numerous places from the water, but when its trainer commands it to Rollout again it does so without apparent difficulty, and Blue counters with another Bubble and Withdraw.
Squirtle bounces against two rocks this time before fetching up alongside the edge of the stadium. To his relief she still seems unharmed when she emerges from her shell, and he absently wipes some sweat above his eye as he watches the graveler careen around the other side of the stadium. With its water allergy (
shut up Red, no one cares if it’s “not an ‘actual’ allergy”)
a direct blast to the graveler’s face would be a one-hit-knockout. Until he can get a clear shot, Bubble will at least slow it down with minimal water use… but he doesn’t know how much longer squirtle can avoid a serious injury, and there’s another way he can slow it down too.
Graveler’s not just a Rock type, but also Ground because of its reliance on being in its element… and Squirtle’s water counters that too.
Graveler comes at his pokemon again and again, and each time Blue’s pokemon is knocked around, he keeps a careful eye on its surroundings. Finally the turtle lands in an area near the middle mostly devoid of rocks, and the Graveler prepares itself to rollout again.
“Squirtle, Soak!”
His pokemon hesitates a moment, not having a target in front of it, then belches a brief flood of water onto the ground, drenching the soil in a spreading circle. The graveler launches itself forward just as Jarod yells “Graveller, stop!”
The boulder pokemon tries to halt itself, too late. Its momentum carries it forward another few revolutions, just enough to get it well and truly stuck in the patch of mud, its weight too much for its stubby arms and legs to pull itself out. Blue was prepared to command his squirtle to withdraw in case it made it through, but he’ll never get a cleaner shot than now. “Squirtle, Water G-!”
The graveler is caught in a beam of light and disappears back into its ball. Jarod bounces it in his palm with a thoughtful look on his face. “Took you longer than I expected to think of that.”
Blue scowls as he withdraws his squirtle. “I waited for a good position.”
“The starting position was perfect for it.”
He’s right. Squirtle began the fight in a part of the arena similar to where it ended. “I was taken by surprise at first.”
“Right. Which is why I said you took longer than I expected.”
Blue feels heat brush through his chest, and takes a moment to keep his voice calm. “Well you were a bit slow on your reaction, for someone that saw it coming.”
“Not really. My pokemon began moving just as you did it, so my command wouldn’t have stopped it in time anyway.” Jarod’s voice is mild, his gaze locked on Blue’s from across the arena. “So you didn’t time it that way on purpose? Lucky you.”
“Lucky?” Blue’s laugh is sharp. “If that’s what you want to call your screw up. If you didn’t slow your pokemon down it might have made it through. The mud would have stuck to it, hurt it plenty, but you good as killed it.”
“That looked like your idea actually, if I hadn’t returned it in time.”
“You said to first knock out! I didn’t know you considered the fight over!”
“It should have been obvious that the fight was over. But I guess I’m forgetting you’re still a novice.”
“Oh that’s crap! One more Water Gun wouldn’t have killed your graveler, and the damn thing would have crushed my shroomish like a Bug type if it hadn’t dodged in ti-
you think that’s funny?”
Jarod’s laughter stops, but he’s still grinning, face transformed from its earlier calm. Blue can feel his pulse in his temples, and takes long, deep breaths as his rage burns through him.
“If you want to train under Brock,” Jarod says conversationally, “You need to develop thicker skin.”
“And you need to learn how to accept a loss,” Blue spits back. “How did someone like you make Third?” Even as he’s saying it, the realization strikes that Jarod’s been baiting him, and it only makes him madder.
Jarod cocks his head, still smiling. “You think you’re a better trainer than me?”
“I
know
I am, or I wouldn’t be here. Is this the part where you pull out your real pokemon and make it fight my squirtle?”
“Would you accept such a challenge?” Jarod asks, sounding genuinely curious.
You bet I would
almost makes it past his lips, but he bites them to stop it. The Third’s personal pokemon would crush him. He knows that, and he can’t put his pokemon in such a risk just for his pride. “Give me a month, and I’ll take you up on that.”
“A month,” Jarod says, voice flat. “That’s not even enough time for your squirtle to evolve.”
Probably not, but it might be enough to train his shiftry… “Is that a no?”
Jarod stares at him for a moment, and then cracks a smile. “Sure, why not. One pokemon, first knockout.”
Blue’s grin is savage. “You’re on.”
Jarod tips a salute and turns for the door.
Blue lets out a breath and wonders how long he has until the next trainer comes out. He summons Squirtle and takes out his water bottle, letting her drink it all down as he sprays her with the rest of his potion. Her battle wasn’t long, but it was hard on her, leaving visible scratches on her shell and her skin dry. He picks her up and takes her down to the mud she made, letting her play around in it for awhile to soak back up some of the water she lost. He grins as she burrows slightly underneath and pokes her head out to look up at him.
For the first time since starting, he considers taking his pokemon to a center to heal up and rest. He could do it… it wouldn’t cost him any progress from his earlier victories. But it would cost him time, since he can’t be sure when the next trainers up in the ranks will be ready for him. It might not be until tomorrow. It might not be until even later.
The quicker he gets his badge, the more his legend will grow. No way is he going to call it quits after his first actual match of any challenge.
Blue summons Shroomish so both pokemon can catch a breather in meatspace. He sits down and rests his hand on his shroomish’s dome as it dozes. Squirtle crawls over his legs and gets mud all over his pants, and he takes out some seaweed crisps to feed her.
He wonders how Red and Leaf are doing. He pulls out his phone and sees a text from Red from about an hour ago. His fingers hover over the screen to respond, then withdraw as he puts the phone away. The mood is too relaxing to break with a chat right now. He closes his eyes and leans his head back as his squirtle curls up next to him.
Sometime later, the door opens again. He gets to his feet and withdraws his pokemon, then sucks in a sharp breath.
Sharzad, Second Leader of the Pewter Gym, is mounting her platform. She smiles down at him, one hand resting on a ball at her hip.
“Expecting someone else?”
“Sort of.” He thought he’d passed some marker, gone on to the next level of Gym members. Instead he’s facing the Second now? Does that mean… “If I beat you, is Brock next?”
She grins. “Depends on how you beat me. This hasn’t been a binary evaluation, even from the start.”
Blue nods slowly. He knows every gym operates a bit differently in how they organize their internal structure and deal with challenges. There’s also talk that each Gym Leader looks for different qualities in trainers… things that they believe are most important to being a master.
It’s not hard to guess what Brock, master of Rock pokemon, might think is the best quality. Something that revolves around his favored type’s strengths. You need to be patient when you run a defensive strategy.
Is that why he’s been rising up the ranks so quickly? Is he showing strong patience? It’s not a quality he’d normally assign to himself, but maybe it’s true for pokemon battles. He was using a slow and steady strategy after all. And they definitely have the room recorded: maybe he was being watched between matches, to see if he’d grow restless or not use his time well.
Blue smiles as he mounts his platform. Patience. Yeah, he has that when he needs it. A true pokemon master and Champion needs every positive trait, and it’s good to have acknowledgement of his potential so soon.
“Ready?” Sharzad asks, shaking her long dark hair back and slipping a band around it.
“Single knockout again?”
“Nope. Full lineup.”
Blue’s fingers tap Squirtle’s ball at his hip. In this kind of battle, only having three pokemon is a huge handicap… but he only sees one at her hip. “Alright.”
She unclips her ball and tosses it. “Go, Tala!”
A flash of light, and Blue’s heart sinks as a cradily appears. One of the resurrected ancient pokemon, the rock skinned plant pokemon is the perfect counter to his team. He knew Sharzad favors its family, but he didn’t think she’d use one against him. The Rock/Grass type would have an equal defensive advantage against all three of his pokemon, but still have an advantage offensively against Squirtle with its Grass attacks, and could knock Zephyr out of the sky with rocks. That leaves Shroomish, but the cradily would be immune or counteract the mushroom’s spores and seeds, and without those he has no edge. Meanwhile the cradily can produce acids and toxins that Shroomish can’t risk being exposed to.
He’s so screwed.
And yet instead of feeling angry or frustrated…. he feels the calm of the battle cloaking him again. This is just another step. Just another challenge on the way to Champion, and no one,
no one,
is as deserving of that title as he is.
He can win this. Winning is what he does.
Cradily’s weakness is its immobility. Its suction cups can attach to almost any surface, but they’re currently sticking it in place on the arena floor, where it’s also spreading down roots to feed through. The rocks around it are a dangerous resource at its disposal, but they’re still a resource. Blue can assault it like a fortress, attack it from below and above after starving it out.
“Ready whenever you are!” Sharzad calls out gaily, and Blue’s hand unclips and flings out a ball in one fluid motion.
“Go, Shroomish!”
His pokemon appears, and Pewter’s Second doesn’t waste a second. “Tala, Rock Slide!”
Vines thick as Blue’s leg punch into the dirt and begin to heave. The ground of the arena shifts as it rakes up and flings a dozen small boulders.
“Shroomish, dodge!” They spray the field in an arc of noisy collisions, and his pokemon barely gets out of the way on time. “Shroomish, Leech Seed!”
The seeds are shot out, and Sharzad’s pokemon ignores them, acids on its flower petals quickly overcoming the seeds and killing them before they can grow. As predicted.
Unlike the dwebble though, the cradily doesn’t recognize the seeds that failed to wrap around it as food, and those that survive drop to the ground and begin to take root. The soil is too dry and lifeless for them to grow much, but some pale green vines creep out.
“Rock Slide!”
“Dodge! Leech Seed!”
“Rock Slide!”
“Leech Seed!”
Patience. That’s the key to fighting the strength of the earth itself. You’ve got to have patience. Thankfully, plants and water also have patience: patience enough for their roots to split stones, for their waves to wear them smooth over thousands of years.
“Rock Slide!” Sharzad yells, and this time one of the rocks hit his shroomish and knocks it back.
Blue watches, heart in his throat, as his pokemon slowly gets back to its feet. It seems to walk alright (though it’s hard to tell with its waddling gait), and Blue and Sharzad exchange a look, then a nod. Injured, but still good to fight.
Still, the idea that her pokemon is gathering more ammunition below the surface, and maybe even began before their match officially started, makes this plan much more risky. How far can it reach, exactly?
Blue feels worry thread through his shoulders and brow in rigid lines as he considers the possibilities. If he can’t cut it off… but the battle calm won’t allow for second guessing his plan at this point. It’s the only chance he has, the only path to victory. He has to see it through.
“Shroomish, Leech Seed!”
“Tala, Rock Slide!”
This one hits again, and sooner than he’d like, he has to withdraw his pokemon. The dirt around the cradily is carpeted with growing, interwoven vines, but he could have gotten a few more seeds off before running out… “Go, Squirtle!”
“Tala, Rock Slide!”
“Squirtle, Withdraw!”
His pokemon hides in her shell as the rocks hit, then emerges. There are new scrapes on her shell, but she seems unhurt. Blue grins. “Good girl!”
Sharzad crosses her arms over her torso, eyebrows raised. “A Water type? I’ve been curious about your plan, and I can’t wait to see where you’re going with this. Tala, Rock Slide!”
“Squirtle, Withdraw!” Fortunate for him, the ancient pokemon doesn’t produce Leech Seeds, and the rest of its Grass attacks are close range. Unfortunate for him, Blue needs to get close to use Soak, his most effective way to spread water. He’ll have to do what he can at a distance.
“Squirtle, Water Gun!”
The burst of water hits the cradily with no apparent effect, its rocky portions not affected the same way other Rock pokemon are. It might even be benefiting from the water, drinking it in, but that’s fine: what he cares about is the water that hits the ground by it, quickly getting soaked up by the ever growing vines of Shroomish’s leech seeds.
“What’s this? Trying to raise a dangerous garden around her?”
Blue doesn’t ask how she knows her pokemon’s gender, focusing instead on Squirtle’s timing to withdraw or try and dodge the next few oncoming attacks.
Soon an almost solid green carpet is spread around the cradily, though none are touching it: every time its vines try to curl around the pokemon’s trunk, it releases an acidic sheen to kill them off. Blue doesn’t command Squirtle to keep attacking: it’s time to focus on the defensive.
Sweat plasters Blue’s shirt to his skin, his eyes unblinking on the arena as he watches for every little twitch the enemy pokemon makes that might betray another attack. Sharzad has largely stopped commanding her pokemon, and it continues to occasionally fling or roll or tumble rocks at his squirtle. The arena is looking almost completely different now, with a wide spread of rocks in various sizes against the wall and in an arc from the cradily.
And finally, it happens: a hesitation. A pause, as Blue’s pokemon stands ready and defiant despite being hit twice more, and the plant pokemon stares back, vines still stretched below the much overturned and pilfered through soil.
“Tala, Energy Ball!”
Now.
“Squirtle, return! Go, Zephyr!”
His pidgey soars through the air with chirps of joy as cradily begins gathering motes of green light. The Energy Ball floats forward, a green mass of light that almost seems to swarm within itself. It peters out and dissolves into little bits the farther it goes, and eventually fades away long before it reaches his pidgey. When Zephyr spots the pokemon that’s facing its trainer, it soars down to perch on his shoulder. Blue smiles and strokes its feathers. It was good to see him flying. After his battle with the shiftry, Blue worried that he never would again.
Blue raises the whistle to his lips and points forward with his other hand. “Zephyr, Wing Attack!”
His pokemon launches itself with a flap of wings that cools his skin. It soars at the enemy with a battle cry, buffeting and slashing at its exposed plant parts.
“Tala, Smack Down!”
Her pokemon tries, its vines writhing beneath the ground as best it can with all the leech seed clogging and guarding the easy paths down. Or maybe it’s just simply out of rocks, as he hoped.
“Tala, Acid!”
One short blast on his whistle, and his pokemon dodges up.
“Tala, Mega Drain!”
Two short blasts to back off. Zephyr is able to harass and attack Sharzad’s pokemon almost without fear, dodging or gaining altitude to avoid whatever attacks do come his way. Meanwhile the cradily is getting badly torn up, and all the leech vines spread around it are cutting off its ability to draw more nutrients from the ground to heal itself.
It’s done.
Victory is a heady rush, and Blue grins as Zephyr dives in and tears off another of the cradily’s long pink tentacle-petals, leaving it with one left. A moment later Sharzad withdraws her pokemon with a crooked smile. “Good match.”
Blue withdraws his pidgey, then feels like collapsing back down from relief, unaware of how much tension he was holding in. Instead he takes a deep breath and smiles back. “You too. So, did I pass?”
“Faced with a major type and experience disadvantage, you managed to restrict and starve out my pokemon’s attacks before launching an effective counter strike. I’d say that’s a yes.”
Blue grins and clips his ball. “Should I wait here for him?”
She laughs. “What are you, nuts? You’re not fighting Brock in a dingy place like this. Besides, the area’s a mess.” She’s not wrong: the tossed rocks, the mud pile, the interwoven mat of leech seeds… “And you shouldn’t be fighting him at all without resting up and doing some training, but if you insist, I’ll show you the waiting room for the main stadium. In the meanwhile, it’s time for you to get your pokemon healed. It’s impressive that you did all this in one go, but I don’t want you losing to Brock at anything but your best.”
The words
main stadium
are still ringing in his head, and he follows her out the door. “To be honest I kind of expected another test of some kind. Like, sitting there for an hour straight until he was available.”
Sharzad tosses her hair over a shoulder to give him an odd look. “Why would we do that?”
“You know, to test my patience. I guess I demonstrated it enough though, huh?” She’s staring blankly at him. “The trait Gym Leaders value? It’s patience for Brock, isn’t it? That’s why you guys let me challenge you so quickly?”
The gym’s Second laughs, the sound bouncing off its stone corridors. “Oh, no, that’s not Brock’s virtue at all. We didn’t even consider that when reviewing your matches.”
Blue feels heat rising in his cheeks. “But… then what-”
“It’s kind of the opposite, in fact. Patience on its own can be useful, but too much is a bad thing. As Rock trainers, we know that giving our opponents too much time will let them circumvent our defenses.” She gives him a lopsided grin. “Someone with
patience
would probably have more pokemon before challenging a Gym Leader.”
Blue’s flush spreads, and he fights down the urge to argue how patient he was being. She doesn’t understand what he’s trying to accomplish. Besides, whatever this other trait is he clearly has that. “So what
does
Brock value?”
“Knowing when to strike decisively. Knowing when to take a risk, rather than waiting forever and playing it safe. If you’re always waiting for the perfect moment… sometimes, that can cost you everything.” Sharzad’s gaze is distant, tone soft, and Blue gets the feeling she’s thinking about something more personal than pokemon battles. “Sometimes the strongest play you can make is the one with the highest risk. And a true master knows when those situations are, and commits to them mind, body and soul.”
Hours after his qualification matches, Blue looks out over the Leader Stadium, a vast underground room. He stands just inside the challenger’s entrance, at the midpoint of one of the rectangular room’s incredibly long walls. Watching the Challenge matches on TV, Blue often thought the Pewter gym was too boring. Misty’s water sports, Surge’s electric fields, Erika’s living arena, which he saw in person once as a spectator… they all make it clear that something fantastic is happening, something that will help forge legends and shape fates. Sure, Brock’s arena is bigger than theirs, but all that space has nothing to catch the eye. From the other side of a screen, the battles might as well be happening in some big warehouse.
But standing in it himself, Blue has a new appreciation for the impact of size. “Big” doesn’t cover it. The room is goddamn
enormous
.
He can practically feel the vastness of the arena in the quality of the air. It seems to be as large as the entire building above it, and effectively triples the building’s carrying capacity in the event of an emergency. The stands easily look fifty rows deep and are elevated most of the way up the walls. From this distance the people on them are small as his fingernail, and he realizes that from their vantage point he probably looks even smaller in contrast to all the space before him.
He was wrong about Pewter Gym. More than any spectacle could, its stark and massive arena makes it clear: this is something important. This is a place destiny is decided.
Time to kick off his.
“Challenger, Blue Oak. First badge.”
The speakers are loud enough to easily cut through the chatter of the spectators. Before the echo begins to fade, Blue is already striding out toward the challenger’s platform as the distant applause ripple through the room. Back straight, arms casually at his sides. The stands only seem about a quarter full from Blue’s vantage point. Not a bad draw on such relatively short notice: the fact that he’s an Oak probably did a lot to help attract people. He can feel his hands trembling with excitement. Thankfully the wide screens stationed along the upper walls don’t show it. He’ll be steady once the match starts and his attention focuses on the battle. He hopes.
The dozen steps up to his platform feel steeper than they are, and once he’s above its walls and on the platform, he moves to the railing. The size of the arena from this angle makes him suck in a breath. The field stretches out below and to either side of him, at least ten times the size of the one he fought in before, like a segment of the mountain was cut out and placed under the gym. Just imagining Aeosis fighting here, weaving between the boulders and diving beneath the ground to come up beneath his pokemon, makes him break out in a cold sweat.
Thankfully, he won’t have to worry about facing that monster. He pities any trainer that saves Pewter for their last badge. Whatever Brock ends up choosing for Blue can’t be worse than the supposed demigod of Mt. Moon.
Blue refrains from wiping the back of his neck, acutely aware of the cameras trained on him. He keeps his face carefully placid, not blank and empty, but alert and at ease. Crafting his image is important, and that image has to be of someone in control of themselves.
Grinning like a madman might give a bad impression.
“Leader Brock, of Pewter City, 138th Indigo League Champion, Trainer of Aeosis, The Mountain’s Might!”
This time the applause are much louder. Brock is hard to make out in the distance, but the screens show him walking toward his platform in his usual orange and dark-khaki shirt and cargo pants. Like his gym, Brock often clothes himself in the functional rather than flashy. It makes the Gym Leader look far less imposing than the reinforced leather he wore in the forest, which he needed to safely ride Aeosis.
As Brock gets close enough to mount his platform, Blue can just recognize him with the naked eye. Brock attaches an earpiece and mic to his ear, and Blue takes out the one he was given and does the same. After a moment the earpiece comes to life, and he hears Brock’s voice in it. “Hello again, Mr. Oak. Left toggle is to talk to me, right is to use the stadium speakers. Test your mic by responding to me, then announce your challenge after I address you, and then we’ll begin.”
Blue feels along the edge of his earpiece and toggles it to the left. “Okay, ready.”
Brock’s voice booms around the stadium. “Citizens of Pewter, gym members, guests from afar, welcome. Today another has come to test his mettle in our forge. Though still in his first week as a trainer, he has shown the will and skill to attempt a place among us as equals. Blue Oak, Pewter Gym honors your request. State the nature of your Challenge.”
Membership, Mastery, or Leadership. After a trainer fights their way to the top of a Gym, those are the options for formal Challenge. Each is more difficult than the last, and dictates what pokemon and techniques Brock will use.
Blue toggles his mic’s switch to the right. “I challenge Pewter Gym for Mastery.”
“Pewter Gym accepts. Incapacitate or force me to withdraw my pokemon, and you will bear our badge. Prepare for battle!”
The platforms hum to life and detach from the stairs leading up to them. Blue looks to his right and left, where the edge of the arena’s railing goes through the bottom of his platform to help it move. He doesn’t expect the match to require much movement, but he widens his step and braces his legs just in case.
“Go, geodude!”
Blue sees the flash, and the wide arena, the huge stadium, the crowds, it all falls away as his world narrows down to the pokemon on the other side of the arena.
He doesn’t even feel insulted at Brock’s choice of a lowly geodude after he already defeated Jarod’s graveler. A pokemon in one trainer’s hands can for all intents and purposes be a completely different one in another’s.
Unfortunately his plans are now derailed. He thought up strategies to use for a number of pokemon Brock might open with, even checking the history of earlier Challenges to get an idea for what might come, but Leaders are notorious for rarely repeating strategies.
Best to play it safe and assume this one won’t be as easy to beat as the last.
“Go, Gon!”
Blue’s freshly named shroomish appears on the field, and he catches the pokeball as it jumps back up toward him. As this would be his first public match, he took the time to rename the rest of his pokemon beforehand. The mushroom waddles about, too far from the geodude to spot the threat. “Gon, battle!” His pokemon goes still, then faces outward from Blue. If Brock favors decisive actions at the opportune moment, rushing into the battle would be the worst thing Blue could do. Or would it be the best one?
“We begin the match at a distance, as often occurs in the wild.” Brock’s voice holds everyone’s attention even as their eyes are locked on the pokemon, waiting for the first move. “The challenger makes an intelligent choice of pokemon for type advantage, but more important is his wisdom to remain cautious.”
Brock puts one hand out, metal claws covering the tips of his fingers. As the stadium holds its breath, Brock taps a pattern on the metal railing in front of him, another microphone stationed close to ensure the sound is spread.
His pokemon immediately begins to pick at itself, fingers chipping off bits of rocky hide. It grabs a rock from the ground and grinds the pieces against it, then tosses the rock toward Gon before repeating the process with a new one. The stones don’t travel far before arcing down, but they never touch the ground, instead hovering above it and gently floating outward at slightly different heights and speeds.
“Stealth Rock, an environmental hazard that will punish indecisiveness by bombarding new targets with stones. With his Grass pokemon’s status effects, the Challenger could outlast us easily by alternating pokemon. We must make it harder for him to win a waiting game.”
As Brock narrates to the audience, about half of whom are taking notes, Blue racks his brain for what potential traps besides the apparent and obvious one he might walk into if he tries to go on the offensive. He can keep a respectable distance while using leech seeds or powders, but geodude’s rock throws outrange them.
Blue’s fingers twitch. He’s already been outplayed. He just thought to use shroomish’s stun spore and risk sending Zephyr out for a quick gust to send it toward the geodude, but the floating rocks would knock him out of the sky the moment he got close. Was that intentional? Did Brock confer with his subordinates before the match?
Doesn’t matter. Focus on victory and find the path to it.
There are almost a dozen rocks out now, each spinning lazily above the ground in a half circle between their pokemon and in different directions from other. Gon can take a hit from them much better than Zephyr could. As long as he can get a leech seed onto the geodude the stealth rocks won’t matter as much, but even that might take too long. In which case his best bet is to end it quickly…
“Gon, Absorb!”
His pokemon waddles toward the floating stones. As soon as he gets close to one, it begins to gravitate toward him, faster and faster until it smacks into the shroomish and knocks him to the side.
The other nearby stealth rocks, which had begun to float toward Gon, immediately slow and begin floating in other directions, repelled by the one near him. Blue watches his pokemon get to his feet, injured but still okay, and lets out a breath. The rocks don’t move quick enough and aren’t big enough to do much damage to pokemon that aren’t weak to rocks in the first place. Gon begins to run forward again, now inside the stealth rock field.
Brock taps another command onto the railing, and his geodude moves quickly as Gon closes the distance between them, pulling up and tossing a stone as big as its fist. It hits Gon square in the face, and Blue’s pokemon tumbles backward.
As he feared, this geodude is much better trained than the one he fought before. If he gets close enough for Absorb, it might knock his pokemon out with a tackle before his pokemon can restore itself.
“Gon, Leech Seed!”
“Geodude, Dig!”
Murmurs ripple throughout the stadium as Brock’s pokemon begins rapidly tunneling under the ground. Blue watches the seeds arc through the air with his heart in his throat, but they land too late on the upturned soil where the geodude disappeared.
“Our biggest weakness as Rock trainers is our speed.” Brock’s voice fills the stadium again, immediately silencing the crowd. “Our pokemon rely on their tough hides to protect them, but when they face their weaknesses they cannot afford to take every hit. Whether by training or TM, ensure your pokemon have an escape tool for emergencies.”
Blue feels his lips threatening to stretch into a smile, and wipes the sweat from his neck again. He’s losing, and badly, but all he feels is exhilarated. This is the kind of challenge he was looking for. And he can still see a path.
“Gon, ready!” His pokemon goes still as it prepares for his next command.
“What will you do now, Blue? It doesn’t look as though your pokemon can take much more. Will you try someone else?”
Blue’s head snaps up as he’s addressed directly. Leader Brock stands with his arms crossed, patiently waiting for Blue’s next move. Graciously giving him the opportunity to withdraw his pokemon.
Blue switches his mic to the private channel too. “I was considering it, but honestly? I’m thinking maybe my shroomish can take one more hit. Funny thing about that last command, it was verbal. How do you plan on bringing your geodude back up while standing all the way up on the platform?”
Blue can see Brock’s smile on the screens above, and switches his mic back to open broadcast. The audience begins to murmur, no doubt wondering what he and the Gym Leader said. The more experienced among them have probably realized already and are explaining to their neighbors: once underground, Brock can’t send any more commands to his pokemon from on his platform. Geodude will default to the behavior of a wild pokemon, and only be able to detect Blue’s shroomish if he moves.
Which means all Blue has to do is wait. If Gon were older he would be able to use Growth, temporarily boosting the effects of his attacks, but if Blue is quick enough they won’t need it.
Time ticks by, and the crowd grows restless as they watch the motionless shroomish and trainers. The floating stones continue to rotate lazily midair, but some of them have begun to lower. Blue tracks the one closest to the ground, pulse speeding up as he feels the decisive point of the match approaching.
Almost… almost…
It touches down, and a few seconds later geodude’s fist bursts out of the ground beneath it with a
CRACK
that sends it flying.
“Shroomish, Stun Spore!” Blue yells as the geodude pulls itself above the surface, and whatever Brock taps out against the railing is too late: the spores fall over the geodude, and its movements slow to a jerky halt.
“Gon, Absorb!”
“Geodude, return!”
Applause fill the stadium as Brock’s pokemon is recalled in a beam of light. Blue quickly smooths his face of any irritation, and smiles as the cameras shift to him. League rules are clear that trainers should withdraw their pokemon in a competitive battle the moment they believe theirs has lost, as well as refrain from attacking when it’s clear they’ve won. Still, he would have liked to get the Absorb off to heal Gon up before the geodude was withdrawn.
“Well done, challenger! You have once again demonstrated the trait our gym most prizes.”
“Thank you, Leader. I learned the value of decisive action while fighting the Viridian Forest fire, and from our meeting there I knew I had more to learn. Your members proved apt teachers throughout the day.”
Blue can hear the murmur of the crowd’s distant conversations again, and his smile widens briefly. He hoped before the match for a natural circumstance to speak to the crowd, and Brock gave him the perfect opening. In the space of seconds he established that he was in Viridian helping fight the fire and that he met Brock there. He would let the listeners fill in the details themselves: if the scene they envision is Blue Oak and their Gym Leader fighting side by side against the blaze, all the better. And a final, casual mention that this was his first day stepping into the gym, for those that don’t already know it.
As for the idea that Blue was exhibiting “decisiveness,” he’s starting to have his doubts. It really feels more like patience to him. He could ask Brock the difference after he wins, but that would probably ruin the moment, not to mention make him look like an idiot.
Brock unclips another ball from his belt. A heavyball. “Then let’s put your understanding to the final test. Defeat this pokemon, and Pewter’s badge will be yours. Go, Onix!”
Blue nearly has a heart attack in the time between the crowd’s shout of excitement and his mind to catch up with what he heard: “onix,” not Aeosis. Of course. That would be ridiculous. And yet some part of him is absurdly disappointed.
The onix is an adolescent, only about six meters long. Its rocky skin is a light grey, and its horn hasn’t finished forming. None of which really matters. Brock is widely acknowledged to be the greatest onix trainer in the world. This onix doesn’t have to be Aeosis to be a threat.
Thankfully it’s one of the pokemon he was prepared for, as unlikely as it seemed. As the onix looks around at its surroundings and goes still upon seeing Blue’s shroomish, Brock opens his mouth to say something else to the audience, but Blue cuts him off. “Gon, Leech Seed!”
His bruised and battered shroomish responds immediately, and the seeds arc up and land in various spots along the onix’s segmented body. “Gon, S-!”
“Onix, Ta-
“-tun S-”
“-ckle!”
“-pore!”
Blue and Brock’s commands blend together uselessly, but the Gym Leader immediately follows his with taps from his fingers, and his onix dives forward. The tip of its snout hits Gon and sends the shroomish flying backward.
Blue already has his pokeball in hand and aimed out, tracking his pokemon through the air in a state of icy detachment. “Gon, return!” The beam flashes out and intercepts his shroomish, sucking it back into the ball.
The stadium is still and quiet for a moment, and then applause echo from every corner. Blue lowers his pokeball and stares at it a moment, then takes out his pokedex and aligns the lenses.
Something eases in his chest when it confirms that his shroomish is still alive, and he puts his dex away with a sigh. That was close. He got greedy, trying to grab an advantage even with an injured pokemon.
“Is your pokemon alright?” asks Brock in his ear.
“Yeah,” he says back. “That was irresponsible of me.”
“I train my Challenger pokemon to pull their punches, but your shroomish could easily have been crushed.”
Blue feels a flush rise in his neck. He already admitted his mistake. “I’ll be more careful.”
“I was apologizing: each of us reacted instinctually. Let’s both try to do better.” Brock switches back to public broadcasting just as the crowd is beginning to quiet down. “An excellent save by the challenger! Never forget to train yourself as well as your pokemon: both your lives will often depend on your reflexes and coordination.”
Blue tunes out Brock’s words and focuses on his options during the brief respite. The leech seeds are planted, which means he just needs to buy time. He can send Zephyr out, but a single hit by a rock would knock it down, and if this onix is anywhere near as accurate as the geodude was, that won’t take long. Blue already got lucky once: to gamble on Zephyr surviving a Rock Throw would be beyond reckless.
Which means he has one choice left. “Go, Maturin!”
His squirtle appears on the battlefield. It doesn’t take long for her to spot the massive onix facing her and drop onto all fours, head thrust belligerently outward. “Maturin, Bubble!”
His squirtle dashes forward to get in range while Brock taps out his own command. Brock’s onix uncoils itself and lunges at a diagonal, and Maturin shifts her rear feet to turn with the massive rocksnake as it weaves in and out of the rocks on the battlefield.
Maturin sends out a series of bubbles just as the onix swerves again. The bubbles hit the onix’s side and pop explosively, their water raising a cracked, white welt at each spot along its rocky hide. The onix flinches and slows in its rush, and rears back.
A roar of pain reveals a maw massive enough to fit Maturin between its rock jaws, and Maturin recoils, ending its attack. Before Blue can give another command, the onix puts on a burst of speed, lunging around to the left of Blue’s squirtle before cutting sharply to the right.
“Maturin, Withdraw!” Blue yells as his pokemon is lost to view. On the monitors above he sees his pokemon from an overhead angle as she tucks herself into her shell just before the onix wraps itself around her and constricts.
The arena is so quiet Blue can hear his heartbeats under the low grinding of the onix’s tightening coils. “Another strong play,” Brock says over the speakers. “The challenger’s chosen a pokemon with both a type advantage and a strong defense. In combination with the leech seeds, it could potentially whittle down our onix. The question, then, is simple: how long can it hold out?”
Blue watches the leech seeds stuck to the onix’s skin stretch their roots out bit by bit, green tendrils slowly spreading over the light grey stone. Too slowly. A squirtle’s shell can withstand hundreds of pounds of pressure, but even an adolescent onix can exert more than that. Blue almost pulls out his pokedex to check the exact numbers, but he knows it wouldn’t matter. The leech seeds won’t bring the onix down quick enough. He needs more time.
Blue’s hand twitches toward his belt, then stops. The onix’s body is blocking his line of sight: the pokeball’s beam wouldn’t be able to reach his squirtle. Even if he could return Maturin, Zephyr won’t last long anyway.
Did he lose, just like that? No, there has to be a way…
“Do you yield, trainer?” Brock’s voice holds no reproach, but Blue imagines the judgement of those watching. How long is he willing to let his pokemon suffer? How much is he willing to risk its life, just to win?
But he
has
to win. There’s got to be something, some way out…
The worst part is that he can’t even give her new commands: all of her attacks require at least poking her head out of her shell, and she was standing horizontally on all fours when she withdrew. He can see on the monitor that her limb and head openings are right up against the onix. The first thing he has to do is fix that. “Maturin, Rapid Spin!”
For a moment Blue wonders if she heard him through all that stone, but then her shell begins to turn. After a moment he sees her stubby legs and arms clawing and scrambling at the onix’s stone hide, gripping the rough sides of each boulder to turn and twist around and around until she’s sticking up vertically. “Maturin, Water Gun!” Blue shouts as Brock taps out another command.
The onix bobs its head to the side as she sticks her head out and spurts water at its face. Blotches of white spread along its skin where some of the water falls, and it responds by roaring again and squeezing tighter. Maturin is forced to withdraw completely to avoid her extremities getting crushed, and the onix seems more angry than hurt. None of the water hit where the leech seeds are.
The grinding of the onix’s boulders rubbing against each other seems to fill the arena, and Blue can see his pokemon’s shell getting squeezed tighter and tighter. As his options fall away one by one, he feels his battle calm crack and fall apart. He tries desperately to call it back, to sink deeper into the objective clarity it provides, but every second that passes makes him feel more and more like he’s back in Viridian, with the shiftry dispatching his pokemon and rushing at him through the mist… his mind fills with that panicked desire to slow time down, stop it for just a moment-
“Trainer. Do you yield?”
This last said privately in his earpiece. Brock is being gracious in victory, and all it does is awaken Blue’s anger. He wants to yell out for Maturin to water gun again, hope that his pokemon can miraculously pull it off and force the onix to release her…
No.
That was the first thing, the very first rule he recognized about what separates the good trainers he watched from the bad ones. Good trainers don’t just give commands and hope for the best. Both might seem like they ask the impossible of their pokemon, but the winners are the ones that always have a plan, some path to victory.
And somewhere in this fight, Blue lost his.
“I yield.”
Blue closes the call with Red after telling him about the match and agreeing to meet him and Leaf at the nearby Trainer House soon. He’s sitting on a couch in what looks like a staff common room, which he has all to himself as he waits for Brock to show up from wherever he is. The TV is on some local news channel with the sound off, and Blue stares past it unseeing.
The last thirty minutes were a bit of a blur. After Blue was defeated and their pokemon recalled, he stood on his platform and listened to the spectators’ applause and the Gym Leader’s final lessons from the match. Then Brock told him privately to follow the attendant back at the entrance, who led him to this room and told him to make himself comfortable. There’s a table laden with snacks and beverages, but they hold no appeal for Blue. All he wanted to do since withdrawing Maturin was leave, but he smiled and nodded as if he didn’t feel hollow inside.
Giovanni. Lance. Cynthia. His idols, the youngest trainers to become regional Champions in history, were all undefeated in their gym battles. It was part of their legend, that they were pokemon masters even from a young age.
A legend that Blue won’t share. And he has no one to blame but himself. How could he ever have thought he had patience? From the moment they got their pokemon, he was so focused on getting on the road and staying on the move, all so they could reach Pewter and he could get a badge within his first week as a trainer, something not even Giovanni accomplished.
His mistakes are so obvious now. Did he really try to take on a Gym Leader with just three pokemon? Sure he had the type advantage for two of them, but so what? He knew that wouldn’t be enough, any scrub can catch the right pokemon for a gym, but most fail in their challenges. He’s a pokemon
trainer,
not a pokemon catcher. And just packing some training in as he travels isn’t enough.
He wonders why this is all so obvious to him now, when it does him no good. Would Red or Leaf have told him as much if he asked them? Would he have listened? The thought makes him want to find a bed and pull the covers over his head for about a week.
There’s still a small part of him that insists that he just got unlucky, that he should have sent Zephyr out and tried to stall for the leech seeds, but instead he forces himself to go over his mistakes again and again until the persistent voice of stubbornness finally grows tired of it and slinks off elsewhere.
Blue’s exhausted in general, really. He’s barely gotten any rest since they set out, and was up early to start at the gym when it opened. Just as he considers lying down on the couch and catching some shuteye, there’s a knock on the door, and then it opens. Leader Brock comes in looking annoyingly stoic as ever, and Blue gets to his feet with a mostly contained sigh.
“Please, stay seated. I know you’ve had a long day. How are you holding up?”
Blue frowns as Brock sits on the couch across from him. He was expecting a lecture about safe battle standards or basic training responsibilities, not a pity party. “I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”
“I’ll bet. You arrived when, eight in the morning? Nine?”
“Closer to eight.”
“Quite a day. They’re still talking about it, you know.”
“About what?” Blue asks warily.
“The way you ‘took the gym by storm.’ Went right through the ranks without stopping, even beating Jarod and Sharzad! I was impressed with you after Viridian, and after battling you firsthand I can see how driven you are. I bet a lot of people will come to train with you, if you stick around for another challenge.”
Blue’s spirits were rising slightly as Brock spoke, but now they plummet back to the pit of his stomach. Right. As a general standard, Gym Leaders only accept challenges from the same trainer once a month. He would have to live with this failure for weeks before he can try wiping it away with a victory, and despite his new wisdom about the need to take things slower, the thought of spending a whole month in Pewter training is almost intolerable. “I… would love to. But I’m pretty sure my traveling companions would want to move on before then.”
Brock nods. “Well, however long you’re here, feel free to sign up for our classes or trainings. You earned the admissions already.”
Blue sits up a bit. “If I do well in the trainings, is it possible we could rematch sooner than…” he trails off as Brock’s smile fades.
“No, I’m sorry,” the Gym Leader says in a voice that brooks no argument. “I know some Leaders will bend that rule once in awhile, but I never have. You fought well, but you’re not ready yet. Surely you see that?”
If admitting it to himself was hard, Blue finds admitting it to another impossible. He simply grunts and changes the topic. “So what did you call me back here for?”
“I just told you.”
Blue blinks. “What, that?”
Brock grins wide as he leans back against the couch. “What, were you expecting a browbeating? I like to talk to challengers after the match, whether they win or lose. Especially the latter. I know it can be disheartening.”
Despite himself, Blue finds himself liking Brock. He’s been nothing but courteous even when he didn’t have to be, and the Leader’s charisma is as strong as he always heard. Now that the initial bout of moping is out of his system, he remembers that he’s having a private, personal conversation with a Gym Leader. Letting such an opportunity go to waste would be like throwing in the towel on his dreams and goals altogether.
“Well I have to admit you’ve cheered me up considerably. If you don’t mind my asking, could you explain your Gym’s virtue to me a bit more? I thought I understood it, but clearly still have much to learn.” The irony of having said practically the same thing earlier for the crowds when he was sure of his impending victory doesn’t escape him.
Brock’s face lights up, and Blue recognizes the expression of an ideologue with his favorite conversation topic. Red gets like that with science all the time. “Of course! But you sell yourself short, Blue, from what I saw you understand it quite well: the commitment to act once you’ve found a path to victory.”
Blue can sort of see how that relates to the Gym Leader’s fighting style, but it seems more like a vague platitude than a specific virtue. It is, after all, something he thinks of often, and has seen mentioned elsewhere. What makes Brock’s philosophy so different in practice?
A concrete example suddenly occurs to him. “So that’s the virtue you based your signature move on?”
“Exactly. Most people think Bide is about patience, but decisiveness is the true value. Complete commitment to a principle or action, with everything you’ve got. Often that takes patience, to wait for the perfect moment, but when you see it you go after it, full force and damn the consequences. That last part can be risky, of course. That’s why I’ve stopped teaching it by default to even those that earn a badge. Much easier to just hand them a copy of the Rock Tomb TM.”
Blue’s brow furrows. “I think your technique would be perfect for my fighting style and pokemon. What would I need to do for you to teach it to me?”
Brock gets to his feet, and Blue follows, wondering if he said something wrong. “First off, complete the rest of our trainings. After that, we can talk about it, and the virtue of decisiveness, again. Deal?”
Blue looks at the Leader’s outstretched hand. After a moment he takes it with a smile. The single most important thing about completing one’s ambitions is to not let setbacks stop your commitment. To turn defeats into victories, if possible. He may not have gotten the perfect Gym record he wanted, but maybe he can earn something more valuable instead.
Blue nods, staring at his feet. He just arrived at the Trainer House a few minutes ago, looking more humbled than Red’s seen in years. He hasn’t had a chance to watch Blue’s battle with Brock yet, but surely it can’t have gone
that
bad?
Red looks at Leaf and raises a brow. Blue’s ego probably needed to get taken down a peg or two, but he still wants to help his friend out. On top of which, before today Red was probably the one who would be least against staying in one place for so long. “I’m game. What about you Leaf? Think you could stomach sticking around?”
Blue looks up in relief, then turns to her. Leaf smiles. “Let’s do it. I’m sure I’ll think of something to fill the time…”
Red wakes up early Sunday morning to write up and refine his research proposal, then start looking for funding. The rest of the day is spent seeking grants from anyone and everyone that might be even remotely interested.
First Red makes a list of organizations that give grant money to independent researchers. Then he finds out what particular topics they funded research on before or were looking to fund research on now. Only then does he start his letters, each tailored to their goals and values. Since all he needs is the money to hire a psychic on and off for about a month, his asking amount is relatively low compared to most others: a measly four thousand dollars.
During lunch, he looks up the average amount of grant requests independent researchers send out before getting funded, then doubles it and estimates he could get funding by the end of the week if he does nothing but eat, sleep, research, and write.
So that’s what he decides to do.
By Monday the first rejection emails start coming in, almost faster than he can send out new applications. The International Bug Catchers Association thought the hypothesis was focused more on psychic phenomenon than bugs, and the Institute of Psychic Phenomenon thought that even if correct, it might only have to do with bugs, or even just spinarak. Red sighs and thinks of forwarding their emails to each other before changing his mind and sending them to Professor Oak with an eyeroll emote in the subject line.
By the end of Tuesday, Red’s fingers are cramping over the keyboard. He powers through, stopping only for a quick break to have dinner with Leaf and Blue. His mind wasn’t really on the conversation though, and the other two seemed similarly preoccupied, and relieved to get back to work afterward. When Leaf asked if she could have his mother’s phone number, he gave it to her without even asking why she wanted it.
On Wednesday morning Red gets excited when he reads an email from Professor Oak about a rather eccentric millionaire who often funds research trying to prove the existence of a “psychic particle.” He spends most of the time before lunch taking extra care writing and revising the email to him, but when the response letter arrives that night, it politely informs him that such a particle would only exist in
true
psychics, not “lowly bugs.”
By Thursday he’s seeing application letters in his dreams and putting ice packs over his fingers while he reads about new potential funders. He’s over halfway through his list now, and starting to get nervous.
It isn’t until Friday morning that desperation sets in. As he reviews his list over breakfast, Red realizes he’s nearing the end of it. He hasn’t heard back from half the organizations he emailed, and has to stop himself from scratching out the remaining ones from the beginning of the week.
As Friday night fades into the wee hours of Saturday morning and the desperation begins to turn to dread, Red starts to seriously consider either giving up on his idea or asking Professor Oak if the Pallet Lab could fund it. It’s not a matter of pride that he hasn’t yet: he has no qualms about mentioning that he worked at the Lab under Professor Oak (sometimes directly, so he’s not lying). But the whole point of his journey is to experience and understand the process of doing research on his own, so he can learn from it.
And what he’s learned so far is actually rather valuable: namely that getting a research grant is tedious, difficult work, especially when the topic you’re testing is obscure or not immediately relevant to anyone’s interests. And really, isn’t that how it should be? The very fact that he’s thinking of scrapping the whole thing makes it easy to decide against asking the Pallet Lab to fund it. If the idea really has merit, he should be able to find funding for it, right?
Such are the drift of Red’s thoughts as he finally pushes away from the desk in the Trainer House’s computer lab and staggers off to the floor his room is on. At 2 AM the halls and elevators are mostly empty, and Red enjoys having the large public bathroom on his floor mostly to himself.
After he showers and brushes his teeth, he makes his way to his room and quietly eases the door open. He notices that Blue’s bed is empty, and wonders if he’s in the training rooms downstairs. He hasn’t exchanged more than a few words with Blue or Leaf in the last couple days, and he briefly wonders what they’re up to.
As he slips beneath the sheets his mind turns back to his potential research topic. Is it possible to crowdfund the money he needs, maybe? The asking price is pretty low, after all… he’ll have to look into that in the morning…
Red slips his aching hands under the cool sheets of his pillow and yawns, thoughts on scientific breakthroughs in history that came from seemingly unimportant discoveries. He wonders if someone would eventually write about all this, the struggle of Red Verres’s first groundbreaking experiment…
Self-indulgent as the thought is, it makes him smile. He knows he has to be careful of the gambler’s fallacy though-no, wait, not the gambler’s fallacy, that’s the one about thinking the probability of a random event increases if it hasn’t happened in awhile, and vice versa. It’s the one he always gets confused with gambler’s fallacy…
His tired mind searches around a bit before it finds it: sunk cost, that’s the one. People have a tendency to grow attached to endeavors that they’ve spent a lot of effort or money on. If they give up before seeing results, they feel like they’ve wasted it all for nothing. It makes them more likely to throw good money after bad, though if told about someone else in the same situation, they would likely advise giving up.
Combined the two fallacies are part of what makes gambling so dangerous, and that’s basically what he’s doing: gambling his time and energy on the potential chance of getting the grant money.
Is he deciding to go on because of all the time he already put into it? The best way to ensure he’s not is to precommit to stopping after a certain time period or threshold is reached. A gambler hitting the poker tables might only bring a couple hundred dollars of cash with him when he leaves the house and put a hold on his account until the following morning, to ensure they can’t lose more than that no matter how strong the urge to recoup their losses.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have as elegant a solution for himself, but maybe he doesn’t need one. He has a built-in threshold: the list of organizations. Red pulls out his phone and writes a memo to himself:
Future Red:
When you finish writing to all the groups we’ve already researched, STOP. No looking up new ones. No crowdsourcing. Just accept that the research isn’t substantial or compelling enough for now, and let it go.
I know where you sleep,
Past Red
Red sets the memo to an alarm that’ll go off on Sunday morning, then puts his phone away. Now he can commit to finishing what he started, and will know he gave it his best honest try. If nothing else, he can try to get a government grant in December during their yearly application acceptance, though they rarely give them out to individual researchers, let alone novices. Though hopefully by then he won’t be a novice anymore.
Either way, tomorrow is another day, with its own opportunities to explore.
Three days after she asked Red for his mom’s number, Leaf sits in a workroom at the Trainer House with her laptop and phone out. On the screen is a list of questions, and after writing the last one, she gives it a quick read through, then sits back and makes the call.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mrs. Verres? This is Leaf.”
“Leaf? Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s fine. I asked Red for your number, and was wondering if you had a moment to talk?”
“I’m in the middle of something right now, but if it’s not an emergency I can call you back in about ten minutes, if that’s alright?”
“Oh, of course! I’m sorry, I should have texted first-”
“Not at all. What did you want to talk about?”
“I have a project I wanted your opinion on. Red told me you’re a journalist, and I’m thinking of writing a few pieces on the Pewter Museum.”
“Well, I’m flattered. Of course, I’d be happy to help however I can. I’ll call you in a bit, alright?”
“Great, thank you!”
Leaf closes the call and lowers the phone, fingers running over the cover as she turns it over and over in her hands.
Ever since she was little, she’s never had any trouble walking up to strangers and talking to them. One of the benefits of being raised constantly on the move was getting used to meeting new people all the time. She especially loves befriending people who can teach her new things, like Dr. Brenner at the museum, and her “interviews” with others formed the basis for the traveler’s log she wrote for herself of all the places she went with her mom and grandpa.
When she came to Kanto the idea she had in mind was to write about their local myths and stories, but visiting the museum gave her a different idea. What she wants to write now isn’t just some stories to entertain or inform. The reaction of many locals to the museum’s exhibits makes her want to
persuade.
And for that, she’ll need help. After almost a week of writing interspersed with researching the history of Pewter City and its museum, she finally finished, and decided it’s time for an outside opinion. There are others she could have talked to, friends of hers or her family’s in Unova. But Mrs. Verres is from Kanto, and knows its culture and people. She can’t hope to change many people’s mind if she doesn’t do her best to understand them first.
Leaf goes back to her rough draft until Mrs. Verres calls back. She starts the paper with her visit to the museum as a tourist to Kanto, how much it impressed her, and how important the presentation of new scientific research can be to society and future generations. It seemed a bit too dry at first, so she made sure to pepper it with little observations and anecdotes from her visit. The wide eyed excitement of the children, the energy of adventure and discovery that permeated (most of) the crowds.
But she doesn’t know if it’s enough. She tries to read it objectively and has to admit that it isn’t particularly inspirational. Maybe some good quotes…
She’s fiddling with the closing paragraph’s language when her phone rings. “Hey Mrs. Verres, thanks for calling back so quick!”
“No problem, but please, call me Laura. So what can I do for you?”
Leaf gives a summary of her and Red’s museum visit on Saturday, and what she wants to do. Halfway through the explanation Mrs. Verres-
Laura-
asks Leaf to email what she’s written so far. Leaf does so, and she can tell when Laura starts reading because her side of the conversation becomes “Mmms” and “Uh huh”s.
“So yeah, that’s about it. Any advice you could give would be appreciated.”
“Sure, give me a minute to finish up.”
“Kay.” Leaf waits, rereading parts of it herself. She notices her legs kicking and stops them, then crosses them before some other nervous tick manifests. This is the first time she’s shown someone her writing with the direct intention of getting feedback, and she both looks forward to and dreads what Laura might have to say.
Finally Laura exhales. “Alright, all done. It was very well written, by the way. I’m impressed.”
“Thanks! I’ve been working on it since Saturday. Do you have any advice on how to make it better?”
“I do, but first, have you ever gotten a critique of your work before?”
“Like, by a professional? Not really. But it’s okay, you can be honest. I won’t be hurt by whatever you say.”
Laura chuckles. “If that’s true then it means one of us hasn’t done our jobs properly. My editor’s suggestions always felt like chopping bits off one of my children.”
Leaf smiles. “I don’t think I’m there yet.”
“Well, I’ll get to the point then: you’re going to have to rewrite the whole thing.”
Leaf’s smile wilts. “I-what?”
“From scratch. Maybe you can keep some of the middle, especially the first hand observations, those were fantastic.”
Despair and confusion and, yes, hurt, make it hard to respond for the space of a couple breaths. “You didn’t like it.”
“I quite enjoyed it actually. As I said, it was very well written. But the truth is, it’s fluff. It’s a review mixed with an opinion piece. And other than getting people who already agree with you to nod over their breakfast or afternoon coffee, you’re barely going to make a dent in the views of someone who doesn’t agree with you. At best maybe you’ll get people who haven’t been to the museum before to plan a visit. Which is nice, but not what you’re after, right?”
Leaf bites her lower lip. She expected an incisive critique, had thought some of these things herself, but hearing them said by another really drives them home. “No. Not really. But you’re right, it’s not… new. I’m not saying anything new, and I’m not saying it in a new way.”
“That’s it exactly. You’re not doing investigative reporting, you’re writing to persuade. And that means you need to focus on completely different things.”
Leaf nods to herself, mentally getting used to the idea of rewriting the piece. It’s a daunting task after she worked so hard on this one, but at least she has the research all done, and Laura is right. What she’s written so far won’t convince anyone.
“Leaf? You alright hon?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, I know-”
“No, it’s okay. This is why I called you. It all makes sense. Thank you.” She straightens in her chair and opens a new document. “Okay, so… any advice on what to do instead?”
“Absolutely. First let’s list what you did right: you appealed to three of the big four. Logic, emotions, and ethics. Can you guess what the one you missed was?”
Leaf considers the arguments she deliberately avoided. “Authority?”
“Close, but not quite. This is a mistake young writers make all the time when trying to argue against ideas of older generations. You didn’t appeal to tradition.”
Leaf frowns. “Of course not, tradition’s stupid. Heck, the whole point is to break people from clinging to tradition.”
“And that’s exactly why your writing won’t reach anyone you want it to. Leaf, the people who don’t like the new exhibits have a very different value system than you. Do you really think ignoring what they think is important, let alone deriding it, will change their view?”
“No, you’re right. But what am I supposed to do then?”
“Understand their values better. You want to reduce the influence of a value you don’t share, but because you don’t share it, you’re missing how it can help you.”
“Help me?”
“Yes. Really immersing yourself in opposing views is a skill that takes a lifetime to cultivate, but for now, the first step is to figure out what purpose the value serves, why it makes sense to them. Always remember that people’s beliefs and worldviews are more complex than first impression lets on. Since your actual goal isn’t to make them find traditions less important, just make sure tradition doesn’t hold them back in this one area, you can actually use the overall value to your advantage.”
“Hang on, let me think a moment.” Leaf puts the phone down and puts it on speaker, then spins her chair in a slow circle with one foot, eyes closed.
If she were a proud Pewter citizen, irate at the museum’s sudden attack on her traditional beliefs, what other traditions might balance that out? What would another Pewter citizen who likes the changes say?
She remembers speaking to the visitors on Saturday when she started writing. Most were tourists, but of the natives there were a handful that spoke about it all with a subtle but powerful pride.
Ah.
Leaf smiles and opens her eyes, putting her foot down to stop her rotation. “I can focus on Pewter’s other tradition: how they’ve always been at the forefront of science and discovery.”
“Exactly. Remember that traditions are cherished not just because of comfort or pride, but often from an inherent sense that what’s worked so far must have value, and that rocking the boat is risky. Show them the risks in the status quo, offer them a new source of value”
Leaf has already started typing as Laura talks. “Does it matter if my point isn’t strictly true? I mean, a lot of geological and paleontological discoveries came from Pewter, but other cities have them beat in general, and they’re obviously not current on this topic.”
“I’m glad you asked, because there are seven general traits to effective persuasion. Ready to write things down?”
Leaf finishes her last thought and starts a new paragraph. “Hit me with them.”
“Repetition, Consistency, Social Proof, Agitate then Solve, Prognosticate, Tribalism, and Storytelling.”
Leaf’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “Okay, I think I get the first two and the last one. What about the rest?”
“I’m going to go over them all. Let me know which one you think answers your question. First is Repetition. Pretty simple, the challenge is in presenting the same point or argument in a variety of ways. You want it to stick, but you don’t want to bore them. Next is consistency, also basic: no wild shifts in tone or hypocritical positions.
“Social Proof is basically an appeal to popularity, but without blatantly doing so. Most people will subconsciously find it easier to accept a belief that they feel is mainstream, or held by certain popular individuals. At the very least, it wards against automatic rejection of an idea as too bizarre or ‘obviously crazy.’ As long as you know your audience and are subtle about it, it can help with just about any demographic. That last part applies to all of these, by the way: subtlety is key.”
“Got it. So that one doesn’t really answer my question, but it’s still important for me to keep in mind. What if most people disagree with it?”
“Do you actually know the real numbers? Have you looked into any surveys or polls?”
“I tried to find some on it, but couldn’t.”
“Consider doing one yourself then. Work with the museum if you can. But if it turns out the vast majority are against it, that’s where popular figures can come in. Movie stars, famous trainers, professors, whoever.
“Next is Agitate then Solve. You want to present the audience with a compelling reason the status quo isn’t good, the problems it’s causing, then offer a solution. Make sure the reader or listener understands the problem, why it’s a problem, then sees your suggestion as the most obvious thing in the world.”
Leaf grins. “There’s my answer. ‘Pewter City, once the crown jewel of Kanto for its leadership in Earth Sciences, has been steadily falling behind…'”
“Now you’re getting it. And prognosticate is an extension of that. Do a bit of informed prediction. Why will the bad thing get worse? If Pewter doesn’t regain its dominance, what next?”
“It might start losing tourism, see brain drain, and become a hollow shell of its former self.”
Laura laughs. “Cut the last line and you’re gold. Remember,
subtle!”
“Right, right. Tribalism is an ‘us vs them’ thing, yeah?”
“Yep. Like Social Proof, but more stark. I wouldn’t normally advocate pushing this one: tribalism can get ugly fast, and it usually doesn’t need any encouragement to get there. But it has a positive side to it too, and that’s what you have to tap into, if you can. Can you see it?”
Leaf thinks. “Nationality? Other cities or regions will get ahead of Pewter?”
“Sort of, though that’s just another flavor of Agitate and Prognosticate, and it’s not particularly inspirational.”
“Hold on.” Leaf thinks again, closing her eyes and letting her legs tap and drag her around and around. Eventually she frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t think I’m seeing it.”
“Well, there’s not just one correct answer for any of this. Tell me whatever comes to mind.”
“I can’t really think of anything, to be honest. How would you approach it?”
“Well, there’s one tribe that encompasses them all, and works fairly well as a fallback for almost any topic. Make it about our eternal struggle: humanity against the elements. The world is a pretty hostile place, and if mankind has to do everything it can to seek the truth, utilize discoveries, develop new technology, and defend itself from pokemon.”
Leaf has stopped spinning, merely sitting and staring at her phone with her brow furrowed. “I… don’t think I can use that one.”
“Why not?”
Leaf opens her mouth to say… what, she isn’t sure. But the thought of framing the issue, any issue, as humanity vs pokemon, doesn’t sit right with her. Sure, humans working together as one global tribe is important, but painting pokemon as the enemy, as the “them” that needs to be guarded against… it just feels wrong. The life and wellbeing of humans and pokemon are linked, and one isn’t inherently higher than the other. Just because she’s a human doesn’t mean she should promote humanity at the expense of pokemon.
“It’s complicated. I guess I just don’t think I believe it, in this case.”
There’s silence, and Leaf worries that Laura will inquire further, demand her true justification. Instead she simply says “Alright, well you don’t have to use all of them, and if you find another way to apply that one feel free to take a different angle. If not though your article will be more streamlined with fewer things to clutter it up.”
Leaf lets out a breath and returns to her keyboard. “Right. And the last one?”
“Ultimately, the most compelling thing you can do with all of the above is weave it into a story. I don’t mean it has to have a protagonist and a plot and everything. Make it real: don’t talk about yourself, but talk about what you see. Descriptive language, framed as what’s simply there and plain to see to everyone. Draw them in with an evocative scene, introduce real life characters accompanied by quotes. Your whole piece should frame a narrative that the readers feel part of. It’s about them, ultimately.”
Leaf is nodding to herself as she listens and types. “Right, yeah. That’s what I was trying to do with mine.”
“And you did a good job for what it was. I hope you see why this might work better though.”
“Absolutely. I really can’t thank you enough-”
“It was my pleasure. Feel free to send me your drafts or call again if you need to.”
“Thanks. Any last bits of advice?”
“End with a quote. Something profound, or at least profound sounding. The beginning of the piece has to be good enough to inform and hook your readers, but leaving them with something evocative and easy to remember is almost as important. Out of curiosity, how are you planning to publish it?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead honestly. My travel blog for sure, then maybe some local boards or forums, and the museum’s review page.”
“Hmm. Not a lot of traffic on any of those. You want a wide audience, right?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of hoping people will enjoy it enough to share organically.”
“Why not try a news site?”
“I’d love to, but I haven’t looked into it yet and don’t know what their restrictions or requirements are. Maybe one of the news sites will pick up on it.”
Or maybe, if she happens to know someone in the business locally…
“Well if that doesn’t pan out, I might know a guy who knows a girl who can give it a look.”
Leaf grins.
It’s late when Blue enters the Pokemon Center, tired from a long day at the Gym. He’s been spending his nights at the Center, helping out however he could. It’s still a bit short-staffed from the backlog of pokemon injured during the fire, and Blue learned basic pokemon first aid from a young age, so he’s more helpful than random volunteers.
If he had his preference, Blue would be using this time to train more, or catch up on his sleep. But gramps was right when he said Blue has to start cultivating his image in as many different ways as he can, and that’s doubly true with his loss at the Gym.
But tonight he’s here for something else too.
The same older doctor is waiting for him when he goes to retrieve his shiftry, finally all healed up and ready for him to retrieve. She’s warmed up to him considerably since he started working here, doing whatever tasks need getting done diligently and without complaint. Blue discovered fairly quickly that someone who’ll do the tedious or less desirable tasks with a smile tend to get in people’s good graces.
Blue exchanges pleasantries with her while he holds the shiftry’s greatball in his hand, feeling its cool metal against his palm.
The night of his defeat, he hadn’t been able to sleep at all. He tossed and turned for hours, mind replaying the match and trying to come up with ways he could have won, or can win in a month. It was only after it arrived at the obvious solution that his brain finally called it quits and let him sleep.
This is his key to victory, right here. His shiftry is the strongest pokemon he has. Once properly trained, it will be more than capable of taking down whatever Brock sends against him.
Which means all he has to do is train it to accept and follow his orders.
Blue runs a finger over a ridge on the ball’s lid, then clips it to its belt and heads for the supply room to change into scrubs. He’s worried that because of the way he caught the shiftry, it might be harder than normal to train.
When Red first sees it, he thinks it’s another rejection letter. His eyes catch on
sorry to inform you
and his cursor is halfway to deleting it before he sees the number farther down.
His heart skips a beat and his skin goes cold as he quickly reads the paragraph in full, then starts from the beginning, pulse speeding up as he grins wider and wider.
Dear Mr. Verres,
Thank you for your petition. We are sorry to inform you that there is not sufficient interest in your research proposal at this time to grant the full funding requested. However, we have decided that a smaller grant could still serve to explore whether your hypothesis justifies further study.
If this is acceptable, please contact us by the end of the day to receive the proper forms. The offer will be valid for two months, and once accepted, the grant of $2,000 will be made available to you for the duration of four months.
Thank you,
Mara Enuo
Distribution Manager
Seeds for the Future, Inc.
“Hey.” The girl on a neighboring computer is looking at him with concern. “Are you alright?”
Red’s growing cackles end in a cough and nods. “Yeah, just… saw a funny meowth picture.”
The girl raises a brow, and Red struggles to tone his grin down to appropriate levels until she turns back to her screen. By then the euphoric rush begins to subside, and he has to confront the reduced funding.
It’s not terrible. Red’s original estimates were for the duration of their month in Pewter, and he’s already a week into it. If he uses the last few days of the month to analyze the data and write the paper, the money should afford him a psychic’s services for the three weeks between now and then. It’ll mean a smaller scale for the project, but it’s better than nothing.
Red looks back through his outbox for the letter he sent to Seeds and saves it for future reference. The next time he has to write for grant money, he’ll start by modelling the general tone and themes of this one. It might not be important, for all he knows any other decently written letter would have gotten the same response from them. One of his supervisors at Pallet Labs, Dr. Madi, suggested he try them out, as they’re known for funding a wide variety of cheap and eccentric research projects in search of undiscovered low hanging fruit.
Red forwards the acceptance letter to Professor Oak and Dr. Madi, then opens his contacts. Now that funding is a probability rather than a possibility, he can start contacting psychics to find one that’s interested in being hired as a human lab rattata.
Red writes a proposal to Narud first, both as a courtesy and because he already has his contact info. He attaches the acceptance letter and sends it off, then looks up other psychics advertising in Pewter.
The remains of Red’s elation quickly peter out as he looks through the potential choices. Counting Narud, there are a total of 7 psychics free to render services at different times throughout the next three weeks. Red was prepared to write up an email and then send it out to all the potential testers, but with such a limited pool he can’t afford to waste a single proposal that isn’t perfect. Red’s already regretting how casually he wrote the one to Narud.
Since he expects to get the answers to these back quickly, he can and should take his time with them, and iterate on each based on any notable weaknesses in the previous. Red begins more in-depth research of the psychics, treating them as he would the grant agencies and trying to learn all he can about their interests and motivations.
It doesn’t matter that he’s the one offering money now: a competent psychic is rarely lacking work, and well paying work at that. Unless Red finds some hint that one of them is under severe financial stress, he needs them more than they need him, and that means he’s already entering the potential partnership at a disadvantage.
Other than studying pokemon, few subjects captured his attention as a kid besides psychology. He read some books on finance and economics and found them mildly interesting, but they never held his attention until he found ones that went into more detail on the incentives that drive behavior, or interpersonal dynamics between people engaging in business deals. One that particularly stuck in his mind detailed the “Golden Rules” of negotiation… many of which he’s breaking right now.
He’s doing his background research, so that’s a plus, but it’s pretty much the only one he has going for him. The worst offense is that he’s negotiating from a place of desperation. Some of it is about manageable expectations: he knows not to let the psychics figure out how limited his options are. But the hard reality at the core of it is that he can’t afford to walk away from all of them… and a negotiation one party can’t walk away from is no negotiation at all.
Red frowns and looks at the email he wrote to Narud, wishing he hadn’t attached the letter but knowing it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Another rule he’s going to have to break is not showing them everything he has to offer right away. The worst he can do is also the best, and offering anything less than 2,000, even just to set a low “anchor” for expectations, would be simply insulting and probably lead to an immediate rejection.
Red leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. What’s left? Lateral concession, for one: if they want more money he can’t give, he can offer something unrelated that they value, if he can figure out what that might be. It also ties into the most important rule: make sure that they feel like they can walk away with a win.
Red’s stomach growls, and he logs off and leaves the computer lab to get some food. He woke up this morning expecting another long day of research and writing, and it turns out that even with his unexpected first success, he’ll be doing more of the same. Ah well. At least he’s mentally prepared.
Red checks his phone as he walks in case he missed any texts from Blue or Leaf. The three of them haven’t been in one place since the night of Blue’s loss, and Red still hasn’t told either of them that he’s psychic. When they find out that he’s trying to hire one it will be a hard question to dodge, so when he has a second to spare, he’ll have to think on how to approach that, too.
Maybe he’ll just write them a letter.
“You kids these days, you don’t understand anything. You think you do, with the internet on your phones, ready to answer any questions you have in a second. But knowledge and understanding, those are completely different.
Completely
different! You understand?”
“No,
obaa-sama,
” Leaf says with a slight dip of her head.
The old woman’s face wrinkles further as she smiles, one hand tucking a loop of silver hair behind her ear. “Good. Then maybe there’s hope for you. Your accent is atrocious though. Stick to Unown.”
Leaf smiles back. “Yes, grandmother.”
The two are sitting on a bench outside Pewter Museum, in the shade of an oak tree. Leaf’s bulbasaur and the old woman’s roselia are playing around its trunk, stopping to race for the berries the two throw to them every so often.
“Your question comes from a place of simplicity. Where do the
majuu
come from, why they are so different from us. That is what this museum displays. I do not mind what they say they have found. I mind that they assume this will help them understand the
majuu.
”
Leaf tosses another berry with her left hand while her right scribbles on the notebook propped up against her leg. “You don’t believe it will?”
“Rocks from the ground are not understanding. Perhaps the gods made the
majuu
from water, perhaps from stone. Perhaps they did both or neither. We cannot go back and see, so we guess. But why? What matters is that they are here, and we are here, and we must try and live together.”
Leaf nods. “I agree that the most important thing is learning to live with them. But if we learn their origins, we can learn more about why they behave the way they do.”
“And so?”
“Well, so we can train them better. Or maybe we learn more about their biology, develop better medicine for them. And some people revere certain pokemon or hate others based on beliefs that might be wrong. Isn’t that important?”
The old woman turns her cane slowly in her hand, the pokeball at its tip catching the sunlight through the branches. Eventually her head bobs from side to side. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you just fool yourselves into new false thoughts. When I was your age, people respected the
majuu
, and that respect kept us safe. Now we have these machines to do that, but we lost the respect of forces greater than ourselves.”
“I was always taught to respect pokemon, both as friends and threats.”
“
Iie, iie.
No. This very name you use, ‘pokemon,’ shows how little respect there is. It is a hard thing to explain, across the century between us. I cannot describe to you what the world was like before such a word existed. What it was like to hear one’s children call those we fought for centuries their ‘pocket monsters,’ and brandish them as playthings.”
Leaf pauses in her writing to think of an answer to this, and the old woman leans forward to throw a pair of berries at the two pokemon. Bulbasaur’s vines lash out to grab both, but the roselia rebuffs one with one flower while the other catches the berry and lowers it to her mouth. The old woman runs a finger over the pokeball at the end of her cane “They are useful,
hai
. But putting a
majuu
in a toy does not make them toys. The gods still soar above our heads, beyond the reach of our mortal tricks. How many have died, attempting to capture them?”
“But if one were ever caught,” Leaf says, picking her words with care, “Wouldn’t that save a lot more lives, eventually?”
“And who will this trainer be? What new calamities will they bring, with the power of a god in their pocket? Kingdoms have warred for less, long before mankind’s reach exceeded its grasp. Perhaps next someone will make a ball big enough and catch the earth. Or throw it far enough, and catch the sun. It is folly.”
Leaf nods dutifully and finishes up her notes. There’s a lot more she can say, if she wants to convince the old woman of the good that scientific progress brings, despite the risks. The woman herself would likely not have lived past her hundredth year without advances in medicine. But it’s not Leaf’s job today to persuade people one by one. She’s here to simply listen and question and learn. This is her fourth interview today, found by simply wandering around outside and inside the museum and asking people who don’t seem busy if they would answer some questions about it and themselves. This conversation drifted quite far afield compared to the others, but still feels pertinent.
Leaf throws her last few berries to their pokemon and watches them eat, then stands and withdraws her bulbasaur. She turns to the old woman and bows. “Thank you for your wisdom, grandmother.”
“Pah.” The old woman waves her hand to the side, as if brushing away some crumbs. “The young do not listen to the old.” She smiles. “And perhaps they shouldn’t. It is not our world to live in for long, and regardless, you will do with it as you choose when we are gone.”
Leaf smiles and bows again, then goes in search of another interview.
“I’m afraid two thousand isn’t enough to cover three weeks on call,” Psychic Ranna says.
Red feels his stomach clench, and switches the phone to his other hand as he takes a moment to ensure his voice is steady. “You wouldn’t need to be on call, just so long as I can send the participants to you at some point within the three weeks for a quick session.”
It’s the day after he got his acceptance letter, and Red’s sitting in one of the Trainer House’s work rooms. He’s on his second to last potential experiment partner. Narud rejected his offer out of hand, and the rest of the psychics he contacted were just as firm in their negation, if not quite as haughty. He started calling rather than sending emails after the third, and considered going to meet them before realizing the idiocy of negotiating with a psychic in person. Not that he has anything to hide, but he doesn’t know exactly how a psychic reads someone, and whatever points he might gain for sincerity would probably be offset by his unbidden thoughts of desperation and manipulating the situation to his advantage.
“That… might be workable,” the psychic says, and Red’s heart leaps. “If the appointments are brief enough. You merely want me to submit to a Night Shade attack and record the experience, correct?”
“Yes. All in all, that would take maybe 10 minutes, right?”
“More like twenty, I would say.”
“Twenty, then.” Red looks over the notes he made on Ranna before calling. Her advertised services are a mixture of therapeutic work and romantic validation, with what Red suspects is a bit of private investigation, euphemistically concealed. Her site is decorated with vague espeon imagery, her calendar for the coming week shows no openings on Saturdays, and while there are openings starting from 10 in the morning, most of the appointments she already has start after noon. They all have clearly defined start and end times, so it will be easy for Red to schedule and fit in quick sessions with subjects. “I’m fully willing to work around any openings in your schedule.”
“What would the recording entail?”
“A simple video is fine, along with a written line or two of description, then a score from 1-10 on how intense or painful the experience was. After that you can induce amnesia to erase the memory.” Learning about that particular ability had strengthened his methodology immensely. Normally he would be worried about the psychic’s experiences of the previous sessions influencing their assessment of the later ones, but they could literally forget what it was like each time. It’s the closest way of ensuring objectivity for something so subjective short of cloning them a few dozen times and lining each to a separate attack.
“And what is the purpose of this study?”
“That I can’t tell you until after the tests are done. In order for it to be as objective as possible, I need to minimize any influence I might have on your judgement.”
There’s silence from the other end, and Red holds his breath. “Then I believe I can accept this-”
Yes!
“-as long as I can take steps to assure my safety.”
Uh oh.
“Steps like what?”
“Ensuring the trainer does not mean me ill, or cannot take advantage of my weakened state if one of their attacks incapacitates me.”
Red relaxes. “That sounds perfectly reasonable.”
“The trainer will have to subject themselves to checks I deem necessary.”
“I’ll be sure they understand before participating.”
“Also, I do not make appointments on Saturdays.”
“I know. That’s fine.”
“And I would like to cap the maximum appointments to 20.”
Red is quiet. He accepted her other conditions easily, expecting something more important lay behind them, and here it is. A sticking point. “I’m afraid it will have to be more than that. This is a scientific study, and the sample size, meaning the amount of pokemon tested, is of vital importance. Too few and the study would be worthless.”
“And 20 is too few?”
“It is.”
“Then the compensation is not adequate. I cannot agree to meet with any number of people in three weeks for a flat fee. There could be hundreds.”
“I understand, that’s a valid concern. If you could agree to 60, the study would be far more robust.”
“In three weeks? Perhaps 30 could be done.”
“I’m afraid that’s still too low.” How many subjects does he realistically expect to have? He’d like to think he can get at least 60, but that’s being optimistic. He has to go in with low expectations, or he’ll waste concessions bargaining for something too high. If he can get her to 40, that would probably be enough, and anything above that is a bonus. “I might be able to find a significant result with 50.”
“Fifty appointments for $2,000 is unacceptable, even at twenty minutes per session.”
Red does some quick math and realizes that she’s turning down two thousand dollars for roughly two days of work, spread out over three weeks. Red reminds himself to become a professional psychic if he’s ever having money trouble after he develops his powers. “Keep in mind this is a maximum. If I can’t find more than, say, 3 people, you’ll have 2,000 for maybe an hour of work.”
“Well, that hardly seems more fair to you. Perhaps we could work on a session by session basis. This would also free you to work with other psychics if they have more availability.”
Red’s pulse speeds up. This is exactly where he didn’t want the conversation to go. Without the discount of a bundle deal, he’s not going to be able to afford more than 20 sessions at a normal price anyway. “Unfortunately, there are restrictions on grant money’s use.”
Technically true.
“In addition, using a different psychic would introduce far too much subjectivity. The only way this can work is with a mutual commitment.”
Don’t just tell them what you need, tell them how it benefits them.
“And remember, this business comes at no opportunity cost. I will find the clients and work them into the openings in your schedule, so that you don’t have a conflict with any other appointments.”
“A fair point. In light of that, I believe I can do 35.”
Still not quite what he wants, but Red is out of things to offer. There has to be something else, some lateral concession… “If you can go as high as 45, I can arrange around Sunday as well.”
“I normally have appointments on Sunday. It’s no bother.”
What else?
Red looks at her schedule again. “What if I also refrain from any appointments before noon?”
Come on, come on…
Another moment of silence, and then: “Forty. That is as high as I can go.”
Red bursts into a grin and gives himself a second or two before saying, “Agreed. Thank you. Should I head over now so we can finalize the details and arrange for the fund transfer?”
“Yes, I will be available until one.”
“See you soon.” Red hangs up, then leaps into the air and whoops, punching at the ceiling before throwing the door open and jogging down the hall toward the elevators.
Leaf watches the cursor move to the end of a sentence, then split the paragraph in half. “New paragraph there?”
“Yes,” Laura says through Leaf’s earphones. “The point on Pewter’s proud history was made, and can stand alone. Don’t link it explicitly to the contributions to the rest of the region and world, since that point can be much stronger on its own, once expanded.”
“Got it.” Leaf moves her own cursor down and types in some notes to indicate what will fill out the rest of the paragraph. Meanwhile Laura’s cursor scrolls farther down the shared document as she reads on.
“Good, good… Hmm. ‘Pewter’s leadership is needed more than ever’ is a bit much, you don’t want to
tell them
what you believe, you want to
show them
why it’s the naturally correct belief to have.”
Leaf scrolls down to where she is and thinks a moment, then begins rewriting:
Over the course of a generation, the paleontologists and geologists of Pewter have revolutionized their fields. The museum has grown steadily all the while, showcasing their findings, educating the public, drawing tourism, and employing thousands, directly or indirectly. Through its partnership with Cinnabar Labs, a whole new field of scientific exploration was founded: the resurrection of ancient life. New secrets began to be uncovered and revealed every day as humanity raced to explore the new world Pewter made possible.
But Pewter is no longer at the forefront of its own creation. In the last few years it has seen less innovation and discovery, and its museum, which once had new exhibits every year, went almost a decade without any. Others have risen to showcase the new discoveries, though their pace is slow.
Through Pewter runs the wisdom and tenacity of generations, traits that are unmatched by the other cities that race forward to fill the void it leaves behind. The world is full of dangers, both old and new. Species of pokemon that have not existed for millennia are returning to the world. Without proper leadership, humanity’s reach may, before long, exceed its grasp.
“Very nice,” Laura says. “Take out ‘and revealed’ from “uncovered and revealed,’ and change ‘once had’ to ‘once opened.’ We’ll also have to work on your passive voice later. I like the last line quite a bit, by the way. Where’s it from?”
“An older woman I interviewed a couple days ago said something like it. Should I credit her?”
“If it’s not a direct quote, no. Let me see… hm. Looks like a poet said something similar, over a hundred years ago. Maybe that’s where she got it, or maybe it’s just an old saying. Either way, it’s fine as is.”
Leaf smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear. She’s been writing since morning, and needs a good meal, a hot shower, and a full night’s sleep in that order, but right now she’s just excited to be writing again. She’s almost back at where her original was in terms of length. “So what do you think so far?”
“Not a bad start. I’d say you’re about halfway done content-wise, but three quarters of the way there in word count. Keep an eye on that, or it’ll keep creeping up faster than it should and you’ll just have to edit out more at the end. How are the interviews going?”
“I’ve pretty much finished with citizens in the city, those at the museum, and tourists. Next I just need to get some big names. There’s Dr. Brenner, who I told you about, and I’m hoping she can get me an in with others, like the director, or even the mayor.”
“The mayor?”
“Yeah, apparently he’s the one who’s been giving them the green light to open the new exhibits.”
Mrs. Verres is quiet for a moment, and Leaf continues typing until she says, “How political is this, Leaf? I know it’s a contentious topic for some residents, but what else is there to it?”
Leaf pauses in her writing. “Um. I’m not sure. Dr. Brenner said that she thinks Leader Brock is upset about the new exhibits?”
“They weren’t allowed before?”
“Something like that, yeah.” She hears Laura sigh, and feels a stab of worry. “Is that a problem?”
“Well, maybe not. I wish I’d known this sooner, though.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”
“No, it’s not your fault. I should have thought of it.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing sweety, I’m sure it-”
“Don’t patronize me.”
There’s a moment of silence, and Leaf puts her hand over her mouth. “I’m
so
sorry Mrs. Verres, for a moment there I totally forgot who I was talking to-”
Laura chuckles, and Leaf feels some tension go out of her shoulders. “Who
are
you talking to? I’m no one special.”
“That’s not true, you’ve been so nice and helpful, and I just felt like I was… well, like I was talking to my mom.”
“I guess I can take that as a compliment,” Laura asks, voice wry. “Do you talk to your mother like that?”
“Sometimes. She usually does a good job of not talking down to me.”
“Like I was. You’re right. I’m sorry, I forget sometimes what it was like to be young. Let me collect my thoughts for a moment.”
Leaf does some half-hearted editing while she waits, trying to ignore her anxiety. Would Laura stop helping her, now? Maybe she would ask her to rewrite it all from scratch again… or tell her to give it up completely. Leaf doesn’t think she could do that, regardless of what Laura says.
“Okay, so here’s the thing. How much do you know about politics?”
“Not a whole lot. I know a bit of Unova’s, but-”
“No, not local issues or groups. I mean politics itself. The practice of influence, governance, and even control of others.”
“I guess I’ve been learning a bit about the first from you.”
“A bit, yes. But there’s a huge difference between writing to influence others on a topic, and writing to change people’s political beliefs… especially when there might be political figures involved. Can you guess why?”
“Because they might take it personally?”
Laura lets out a brief laugh. “Personally, she says. Leaf, people’s jobs might hinge on denying what you say in this article. People may have spent years working against the change you’re advocating for. This isn’t just an opinion piece anymore, it’s an attack.”
Leaf frowns. “But… I’m not naming anyone, or-”
“Doesn’t matter. Politics is
always
about conflict, just instead of fighting the person you disagree with physically, you use words. You’re entering a battle, maybe even a war, and you’re not trained for it.”
Leaf tries to fully consider what Laura is telling her, rather than reject it or minimize it out of hand. “So what you’re saying is, my article won’t convince anyone,” she says at last, and slumps back in her chair.
“Not at all: it may well convince a lot of people. The problem is, the people it doesn’t convince aren’t just going to shake their head and go along their day. In fact, the more people it convinces, the more the people it doesn’t convince are going to get up in arms and start firing back.”
Leaf smiles, sitting up again. “So it starts discussion. That’s great! I don’t mind if a few people get upset, as long as it gets people talking about the issues.”
“I’m sorry Leaf, I’m not being clear. Some people, maybe even most, will argue the issues, yes. But some will find a much easier target: you.”
“What? Why me?” Leaf shakes her head. “Nevermind, stupid question. Because it’s easier than addressing the arguments. Much better to discredit the young foreign girl who thinks she knows what’s best for Pewter, after being here all of a month.”
“If it’s any consolation, they would do the same to anyone arguing a side that they oppose. It’s just the nature of the beast. And even within that kind of political theater, most of it won’t be personal… but for some it will. It can get nasty, Leaf. And I know you don’t want me to talk down to you, but nasty even for an adult. Do you understand? Some of them might hold back because of your age, but others won’t. They’ll drag you through the mud if they can, try to make you a laughingstock. Whatever dirt they can find, they’ll dig up and fling, and the rest will just pull some out thei… out of thin air, and throw that too.”
Leaf sits quietly through this, mind playing it out in full detail. She imagines reading articles about herself, portrayed as some ditzy airhead, or stuck up know-it-all. She imagines them dissecting her article, taking things out of context and putting a negative spin on everything. She imagines them finding out about the time she threw a tantrum at a store when she was younger, causing a huge scene and throwing merchandise around until a pokemon got loose and the store got evacuated. Part of her knows she’s more embarrassed in retrospect than her mom was (grandpa thought it was hilarious), but it’s something she still internally cringes at when thinking about, and it would mortify her to have Red or Blue learn about it, let alone all of Pewter.
And at that thought, more than any fear or embarrassment, she finds herself getting angry.
“Now, I don’t want this to scare you off the project. And maybe I’m blowing things way out of proportion, and it’s not a big deal at all. What you might want to consider is-”
“I’m not scared. And I’m not giving it up,” Leaf says, keeping her voice level.
If I let them shut me up out of fear, before I even try, then what good am I?
“If this article might convince people, might really change things for the better, then I’m going to publish it, and deal with the consequences.”
And if they think I’ll just take it lying down…
“Well, that’s very brave of you Leaf, but I’m worried you’re not… no, I’m sorry. I won’t patronize you. If you think you’re ready to handle that, well… you’re already risking your life every day, I guess this is just another battlefield.”
Leaf smiles. “Thanks, Mrs. Verres.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We may both come to regret this. But I was going to say, there might be a way to get the message out and avoid any unpleasantness.”
Leaf tilts her head. “A pseudonym?” She considers it. She likes to think she’s not vain, so it shouldn’t matter to her if her name is the one on everyone’s lips, as long as they’re talking about what matters. “Are there any downsides?”
“Not usually, no. But a pseudonym is just a buffer. If the article gets big, and if it’s as political as I fear, then dedicated detractors will think you’re some rival they already know, and work to expose you. They’ll figure it out fairly quick, especially if you speak to the mayor. The more people you talk to the easier it will be for them to find out who you are. But it might buy you time for things to blow over.”
“So I just need to think of a name to use.”
“Yep. You have two choices: a real name, which is a bit harder for people to figure out is fake, or an obviously fake name, which gives anyone investigating you a headstart in terms of knowing they’re looking at a pseudonym off the bat. The positive side of using an obviously fake name is that it gets more attention, in general, and might give the story longer legs.”
“Do you have a recommendation?”
“Yes: go with what your publisher says. Whoever it ends up being, they might not even let you use a pseudonym at all. If you end up just posting it online, obviously it doesn’t matter.”
Leaf nods slowly. “Right. This is all stuff to worry about later. For now, I just need to focus on getting the article done.”
“That’s the spirit. And one thing to keep in mind too, which I didn’t mention because it generally doesn’t make up for it, though sometimes it might. For every detractor you have, you’ll probably have just as many supporters. Some will support you just because you’re on their ‘team’ and are wearing their uniform, so to speak, but many will honestly admire you and defend you. And the admiration and loyalty of people you’ve never met is no small thing.”
“So it looks like your spinarak’s chitin has a higher proportion of sclerotin compared to the average, by about 17%.” Red turns his pokedex around so the trainer can see the screen, then points to a part of one of the two-tailed graphs. “It’s also larger than average for its age, as you probably noticed. What you might not know is its size puts it more than two standard deviations from the norm. So out of a thousand spinarak, at least 977 of them will be smaller than yours.”
The trainer’s expression shifts from bemused to interested throughout the explanation. “Wow. I had no idea it was that big a difference. Maybe I should focus some time this week on training it…”
Red smiles. “It might be rewarding. It’s probably more durable than other spinarak, though it might have a bit of decreased mobility. That’s guesswork though, for all I know its speed isn’t impacted at all.”
The trainer nods, face thoughtful as he reclips the ball to his waist. “Thanks a lot. So where do I go now?”
“Right in there,” Red says, pointing down the hall to the door at the end. They’re sitting in a waiting lobby on the second floor of an office building. “Psychic Ranna should be done with her appointment in a few minutes, and is ready with the proper forms so you can safely order your spinarak to use Night Shade on her.”
“Alright. Will you let me know what all this was about, after you finish?”
“Sure, if you’d like.” Red makes a note next to the trainer’s name. “If all goes well, you might even be able to read about it in the dex.”
“Cool. Good luck!”
Red watches him go through the door, then heads back to his room at the Trainer House, tugging his hat down and whistling to himself. He’s never been particularly good at whistling, but he’s in a whistling mood, and there’s no one around to stop him.
This would make the seventh subject scanned and tested in just the second day. Some of the trainers are clearly excited by the offer of metrics for their pokemon, and really enjoyed reading as many bits of data as possible, until Red started just emailing them a copy of the results. At the current rate, he could easily get forty by the end of the month, though realistically the frequency of visitors would probably slow down once the initial pool of interested people come through. Others like the most recent trainer just seemed more curious than anything. Still, if he could get forty that wouldn’t be bad at all for an exploratory study.
The methodology is straightforward. He uses the pokedex to get a reading of the spinarak’s “other” metric, then plots that against the 1-10 score Psychic Ranna gives each spinarak. She doesn’t know what’s being tested and has no incentives tied to the outcome, so since she shouldn’t be inclined to inflate or deflate the numbers, and his data comes directly from the pokedex, there’s little chance of misinterpreting or fudging it. Overall it’s a fairly straightforward experiment, but when simplicity is all it takes, it’s often for the best. Now he just needs to find someone to send in with his spinarak, so Ranna doesn’t know it’s his and has no reason to judge it differently…
Red reaches his dorm room and goes to his bed, lying down and opening his dex. He’s so engrossed in comparing the spinaraks’ data that he doesn’t realize he has company until they’re leaning against his bedpost.
“Knock knock.” Blue says.
Red looks up and blinks. “Yo. What’s up? Haven’t seen you in awhile.”
“I’ve been busy. Like yourself, huh?” Blue hooks a thumb in his pocket and leans down to read his dex screen. “You free tonight? I need your help with something.”
“This is nuts.”
Blue smirks at Red. “If you want to back out, now’s the time.”
Red shakes his head with a scowl. “I’m not gonna let you do it alone, I’m just going on the record.”
The two are in one of the House’s Grass Type training rooms. Charmander is at Red’s feet, digging curiously at the dirt that makes up the floor, and Zephyr is fluttering around. Blue tosses his shiftry’s greatball from hand to hand. They just finished keying it toward both his and Red’s voices.
He spent more hours than he could count over the past week training his shiftry virtually, giving it plenty of positive memories to offset the negative ones it surely has of him. Blue doesn’t trust the routine anti-human-aggression programs to keep this particular pokemon from being hostile. There are prerecorded simulations to choose from on the dex, and Blue went through them in a particular order: first Blue finding Shiftry alone and hurt, then slowly nursing him back to health, little by little. They wouldn’t replace the memories it already has, but they would offer another history, and hopefully confuse it enough so that it doesn’t automatically want to attack him.
“It’s got to be done sometime. I need to know how he acts in meatspace, and you’re the only one I trust to have my back on it.”
“Only one dumb enough and close enough, you mean,” Red grumbles, but he stays his ground and widens his stance a bit, hands on an empty pokeball and his charmander’s. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Okay. Ready… set… GO, shiftry!”
The pokemon bursts into existence exactly halfway between him and Red. Blue catches the ball and immediately aims its lens forward, ready to withdraw his pokemon if it pounces on his friend-
-but Blue’s shiftry simply stands there, its body fully restored, if a bit undernourished looking.
Red stands ready, his charmander in a defensive stance. Blue can’t see his shiftry’s face, but Red doesn’t look alarmed, just apprehensive.
“I think… it might be okay?” Red says.
Blue reaches down to his poffin pouch and says “Shiftry, foo-”
At the sound of his voice, his shiftry snaps around on one foot, handleaves fanning out and legs coiling beneath it. Red cries out a warning as it leaps-
“Return!”
The beam hits it mid-air and sucks it back into Blue’s greatball.
Blue stares at it, a sick feeling churning in his stomach. It hadn’t attacked Red, but it still remembers him, and not fondly. All that time spent trying to affect its behavior and view of him, all those hours watching a virtual screen and subtly coaxing it along, and the first test in the real world couldn’t have gone worse.
“Well, that could have gone worse.”
Blue glares at Red. “How?”
“One of us could be dead.” Red strokes his charmander’s head. “For the record, it looked very tense when it was summoned. Maybe it wasn’t your voice that triggered it, just the fact that it was hearing something unexpected from behind it.”
Blue snorts, then tosses his greatball to Red. It’s an easy throw, but Red barely catches it, which doesn’t particularly inspire confidence for the next part.
“You try, then. Let’s see if he goes for me right away.”
“I don’t think the most direct approach is best, in this circumstance.”
“Well it’s the fastest.”
“I don’t think the fastest approach is best in this circumstance either,” Red says. “I’m mostly concerned I’ll miss the return catch and you’ll get killed and I’ll have to fill out a lot of paperwork about responsible use of House training rooms.”
“I believe in you,” Blue says. “And if you don’t believe in you, believe in the me that believes in you.”
Red frowns. “That’s from-”
“Just throw the damn ball!”
Red rolls his eyes and cocks his arm back. “Ready… set… go, Shiftry!”
The release is a bit closer to Red than the middle, which might be for the best, considering, and Red does catch the great ball on its return arc. After that, Blue’s attention is too focused on the shiftry, which locks its gaze on him and immediately crouches for a leap.
Blue takes a step back, hand rising with another greatball. “Zeph-”
“Shiftry, return!”
Red sucks the shiftry back into its ball, then stares at it thoughtfully, other hand going up to adjust his cap. “You know, there’s a chance it’s not trying to attack you.”
Blue raises his head. “Yeah?”
Red nods. “It might be going for a hug.”
Blue gives him a flat stare, and Red’s face remains stoically neutral. “We can’t know until we try.”
Blue cracks a smile and holds his hand up. Red tosses the greatball back, a bit to the right, and Blue snatches it out of the air. “I’m going to call that Plan D, for Dumbass, and keep thinking of alternatives.”
“What if you have some food ready for it? Maybe it’s hungry.”
They try it, and then a trough of water, then both, then put Blue farther behind them. The last is the only one that makes the shiftry hesitate: it clearly identifies Blue, notices the food and water between and to the side, then goes for them.
“Well, that’s promising.” Red stands by, ready with the greatball. “Think you can talk?”
Zephyr spots the pokemon and flies down to land on Blue’s shoulder, looking ready to launch himself at the shiftry. Blue wonders if he thinks it’s the same one that almost killed him. “Ahhhh,” Blue intones, quietly, then with increasing volume. The shiftry pays no heed. “Wom. Pow! Fnnadle! Laracra! Rotund!”
“Rotund is actually a word.”
“Shut up, Red.” Huh. The shiftry isn’t responding to the sound of his voice, or even whole words. “I’m going to try some commands.”
“Kay.” Red steps a bit closer with the greatball, on the opposite side of the food and water.
Blue wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and considers his options. “Shiftry, down.”
His pokemon pauses mid-gobble, the fanlike leaves on its hands flexing outward and inward.
“Shiftry,
down!
”
It drops to its haunches, and Blue blinks. “Well, damn.” He begins to walk forward. “I wonder if-”
The shiftry springs at him, and Blue tucks into a roll while Zephyr launches up. Blue tumbles beneath the shiftry as it leaps to where he was, and Zephyr dives at the shiftry just as Red returns it to the greatball. When Blue stops rolling and bounces to his feet, it takes him a moment to realize the threat has passed.
“You alright?”
“Fine.” Blue looks at where the shiftry was, then presses his back to the wall and slides down it to the floor. Zephyr flutters down to the dirt, pecks at some of it, then hops over to Blue, who strokes his feathers.
Red comes over and sits beside him. “Back to the drawing board, huh?”
Blue grunts. “It was worth a shot. I knew it would take awhile, just gotta keep at it and see if I can think of something else in the meantime.”
“Let me know when you want to try again,” Red says, clapping him on the shoulder. “There are some books on unruly pokemon that I can show you. They might come in handy.”
“Thanks. And thanks for doing this.”
“Of course.”
“I’m serious. I know you’ve got your own stuff going on. I owe you one.”
Red coughs. “Funny you should mention that…”
“Ha. What is it?”
“I need you to take my spinarak to a psychic and have it hit her with Night Shade.”
Blue raises a brow.
Red explains his experiment, and what he needs Blue to do. “Sounds easy enough. So hey, you met with this psychic, right? What did she say about, you know…”
Red stares at the ground. Just as Blue is about to nudge him, he says, “I actually met with a psychic at the hospital. They told me I’m… well, I’m psychic.”
Blue nods, letting out a hollow breath. Of course.
“But I’m also not psychic.”
“Um…”
“He said I have the ability. But that I locked it up. My powers, or whatever. They’re locked up by themselves. I don’t know, the whole thing is weird.”
Blue stares. “Why? I mean why would your powers do that?”
Red lifts a handful of dirt, letting it drop back down slowly. “When my dad died, apparently. That’s what he said, anyway. Unresolved issues or something.”
The two friends sit in silence as Red’s charmander wanders over to the food and begins to munch at the remaining poffins. Blue can’t think of anything to say. He tries to be happy that Red’s a psychic. Just because he isn’t one, just because he wanted it since he was young enough to realize what being a psychic meant, doesn’t mean he can’t be happy for Red. Friends should support each other, not get bitter about shit like that. He thinks he could force himself to congratulate him, and even come to fully mean it in time. But this new twist makes it weird.
“You’ll figure it out,” Blue says at last. “The fuck does that psychic know? You’ll make it work.”
Red looks at him. “You think so?”
“Of course. You’re a smart guy, you know, in your way. Look at you, already doing your own research a couple weeks out of the lab. Whatever the block thing is, you’ll work through it.”
Red smiles. “Thanks, man. And I’m not just saying this because you said that, but I know you’ll get Brock at the end of the month.”
Blue grins. “Of course I will.” His grin fades a bit. “I notice you didn’t say I’ll train this shiftry.”
Red looks at him, solemn again. “You’re the most dedicated trainer I’ve ever met, Blue. I’m sure you’ll go far and do a lot of great things. But one thing I know, and that you know now too, is that you don’t win every battle. Maybe this shiftry is one of those battles. Maybe it’s just too far gone. And sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try, how persuasive you can be, how much skill you have… you can’t have everything. Sometimes you just can’t win.”
Blue wants to reject what he says, but he can’t. The lesson he learned at the Gym, and in the forest standing over the dead pikachu, is still too fresh.
“No. Sometimes you
don’t
win.” He gets to his feet, and Red stands beside him. “But I’ll be damned if that’s going to stop me from trying.”
Leaf sits ramrod straight in the stiff chair, fingers drumming the notepad on her lap. She’s the only person in the waiting room besides the receptionist, an older woman with stern half-lens glasses and her hair up in a tight bun. Leaf arrived thirty minutes early, and she has to refrain from checking the time again. She knows it’s near time. She should be called in to the mayor’s office any moment now.
The museum director declined participation in an interview, but was willing to communicate to the mayor that “a tourist from Unova” wanted to write an article on it. Dr. Brenner said that would get the mayor’s attention, as there’s been a push recently to improve the city’s interregional reputation. Leaf doesn’t know if they namedropped her mom or grandpa, but it probably didn’t hurt if they did.
Tap-tatatap. Tap-tatatap. Tap-tatatap.
The receptionist glances from her computer monitor to Leaf’s fingers. She clasps her hands beneath her legs to keep them still and wishes she brought a book. She was worried it would appear unprofessional. She could take her phone out and read from there, but that probably would look even worse. Leaf makes a resolution to bring a book to any similar future situations. Being antsy doesn’t look particularly professional anyway, and it’s far more boring.
Leaf has met plenty of politicians and famous public figures before. It’s something of an occupational hazard when you tour the region with its eminent pokemon expert. But it was easy not to be nervous of, say, the mayor of Driftveil, when the woman was clearly so excited to meet
the
Professor Juniper… they were always polite to her, and she found the meetings more boring than anything most of the time. As such, not even meeting Professor Oak had made her particularly star-struck.
But this is different. She’s not here to just greet and shake hands and exchange pleasantries with Mayor Kitto: she’s here to interview him, and if she screws it up…
Leaf takes a deep breath, then another.
If I screw it up, the worst that happens is I don’t get any material from him for the article. There’s nothing to be worried about, and being nervous is just going to make it harder.
Whether it’s the self admonishment or the breathing, Leaf feels herself calming little by little… until the receptionist calls her name.
“Yes?” she asks, jumping slightly out of her seat, then freezing halfway to standing.
“Mayor Kitto will see you now.”
Leaf completes her stand and thanks the receptionist as she enters the mayor’s office. Leaf has a moment of surprise at how much more simple and utilitarian it is compared to the ones in Unova. Maybe it’s a Pewter thing rather than a Kanto one. Or maybe it’s a Kitto thing.
The man himself is sitting at a desk that looks intimidatingly busy with files and folders. Mayor Kitto appears to be in his mid-40s, short dark hair starting to grey at the temples and permanent smile lines around his eyes. He stands and offers his hand over the desk, which Leaf shakes after wiping her palm on her skirt.
“Miss Juniper, good morning! I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Please, sit down. Oh, excuse me…” He begins to clear some of the folders from the middle of his desk and stack them onto those to the sides, clearing a sightpath between them as she sits on one of the chairs.
“It’s no problem, thank you for the appointment!” Leaf can’t help but look at all the paperwork. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything too important…”
“Not at all. Hard to believe I know, but the stacks were twice as big this morning.”
Leaf stares. “Is your… computer broken?”
Mayor Kitto laughs. “Have you ever heard of the virtual office?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a myth. Especially in the public sphere: too much need for accountability. Which makes all this paperwork a necessary evil, I’m afraid.”
“Is that a big concern of yours?” Leaf wants to take her notebook and pencil out, but refrains. Laura told her that taking them out would be a signal that the interview has begun, and a reminder that anything said might be printed. Best to build a rapport in a more casual atmosphere first.
Mayor Kitto leans back in his chair. “One of the top concerns for anyone in public office, I would hope. Without it, there’s no trust, and if we don’t trust our leaders we might as well go back to letting the warlords rule us.”
Leaf smiles. “A desk full of paperwork is all that stands between us and feudalism?”
He smiles back. “You can quote me on it. Accountability is the bedrock of a representative government. But I don’t mean to bore you with political science. Tell me how you liked our museum.”
“Oh, it’s fantastic!”
“Do you have a favorite exhibit?”
“I think the interactive fossil excavation. It was a lot of fun!”
The mayor beams. “My daughter thought so too. Came home after they unveiled it and started digging up the whole back yard, dabbing at rocks with a paintbrush.” He chuckles. “She’s studying to be a paleontologist now, so I’d say it did its job. ”
“I know how she feels. I half wanted to become one myself, while I was there.”
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it so much. The director said you were writing an article on it, right? What did you want to ask me?”
“Well, why don’t we start at the beginning? For you, at least. When did you first go to the museum? What was it like for you?”
The mayor chuckles. “Pretty boring, to be honest. It was much smaller back then, and the exhibits were very dry. My dad took me, he was a biologist who worked on one of them, and it was interesting, but not a passion of mine. My real interest in it came after…”
Kitto begins to recount the history of the museum, along with some context of the city at the time. Much of it Leaf has already learned on her own, but he’s a decent storyteller, and she surreptitiously remembers to pick up her notebook at one point and start jotting down lines as she listens.
“-and then they brought those first complete sets of fossils in, and arranged them all into what the pokemon looked like at the time… that was a turning point. Most people around here had no idea how important the fossils were, they just thought it was an interesting exhibit. But within the next month the influx of tourists became noticeable, and then awareness spread quickly as people and the media began to talk about what was drawing them. That’s when the shift to a focus on geology and paleontology started, and the city was never the same. The economic impact of increased tourism are hard to overstate, and we’ve seen regular growth ever since.”
“That’s great,” Leaf says as she writes down the last line for a potential quote. “So are you happy with the latest exhibits?”
“That would be the timeline of the fossil record, right? Yes, very happy. I think it’s very important.”
“What in specific do you think makes it so vital?”
“Well, you know, the implications. For life, us, everything. It’s a big deal.”
Hm. Not quite quote worthy. “I think so too. That’s why it seems so strange to me how many people are against them.”
“Well, hopefully they’ll come around in time.”
Leaf waits a beat, but that’s all he says. She can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Kitto doesn’t seem as passionate about it as she hoped when she found out that he made them possible. It makes sense for a mayor to be focused on economic impacts rather than scientific ones, but…
“Is that why you pushed for the newer exhibits on the possible origins of life and species?” When she was preparing her questions she was going to ask Laura recommended against too many questions that imply an answer already, but said that they can get a more direct response on important topics.
Kitto’s blinks. “Pushed for it? Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, maybe I misunderstood.” She taps her lip with the end of her pencil thoughtfully. “Someone at the museum suggested that you recommended it, or gave the go ahead, or something like that. Is that not right?”
“Ah, just some visitor, then? Well, as much as I’d like to claim credit, the museum’s board and director decide on exhibits.” He gives a wry grin. “All we do from city hall is help pay the bills.”
“I see. Is the funding ever increased or decreased based on what’s exhibited?”
The mayor glances at her notebook, so quickly Leaf almost misses it. “Never directly, but a large portion of its budget is decided ultimately by the public, and without advocates in public office, it can find itself walking a delicate line.”
“In the interviews I’ve done so far, I’ve noticed a lot of disagreement on the latest exhibit, mostly by citizens rather than tourists. What has the controversy been like for you?”
“Well, I’ve gotten my fair share of letters on the exhibit, but then, I’ve gotten letters about cracks in sidewalks too. It’s natural for people to speak their mind and give feedback, but any organized expressions of disapproval have been very mild. And like I said, the Museum’s board is in charge of those decisions.”
“Is there anyone in the public eye you would recommend talking to for an opposing perspective on the exhibits?”
“Hmmm.” The mayor leans back in his chair with his hands clasped, looking up. “Well, there was a letter writing campaign that was organized by some local pastors and religious leaders. Others have been very supportive, however.” He lists some names on both sides of the issue, and she scribbles down the ones that are new to her.
“What about Leader Brock?”
“The Leader has been careful to avoid any public comment on the topic.” His tone is bland and pleasant enough. Is she imagining hostility because of what Dr. Brenner said? Leaf has to remind herself that she’s not trying to stir up drama or make things
more
political. She just wants to know what’s going on.
Leaf pushes her curiosity to the side. “I tried getting an interview already, but I don’t think I’ll be hearing back from them.”
“Well, the Leader is a busy man. More than just papers on
his
desk.” Kitto chuckles. “I on the other hand am happy to help encourage more Unovans to come and visit our city and region. I hope I’ve done that.”
“You have, thanks.” Leaf closes her notebook and tucks it away, indicating that the interview is over. Time to clear the air. “I just want to make sure, the director did mention that I would be publishing it locally as well, right?”
The mayor smiles. “He did. That’s the main reason I made time for the interview.”
Leaf feels confused.
If his focus is increasing tourism, why would he care if it’s published locally? Unless that’s not actually his main goal at all.
“Well, I don’t expect it’ll get a lot of attention here. It’s just an opinion piece from a stranger.”
“Don’t be so sure. An interview with the mayor is no small thing, and I’ll be sure to give it a mention when I can.”
Leaf bites her lower lip before noticing and stopping herself. “Not that I don’t appreciate all the help, but… considering you don’t seem particularly interested in the museum’s latest exhibit, and that’s what the major focus of the article is, why
did
you agree to the interview?”
The mayor is quiet, and Leaf waits. Eventually he says, “What do you think of a leader’s position in the community, Miss Juniper?”
“I never really thought about it before all this. They have a very important role and a lot of influence, don’t they? More than I realized.”
“More, would you say, than was intended by the Regional Charter?”
“I guess that depends on the leader.”
Mayor Kitto smiles. “What’s the most important aspect of representative government, Miss Juniper?”
She considers her answers, but she already knows what he’s expecting, and she mostly agrees in any case. “Accountability.”
“And what’s the major difference between a mayor and a leader?”
“Accountability.” Again, she knows that’s the answer he wants to hear, but now she’s thinking further. “Mayors are public servants, and if the public dislikes some policy or action, they’re voted out. A leader isn’t, they’re replaced mostly by Challenge and other checks of skill or competence.”
“Does a mayor ever influence a city’s defense decisions, or gym standards?”
Leaf smiles. “Not that I’ve seen.” The very idea seems silly.
“And do leaders have no influence on topics outside their purview?”
She shakes her head. “Leaders often command more respect than anyone else in a city. And that can’t help but affect people’s beliefs on other topics.”
“Would you say that’s a healthy balance?”
Leaf is quiet this time, and the mayor doesn’t interrupt it. “There must be some reverse effect as well though,” she says eventually. “Popular leaders affect the public’s opinion, but… the public’s opinions are part of what decides how popular a leader is…”
Mayor Kitto smiles, then glances at his computer screen. “I’m afraid my next appointment is in four minutes. Thank you for your time, Miss Juniper.”
“Thank you, Mayor.” She shakes his hand, then gets up and leaves the office, barely noticing her surroundings. It isn’t until she’s out in the sunlight again that she realizes the mayor never actually answered her question, instead only asking his own.
Blue and Red sit in the mess hall of the Trainer House, one hand shoveling food into their mouths and the other holding up their pokedex, eyes glued to the screens. It’s the tail end of lunch time, and the tables around them are mostly empty.
Blue just arrived from training at the gym with Maturin, Gon and Zephyr, and has about an hour before he’s due at the pokemon center to help out with the beginning of the evening shift. Volunteering there doesn’t feel like a chore anymore, though it does leave him tired at night.
And nights are when he’s been focusing on his shiftry, trying to modulate its behavior through simulations and checking to see if it changed at all in meatspace.
It hasn’t.
Every night, he tries to get it to follow his commands, and every night, it continues trying to kill him. He doesn’t want to admit it to Red, but he’s been considering giving up more and more. He even looked halfheartedly into ads by trainers looking for shiftry, but the vetting process for trading pokemon is strict. Blue would never get through the live test without demonstrating that his shiftry is too wild, even if it’s only violent toward him.
People don’t tend to want traumatized pokemon.
“Hey, apparently some trainers have found their shiftry calmer after eating the right type of foods,” Red says, one hand flicking through the dex’s screen while the other twirls noodles around his fork and lifts it to his mouth. “Oh, but it also might not leave them wholly lucid…”
Blue snorts. “Yeah, I considered tranqing him, but it’s hard enough to get the dose right between asleep and high as a kite, let alone leaving him fit for training.”
“Well, it’s an idea to consider.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Blue looks through the current simulation’s intended goals, then flicks it aside and checks out the next one. “‘To housebreak your pokemon,’ ‘to reduce hostility between your pokemon,’ ‘to reduce pokemon trauma’… that one might be useful, but where’s the sim for ‘stop your pokemon from being full of bloodthirsty vengeance?'”
“Hey, I think this is it!”
“What, really?” Blue leans over to look.
“No, not that.” Red highlights something on his pokedex with his fingers, then transfers it locally. Blue’s dex pings, and he taps the notification of what Red sent him. It’s a tab on the shiftry page for their social habits. He goes to the highlighted lines.
Another sign of shiftry’s high intelligence, and another behavior that earned them the title of “Wicked Pokemon,” is their intricate and violent social structure. Few pokemon species are as vicious in establishing their pecking order. Even obedient shiftry are known to attack the pokemon a trainer used to defeat them…
Blue’s flare of hope and excitement peters out. “That doesn’t help us,” he says, closing the page and going back to looking through training and bonding simulations. “I already used violence to subdue it, that’s why it hates me in the first place.”
“No, keep reading, did you get to this part? ‘
In the wild, this often results in re-establishment of dominance, as shiftry habitually attempt to usurp leadership from those above them in their family.’
Don’t you see? It doesn’t
hate
you, it just sees you as its dominant!”
Blue stares. “But I
am
its dominant. How does anyone train a shiftry if…” He trails off as he remembers what was written. “Wait, so because from its perspective
I
defeated it instead of a pokemon…?”
“It was already down and out when you cut it up, right? Maybe it thinks that it can take you now that it’s healthy.”
“That’s nuts, how do they work so well together if they’re constantly trying to kill their superiors?”
“Well, they’re not. They might try to sneak in a kill if they see weakness, but for the most part a shiftry that gets beaten stays beaten, and it’s easy to remember why when your alpha is bigger and stronger than you. You, on the other hand, look nothing like a man-sized shiftry’s superior. No offense.”
Blue puts his pokedex down, considering this. “So I need to beat it again, when it’s healthy. Or get one of my pokemon to do it, rather.”
“That’s my current hypothesis, yeah. But you might have to do more than just beat it the normal way, as in capture it in a ball. You need to actually establish dominance.” Red glances at his screen, then closes the dex and begins cleaning up his tray. “We can talk about it tonight, I’ve got an appointment in forty minutes and the psychic’s office is thirty away. See you later.”
“Later,” Blue mutters, barely noticing Red’s departure. The idea spins around and around his mind, coming closer to a landing with every revolution. He should have seen it earlier. His shiftry wants to fight him, just like any wild pokemon before it’s caught. And just like any wild pokemon, he would have to show it that he’s higher in the pecking order.
Which means…
Blue checks the time, then jumps up to throw out his tray and head for the elevators. He has almost an hour before he’s due at the pokecenter. And that’s an hour he can use to make his pokemon his, for real.
Blue hurries to his room to grab his pack, then down to the training hall. The rooms are mostly full of trainers and their pokemon, and Blue jogs between the doors to find an empty one, not caring what type it’s for. He won’t be needing the supplies.
Blue ends up in a Rock type training room, which he takes as a stroke of luck considering the layout is similar to the arenas at Pewter Gym. He unhooks the shiftry’s greatball and bounces it between his palms as he considers his strategy.
When he first encountered the shiftry in Viridian, taking it on alone would have given him trouble. He barely managed to beat the other, and lost his caterpie, beedrill and nearly Zephyr to do so. But that was weeks of training and experience ago.
His main problems are his pokemon’s types. Gon would be all but useless, as his seeds and powders would have no effect, and Maturin is at a type disadvantage. Which means it will be up to Zephyr, the pokemon he has trained with the least since coming to Pewter.
But he’s gotten a lot stronger regardless, and he has the type advantage. Blue reaches for Zephyr’s pokeball and prepares to release him…
…when the thought comes that he’s being stupid.
This is too big a risk to take alone. He won’t let fear rule his decisions: he knows he can do this, despite the danger. But if he lets his overconfidence get Zephyr or himself killed, he’ll have shown he learned nothing from his time here.
Blue reclips his ball and leaves the training room, deciding to wait until Red is available tonight.
“Six more,” Psychic Ranna says, handing Red half a dozen sheets with the latest test results. They’re in her office, its light magenta wallpaper and deeply cushioned couches giving it an oddly soothing atmosphere. It reminds Red of his old therapist’s office, though the two look nothing alike.
He thumbs through the surveys and nods. “Good, an even thirty. Are you still feeling okay?”
“Yes, thankfully there are still no lasting effects. How’s the data looking so far?”
“Not great,” Red admits.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and sounds like she means it. “Any appointments for Sunday?”
“Not so far. I have one I think will be free on Tuesday, and hopefully another nine will contact me by the end of next week. I’ll let you know if anything changes. Enjoy your Saturday.”
“Thank you. Goodnight Red.”
“Night.” He heads for the door and makes his way to the Trainer House by the light of the streetlamps. It’s a bit of a bother coming here to pick up the reports every few days, but he can’t have her read the reports to type them up and email them after they’re written, so manual pickup it is. Thankfully she’s not hard to work with. It’s good to have met a psychic who’s pleasant, if still a bit distant.
Pewter is busy winding down the workday and preparing for the weekend. Red passes by a lot of couples and groups of friends, laughing and chatting as they head into movie theaters and bars and restaurants. The latter often emit savory scents that make his belly rumble. He has to keep reminding himself that he has to save his money, that five to ten dollars here and there add up, and that cheap and perfectly serviceable food is waiting for him at the Trainer House. After almost a month of eating meals consisting of mostly noodles or rice, he’s homesick for his mom’s cooking.
More than that, he misses his friends. Everyone’s so busy with their projects that other than in the quick nightly tests with Blue and occasional shared meal with him or Leaf, they’ve all but stopped talking to each other. Red thought his research would keep him happy, but he knows that’s where the real problem is.
“Not great” was an understatement. What Red could have said was that his research is a bust. Unless the six in his hand and the next ten subjects are wildly different from the previous ones, he can already see from the emerging data that any correlation between a spinarak’s mental attacks and the % of their mass unaccounted for in the pokedex is extremely low, and likely nonexistent.
He knows that it’s still important to finish. There might still be something to be learned once he has all the data, or in a qualitative analysis of the reports. And even if not, null results are vitally important in science. What he’s learned may not be important, but it can help guide people toward things that are.
None of that helps him feel like he hasn’t wasted the past month, or dread the hours more of writing and analysis to come. And all of which just make his feelings of loneliness and restlessness worst.
His only solace is his time spent with his pokemon. He tries to fit in an hour every night to spend time with at least one of them, whether it’s for a bit of training, playing a game, or just walking around the city. Charmander and Rattata enjoy the park, and over the past week he’s felt safe picking Pichu up and carrying him around without cheri berries.
He hasn’t brought his spinarak out since leaving the forest.
Red arrives at the Trainer House and heads to the dining hall. He fills his tray with some rice balls and steamed vegetables, and reads over the reports as he eats.
Subject 25 – 4/10
A sensation of intense vertigo and fear, coupled with discomfort in the stomach and chest akin to looking down from a high place. Recording shows shortness of breath for approximately fourteen seconds. Discomfort was bearable but unpleasant.
Subject 26 – 2/10
Mild fear and discomfort. Couldn’t quite pinpoint a theme. Odd sensation in stomach.
Subject 27 – 7/10
Debilitating fear. Horrible. Feelings of falling from a great height. Coupled with an intense physical reaction. I have nearly fallen from my chair and am gripping tight to ensure that I do not panic entirely. The spinarak’s trainer is writing this. By dictation. Before I remove the memory. Now. Alright you can
It stops there. Red puts the papers down, skin feeling clammy with nerves from expecting a flashback to his own experience. He had them for the first two weeks of reading the reports, but they’ve slowly been getting more bearable, and he hasn’t had one at all in the past few days. Whatever lingering effects his spinarak’s attack had on him seem to finally be wearing off. He drinks some water and moves on to the next one.
Subject 28 – 5/10
A sensation of vertigo and terror, with intense discomfort in the stomach and chest akin to looking down from high up. Recording shows intense physical reaction for about twenty-two seconds. Discomfort was fairly strong.
Red looks at the similarities between 4 and 5, interested by how they overlap. The similar language and sentence structure in equal scores is something that he wants to study more. Surely other scientists have caught on to how interesting the idea of selective amnesia can be on studies of memory and personality? If so, he hasn’t heard of it yet.
Red finishes eating and reading the other two reports, then heads up to the computer lab and enters the data. He sighs as he sees the line representing the attack score vary wildly in relation to the matching spinaraks’ “Other” data.
His own spinarak, subject 11, turned out to have a substantially powerful attack after all: it scored an 8/10, tieing it with one other spinarak as the second highest recorded. It made him feel better knowing that his spinarak’s mental attacks actually are powerful for its species, even after it became clear from the rest of the data that it’s one of the few with a high score on both metrics.
Psychic Ranna told him that she was basing her scale off previous Ghost type attacks she experienced when she was younger and still remembers. It worries him a bit that her baseline is so potentially different from what she’s comparing it to now, but that’s the downside of having your subject forget each test.
One idea he’s glad he had was to use the video recording of each event to monitor how long it takes for her to physically calm down. It’s imprecise and not particularly useful for extremely low scores, where she has no visible reaction, or high scores, where she often wipes the memory shortly afterward rather than waiting for it to fade on its own, but he couldn’t think of anything better at the time.
With a sigh, Red opens the document where he’s been writing the full paper and picks it up where he left off. He’s done with most of the Abstract, Introduction and Methodology, and is updating them all and the Results as new data comes in. He’s just about to email a question to Professor Oak when his phone rings.
“Hey Blue, what’s up?”
“Just got out. You at the House?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, I’m heading there. I know it’s early, but I want to try out your idea from lunch. You free?”
Right, that.
Red hopes he’s right about it and Blue manages to tame the shiftry, because he doesn’t think his friend will be able to beat Brock otherwise.
“I’m working on something right now…” Red looks at his paper, considering the hours of writing and editing ahead, and grimaces. He’s happy to have an excuse to put that off. “But I can put it on hold when you get here.”
“Awesome, thanks. See you soon.”
Red puts his phone away and works halfheartedly for the next half hour, mind elsewhere. If Blue tries to beat the shiftry again, Red will have to be far away to ensure it works properly, which will make it difficult to help protect Blue if things get out of hand. He wonders if they should get Leaf too, but he knows she probably won’t approve of their method of rehabilitating a potentially traumatized pokemon through more violence. It even feels a bit convenient to Red: he expected to find some complex or unique method of calming the shiftry down or getting it to listen to Blue. Just having to rough it up some seems anticlimactic.
But that’s silly. They might have just been wrong in their first assumption of the shiftry’s behavior, and correcting that assumption would hopefully lead to a different result. Reality doesn’t care about convenience or dramatic story progression.
As his research is demonstrating to him.
Red grimaces as he realizes he’s been staring at the screen without typing for five minutes. He saves his work and he logs off the computer, then heads to his room to collect his things and wait for Blue downstairs.
Blue arrives in his volunteer scrubs and dashes up to his room to change and grab his stuff, instructing Red to try to find a Rock training room. By the time he does so, Blue has already arrived and jogs over to the right door when Red texts him which one is free.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Blue says, unhooking a pokeball and sending Zephyr out. “I’ll try to keep Zephyr moving fast in and out, so it doesn’t have a chance to get a solid hit in. Do you think Charmander could slow it down without hurting it too badly?”
Red watches Zephyr soar around the room, then perch on Blue’s arm. “It would be risky. I think I have a better idea.” He reaches for the pokeball at his back. It’s been days since his last flashback. Time to put it to the real test. “Let’s see if this works first… go, Spinarak!”
The bug materializes and immediately skitters around a small boulder, then on top of it, turning from side to side with a clatter of its feet. The sound gives Red the jitters, but when he forces himself to look at the pattern on its thorax…
…
…
dark…
…
…
cold…
Red grits his teeth, focusing on his breathing. The sense of mental anguish is there, but bearable… just.
“Red? You alright?”
He realizes Blue is looking at him with concern, and flashes a thumbs-up. “Let’s do it.”
Blue unhooks his shiftry’s greatball and positions himself in a space without rocks around him. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Red says, standing on the opposite end with his spinarak. Both of them have their air masks on.
Blue takes a deep breath, feeling the calm descend. There’s a distant fear under it, but it’s mostly from the idea that they might be wrong, and that this won’t work. But if it doesn’t work, there’s nothing he can do about it now. Either it will or it won’t, and he’ll deal with it if not. In the meantime, he knows what he needs to do. All that’s left is to do it.
“Go, shiftry!”
It appears halfway between them, facing Red. Blue catches the ball on its return and immediately points with his other hand. “Zephyr, wing attack!”
His pidgey lets out a battle screech as it dives and rakes its talons through the shiftry’s long white hair as it flies by. It gives its coughing roar and pirouettes, eyes searching for a target and locking onto Blue.
“Spinarak, string shot!”
Blue is already jumping back as the shiftry springs toward him, but its jump catches short mid-air, and it lands awkwardly as the sticky webbing tethers it to the ground. Zephyr comes down for another pass and sends the shiftry spinning in place again with another long scratch along its side. The shiftry swipes at it with both arms, but Zephyr does a twisting dive that lets it slip under its reach.
“String shot!”
A line of web attaches to the shiftry’s right arm, and its attempt to chase after Zephyr is aborted. It turns to try and hack at the restraining lines, and Zephyr rakes its other side, causing it to flinch and swipe at him again.
“Gonna try to get its other arm! Spinarak, string shot!”
The webbing misses the limb and drapes itself over the shifty’s shoulder. Blue’s about to order Zephyr to peck when the shiftry gathers itself into a ball and tumbles to the side, stretching the strings of web as it moves in an arc around toward Red’s spinarak.
Shit!
“Zephyr, Feather Dance!”
“Spinarak, dodge!”
Red’s spinarak scuttles to the side as the shiftry awkwardly struggles against the webbing to chase it. Zephyr soars overhead and hovers in place above the shiftry, wings flapping in a blur that sends tufts of down and feathers everywhere. The shiftry swipes at them in irritation, then lets out an explosive sneeze, followed by racking coughs that cause its whole body to shake.
“Do bugs breathe? Zephyr, Quick Attack!”
“It’ll be fine! Spinarak, String Shot!”
The shiftry gives its coughing roar again, this time literally coughing as it shakes its head, mane of hair rustling and shedding bits of feather dander. It abruptly raises its head and stares at Red… and its eyes begin to glow.
“Gah!” Red clutches at his head and shakes it. A surge of panic makes Blue break into a sprint as Red drops to his knees and frantically scratches at his arms. “AHH, BLUE, MAKE IT STOP!”
Blue dashes in front of his friend, arms down to the sides to try to cover Red as much as possible. “Shit, sorry! I thought it would try it on me! Are you okay?!” The shiftry is still staring at him, eyes aglow.
“Nngh… yeah… ugh, that felt terrible!” There’s a sound behind him, and Blue turns to see Red sitting back with his head between his legs. “Gimme… just, a moment…”
Blue stares at his shiftry, anger growing into a slow rage. This goddamn pokemon tried to kill him and the others in Viridian, and after he saved its life it’s given him nothing but trouble. Now it’s hurting his friend, who’s only here for his sake. “Zephyr, Feather Dance!”
Another rain of down and feathers cover the shiftry, and after a moment of continued intense staring, the shiftry begins to twitch and rumble, a low series of coughs building in its chest until it doubles over.
“It stopped, Red. How you doing?”
“I’ll be alright. The shiftry?”
“Almost done I think. Just call out for a couple more String Shots and let’s end this.”
Their pokemon continue to harry and trip up the shiftry as it tries to free itself from the webs and slice the infuriatingly quick pidgey in two. Eventually it begins to tire, stuck by half a dozen weblines and bleeding from multiple wounds. Red eventually recovers enough to stand up and spread out from Blue, and after a few more attempts to untangle itself, the shiftry lets out a groan and falls to its side, chest heaving as it catches its breath.
“Spinarak, return!”
“Zephyr, return!”
They both keep their pokemon’s balls ready in their hands as they watch the shiftry struggle to get back up, then collapse back down. “Think that did it?” Red asks, voice rough.
“One way to find out.” Blue approaches the shiftry, anger making him fearless. He gets some powerful deja vu, staring down at the shiftry as it labors for breath and struggles to lift its arms enough to reach him.
“Blue, back up. You want it to remember one of our pokemon defeating it.”
Blue lets out a breath, the nods and steps to the side. “You got something in mind?”
“Yeah.” Red reclips spinarak’s ball and takes out another one. “Go, Pichu!”
The yellow rodent appears in a flash of light, and immediately darts to its master’s side, tail quivering up as it stares at the struggling shiftry. “Why him?” Blue asks, then answers his own question. “Distance and resistance.”
“Yeah. Charmander might do too much damage, and the others have to get too close.” Red walks around the shiftry so that he’s out of its sight, and Blue does the same. “Pichu, Thundershock!”
The pichu lets out a high pitched squeal, and a jolt of electricity jumps between it and Blue’s shiftry. His pokemon jerks and tries to attack, but the shocks combined with the webbing keep it flailing on the ground.
Pichu stops, cheeks losing their glow little by little. “What do you think?” Red asks.
Blue watches his shiftry in silence, and eventually it begins to struggle to its feet again, leaf-blades spreading and closing as it focuses on the pichu. From here they can’t see its eyes, and Blue is worried about it attempting another Extrasensory attack. “Another.”
“Thundershock!”
Again the jolt of electricity, again the waiting and watching as his shiftry, after a moment’s rest, tries to go on the offensive again.
Stay down, dammit.
“Once more.”
Bbzzaaaap!
Smoke begins to curl up from the shiftry, and Red calls for his pokemon to stop. Blue watches as his shiftry draws in one laborious breath after another… but doesn’t attempt to rise.
“Shiftry, return!”
“Pichu, return!”
Blue lets out a breath as he aligns his greatball lens with his pokedex, tension easing slowly. Red reclips his pokeball and stares at Blue’s greatball speculatively. “Think it worked?”
“One way to find out. First though, back to the pokecenter.” Blue takes off his mask, and Red follows suit. Blue notices Red’s face is a bit pale and sweaty. “Thanks man. For everything.” He holds out his fist as they head for the door, and Red bumps it.
“Anytime. I’m going to go get some rest. Let me know when you get back.”
“You sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Yeah. Just hope I don’t have to do anything like that again soon.”
“The psychic attack was that bad, huh?”
“Oh, yeah, that sucked too. I meant more what we did to the shiftry. I know it was trying to kill you, and maybe this is the only way it’ll become tame, but it still felt… cruel.”
Blue lets out a breath and leans against the elevator wall, remembering the hatred that boiled up in him when Red got hurt. “I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s a cruel world. As long as we can control the shiftry and use it to protect others, that’s a net win.”
“Then you’re okay with that? Becoming cruel ourselves?” Red asks, meeting his gaze.
Blue looks back at him, remembering the pokemon and people that were cut down by the shiftry in Viridian. “If that’s what it takes? Sure.” He punches the button for the lobby. “Better us than them.”
Blue’s squirtle ducks into her shell just as the graveler slams its main arms into the ground. A cone of upheaval spreads outward, buckling the earth of the arena around Maturin and hiding her in a cloud of dirt for a moment. Blue’s platform trembles beneath him as the tail end of the quake dissipates against the edge of the arena, and by the time it fades he can see his pokemon again.
“Daro, Slam!”
“Maturin, Bubble!”
Maturin emerges from her shell and spits a stream of bubbles at the advancing graveler. The bubbles pop in rapid flashes as their opponent lets out a deep roar, pushing through the attack with its short, powerful legs as its hide turns white and cracks.
Blue watches his opponent, knowing that any second now he’ll realize… there. The other trainer, Rem, grimaces and points his greatball forward. “Daro, return!” Blue lets out a breath as the pokemon dematerializes, glad he didn’t have to order Maturin to stop. Another few seconds of that might have badly hurt the graveler, but if it got close enough to hit Maturin…
“Dammit,” Rem says. “Usually he can last longer than that.”
Blue doesn’t respond other than to call his squirtle over and let her have a drink of water. After a month at the gym, he’s still surprised at how many trainers that come to Pewter insist on practice matches against types their pokemon are weak against. Blue knows you can’t always count on having a favorable matchup, and clearly Brock inspires them to master their type beyond average conventions…. it just seems like a really inefficient use of time.
“Okay, your pick. ”
Blue checks the time. Jarod won’t be free for about another five minutes. “You said you have a pidgey too, right?”
“Yep. You want to try yours against it?”
“No, my squirtle. Just come at her as normal.” Blue checks Maturin over, then commands her forward. “Ready.”
“Go, Dream!”
The pidgey bursts into existence mid-air and immediately swoops around their arena in a circle. Blue waits for it to lock onto Maturin, then says, “Water Gun!”
One, two, three darts of water shoot up at the bird, who dodges them with a hard bank and dive. “Dream, Quick Attack!”
“Withdraw!” Blue shouts, too late as the pidgey turns on its wingtip and bolts straight at Maturin and scores three bleeding lines across her head. Maturin lets out a cry of pain, then follows the order and ducks into her shell.
Good girl.
When the pidgey comes around for another pass, its talons rake harmlessly against her shell. On the next pass, it manages to draw blood from her hind leg or tail: Blue can’t quite see the wound. He waits until the pidgey banks around for another pass, then yells, “Maturin, roll right!”
His squirtle’s legs dart out on one side and flip her onto her back, then immediately retract as the other side does the same to flip her onto her belly again. Dream misses on its flyby, and Maturin keeps repeating the process, steadily flipping her way to the side.
Still too slow.
“Maturin, Withdrawup!”
Maturin flips vertically this time, balancing on slightly protruding hind legs. “Dream, Peck!” The pidgey dives in and begins harassing her, nails scrambling for something soft to cut, and Blue sees his opportunity.
“Maturin, Water Gun!”
His squirtle’s head pops up and then back down in the space of a heartbeat, and in that time hits the pidgey with a burst of water at point blank range. It tumbles backward, then catches itself in the air and flaps the water from its feathers as it hovers warily in place.
Meanwhile Maturin’s head is back in her shell, and she stands upright and ready for her next command.
“Dream, Wing Attack!” The pidgey dives at Maturin and begins to buffet her with its wings, talons scrambling at her shell.
It’s a risk to pop her head up again now, and more of her is exposed in this position than the normal one. “Maturin, Withdraw!” She plops back down onto her belly, leaving only her smooth, hard back for the pidgey to batter. “Rapid Spin!”
Her legs all kick out at once, turning her so fast that the pidgey startles backward, wary of another attack. “Water Gun!”
“Quick attack!”
Dream darts forward just as Maturin pokes her head out and spits a shot of water. The pidgey scratches her head again, blood sprinkling the arena floor, but instead of flying past, the bird falls out of the air and tumbles over the ground, chest dark with water. Blue can’t tell how badly his pokemon is hurt, but when the pidgey doesn’t get back up right away, he withdraws Maturin, and Rem runs forward to get his pokeball in range of Dream.
“Whew. Must have been a hard hit. What do you say? Call that a draw?”
Blue smirks, then forces it into a more friendly smile. “Sure.”
As if.
“Good match.”
“You too. I never saw a squirtle do so much from in its shell.”
“I’ve been working on it for about a month now. Still needs some practice.” Blue sees the training room door open, and Jarod stick his head in. He raises a hand to catch his attention. “Hey, I’ve gotta go.”
Rem turns, then nods. “Sure. Good luck on your next Challenge!”
“Thanks.” Blue jogs over to the door and joins Jarod in the hallway. “Yo. So what do you say?”
“I say you’re early. You’ve still got two days.”
Blue crosses his arms. “You’re not wussing out on me, are you?”
“Big talk from a badgeless. Maybe I’m concerned for your fragile ego.”
“You could have said no over text.”
“Nah, not as fun.” Jarod rubs where the scar crosses his nose. “So what, you think you can beat me for real? Your squirtle still hasn’t evolved.”
“Don’t need her to.”
Jarod’s eyes widen, then narrow as he runs his fingers over the balls on the front of his belt. “No wartortle, huh? And you haven’t been using any new pokemon… What’s your angle?”
“You can find out during our battle, or at my Challenge with everyone else.”
“I saw the agenda. You’re not scheduled for another four days. I bet you would have gone for a month on the dot, if there was an opening for it.”
Blue smiles. He probably would have, though he can admit to himself at least that he’s glad for the extra two days. It’s time to test his shiftry out in a real match so he still has time to work on flaws in technique. Jarod is the perfect test run for his shiftry: experienced enough and with strong enough pokemon that he can handle it.
“So? Are you free or not?”
Jarod stretches his arms out, then folds them behind his head. “Why not. It’ll give you some practice grieving before you lose your second Challenge.”
“Alright, pick an arena room then.”
“What, here and now?”
“Got something better to do?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. But fuck it, this won’t take long.” Jarod leads the way to some unused training rooms, stopping at doors every few feet and looking inside a few before finding one that suits his liking. He opens it. “After you.”
It’s a standard room, with the dirt and boulders that most of Pewter Gym’s arenas share. Jarod probably picked this one because it’s a bit smaller than most.
Blue goes to his platform without waiting. “One pokemon each, first knockout.”
Jarod mounts his own platform. “You’re not even going to use your whole lineup? You
better
have an angle, and it better be that you’ve gone and bought a perfectly trained dragonair just so you could beat Pewter.” Jarod tsks. “Rich kids. Always gotta learn the hard way that buying a top tier pokemon doesn’t make them a top tier trainer.”
Anger heats Blue’s chest and cheeks, but after weeks of verbal sparring with Jarod, it takes barely a second to push it back down. He unclips his greatball and tosses it in his hand. “Ready?”
Jarod raises a brow and unclips an ultraball from his waist. “Guess we get to see what’s in there at last. Go, Rocksteady!”
Jarod’s ball flies through the air, and in a flash of light spits a Rhydon onto the arena floor.
Rock and Ground. Slow, but hits hard. Its Horn Drill can instantly kill most pokemon it can get into position.
Very
sturdy against physical attacks, but barely any protection from everything else.
Too bad all of his shiftry’s Grass attacks are physical. Its type advantage would help, but not by a lot. He’ll have to rely on his speed.
“I know you don’t want me to hold anything back,” Jarod says. “But I’m going to be as careful as I can not to kill your pokemon. Don’t be scared.”
Blue cocks his arm and throws. “Go, Kemuri!”
His shiftry appears facing the rhydon and immediately fans its leaves out to the sides, rocking back and forth on its odd feet. The surprise on Jarod’s face is immensely satisfying. “You caught one of the shiftry in the forest?”
“Kemuri, Leaf Blade!” There’s a second of delay, and then he bounds forward and slashes at the rhydon.
“Rocksteady, Take Down!”
Rocksteady surges forward, and Kemuri ducks and rolls to the side. The rhydon roars as it stumbles past, and Blue sees three long lines on its side. White discoloration spreads from the etched rock, and the ragged edges of Kemuri’s leaves drip sap onto the ground before they reknit themselves whole and sharp again.
“Rocksteady, Drill Run!” Joren shouts, and his pokemon falls onto all fours and charges, horn rotating with a high pitched
rrrrrrr
of scraping stone. Kemuri dodges it again and tries to cut downward as the rhydon passes by, but Jarod shouts “Slam!” and it throws its body to the side, forcing Kemuri to leap away.
Within his envelope of calm, Blue absently wipes a drop of sweat from his brow. That was too close. The Rhydon is incredibly quick for its species, and he knows Jarod must have trained its speed to make up for its major weakness. “Kemuri, Leaf Blade!”
His pokemon narrows its leaves on either arm into outstretched, overlapping swords, then stabs them forward to score harsh lines along the side of the rhydon’s face and under its eye, dancing a step forward and back to avoid being crushed by its lunges. “Megahorn!” Jarod shouts as Kemuri leans forward again, and Rocksteady throws its head up. Its whirring horn narrowly misses Kemuri’s arm, but cuts the bundled leaves from his right “hand” in half as the shiftry jerks to the side. His coughing roar almost drowns out Jarod’s command of “Take Down!”
“Feint Attack!” Blue yells, and is relieved to see his shiftry stop its pained reaction immediately and throw itself to the side, slashing the rhydon’s rocky hide as it lunges past. Sap drips steadily from his severed leaves, and Blue watches it carefully to see if the wound will close on its own. He shakes his watch loose and taps the screen to set a one minute timer. If it continues to bleed by the end of it, he’ll withdraw. Either way, continuing to fight up close is a bad idea. He needs to get some distance and time for an Extrasensory attack. “Kemuri, back!”
The rhydon is beginning to show its injuries, gait uneven and breathing labored from pain. Jarod watches Kemuri leap away, then says, “Rocksteady, Flamethrower.”
Ah, shit-
“Kemuri, dodge!” Blue yells as Rocksteady stands back up on its hind legs, chin bowed and chest heaving. Kemuri leaps in a random direction just before Rocksteady raises its head and vomits out a stream of fire that splatters over the rocky arena in a wide arc. Kemuri leaps again and again without further prompting as the spray of fire follows him, and coughs in pain as some of the fire lands on his long white hair or wooden skin.
Blue feels some of the heat against his face as he aims his greatball and tracks his pokemon’s movements. The stream of fire is thin and paltry compared to an arcanine or magmar’s flamethrower, but it’s dangerous enough to take his pokemon down if he gets directly hit.
Three… four… five… six…
The rhydon closes its mouth, fire dripping from its jaws and burning harmlessly against its skin. Flames continue to burn across a wide swathe of the arena, scorching the ground and rocks black until they die down a few seconds later. As soon as new fire stops being shot at it, Kemuri throws itself to the ground and begins to roll along the dirt, snuffing out the fire that had landed on it in various spots. “Kemuri, Extrasensory,” Blue says once he can’t see any more fire, but the shiftry continues to flail along the ground. “
Kemuri, stop!”
His pokemon goes still. Half of its shaggy white mane has been burnt, and smoke still rises from various parts of its body. The rhydon would need time to use that attack again, and they need to end this now. “Kemuri, Extrasensory,” Blue says.
Instead his shiftry dashes forward to attack with his leaves again, scoring more jagged lines along the grey ridges of the rhydon’s hide.
No!
“Kemuri, back!”
“Rocksteady, Hammer Arm!”
“Kemuri, Feint Attack!”
The rhydon’s grey arm slams down on Kemuri’s shoulder with a sharp
crack
, and the shiftry crumples to the ground. Blue withdraws him a heartbeat later, stomach rolling with a mix of frustration and anger at his pokemon for not listening to him… and shame for losing the match.
“Rocksteady, return!” Jarod withdraws his rhydon, then clips it to his belt and walks over, casually stepping around the scorched parts of the arena. “Well? Is it okay?” he asks once he’s closer.
“It’s fine. Just a broken arm and the burns, I think.” Blue takes out his pokedex to check anyway. “Yeah. I’ll get it over to the center to heal up.” He puts his dex away and reclips the ball. “Thanks for the rematch.” Blue steps down from his platform and begins to walk across the arena toward the exit.
Jarod follows him. “No problem, beating you was more fun than I expected. I’m happy to do it again sometime.”
Blue glances at Jarod as they walk. If he didn’t know better he’d say Jarod is being nice, in his own way. “Well, we’re 1 to 1 now, so I’d say another rematch is in order.”
“Oh sure, count the preliminary match. Anytime, anywhere, Oak. You heal that sorry excuse for a plant pokemon up, make sure it actually listens to you, and after a dozen fights or so, you might actually beat me.”
Blue smirks, but it fades by the time they leave the training room. “I’m just glad to see he followed my other orders until then. I had some trouble getting him to listen at all until last week.” Blue hates how he sounds like he’s making excuses, but he finds that he wants Jarod to know how much effort has gone into his training.
“Well, you’ve got four days to get it to follow orders better in the heat of things. Do that, and as far as trump cards go, you might stand a chance.”
“Especially since onix can’t TM Flamethrower, or any other Fire attacks.”
Jarod grins. “Liked that, huh?”
Blue shrugs. “It can help their coverage a bit, but hacking their biology to fit in some extra organs doesn’t change that rhydon is a physical attacker. Most cases you’re better off sticking to what they can learn naturally.”
“
Hai, sensei
.” Jarod sketches an elaborate bow. “I’m always grateful of what pearls of wisdom you deign to drop for me.”
“May you profit from them all.”
Jarod’s smile fades slightly as they reach a branch in the corridor, and Blue stops walking when Jarod does. “Well here’s one for you. I know you help out at the center most afternoons, but come back tonight if your shiftry is ready by then.”
Blue raises a brow. “You offering a rematch, or personal training time?”
“Both. And before you get flattered, this is a safety concern. You’re going to be using a temperamental pokemon that’s clearly not fully under your control yet in a Challenge match. I need to make sure you get a handle on its disobedience, because if you step out in that coliseum against Brock and your shiftry decides to stop listening to you at the wrong moment, someone could get hurt. That’s not happening in my Gym. Understand?”
Blue meets Jarod’s gaze for a moment, pride fighting his sense, then nods. “I’ll be here. Humiliating myself in the public eye is the last thing I want.”
“Good. Brock’s a fair guy, but you’ve only ever seen his friendly side. Believe me, you don’t want to come into his arena with an unruly pokemon. Put your pokemon or his at risk like that, and a public browbeating will be the least of your worries.”
“Excuse me. Pardon me. So sorry…”
Red and Leaf make their way to their seats through the throng of spectators. They thought they were getting here early, but apparently underestimated how many people would show up. When Red watched the vid of Blue’s first Challenge, the stands were maybe a quarter full. Now it looks like they’re well past half.
“This is J-23,” Leaf says as she passes an empty chair. “There, those two must be 27 and 28.”
Red follows her to them and sits with a sigh of relief. The noise and presence of the crowd sets his nerves on edge, and he finds himself tugging the bill of his hat down every few minutes. “What time is it supposed to start, do we know?”
“Seven on the dot. Not sure how often they’re on schedule, this is my first time at one of these.”
Red grins. “You too? I thought I was the only one.”
Leaf shrugs. “I get that it can be important. I just don’t like seeing them get hurt.”
“Ah. Right. So, uh, how’s the article going?”
Leaf brightens. “I finished it last night.”
“That’s great! When can I read it?”
“Your mom was looking it over today for final edits. I should have them done by the end of the night.”
“I can look it over and give you some feedback by the end of the night too, if you want.”
She smiles. “Sure.”
“What?”
“What, what?”
“You seemed, I don’t know, amused.”
“No, not at all, I just… I mean, do you think you’ll have some suggestions that Laura wouldn’t make?”
Red considers this, and grudgingly nods after a moment. “Okay, fair point. Nevermind.”
“No, it’s okay, I’m interested to know what you think.”
“You don’t have to appease my ego, you’re right. I’ll just give you my thoughts as a reader.”
“Well, thanks. I’m open to any feedback.”
“No prob.”
“What about you, what’s going on with the study? It’s over, right?”
“Yeah, we finished the last session yesterday.”
“So what have you got so far?”
Red hesitates, then pulls out his pokedex and opens the draft of his paper. He goes to the graph and expands it. “Spot my headache.”
A simple scatterplot titled “Correlation between Intensity of Night Shade and the concentration of ‘Other’ pokedex composition metric in spinarak” is displayed. The Y axis is marked from 1 to 10, and the X axis goes from 5% to 25%, with the highest point of data at 23%, and the lowest at 6%. Forty dots fill the graph, clustered mostly between the 5 and 7 on the Y axis, and everywhere on the X.
“Huh. This actually looks… well, mostly random, but it looks like there’s some slight correlation.”
“Yeah. For the most part, it seems almost totally unrelated. But there’s a bit of a blank spot.” He points to the different areas on the graph. “You’ve got spinarak with low Other and low Intensity, spinarak with high Other and high Intensity, spinarak with high Other and low Intensity…” His finger moves to the top left. “But no pokemon that have lower than a 10% in their Other metric scored an intensity above 7…”
“Except for this jerk.” Leaf taps on the lone dot sitting separate from the rest, which shows an Other of 7% and an Intensity of 8. “Well, damn. I’m sorry, Red.”
“I asked the wrong question in my hypothesis,” Red says. “Instead of predicting that there’s a correlation between a high Other and intense Night Shade, I should have said that there wouldn’t be any cases of an intense Night Shade with a low Other.”
“But that would mean your hypothesis is even more clearly wrong.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it should be more obvious. At this point I feel like I just wasted a lot of time and money.”
Leaf frowns and closes the pokedex. “Don’t say that, there still might be useful information in there. That correlation might not be super strong, but it’s not nothing. And that one spinarak, who knows, it might have been a mistake, some mix-up from the psychic-”
“Challenger, Blue Oak, first badge.”
Red’s head snaps up as the noise in the auditorium rises into cheers and applause, and he quickly tucks his pokedex away. “Later.” Blue looks tiny as he makes his way across the floor toward the massive stadium, but his face is larger than life on the screens lining the top of the walls. It’s a bit surreal seeing his friend at the center of so much attention, and Red feels compelled to clap harder, meaningless as it is.
“Leader Brock, of Pewter City, 138th Indigo League Champion, Trainer of Aeosis, the Mountain’s Might!”
Once Brock reaches his podium among the roar of applause, the sound dies down almost instantly, just in time for his voice to replace the announcer’s over the speakers. “Citizens of Pewter, gym members, guests from afar, welcome. A month ago a trainer came to this stadium to Challenge our gym, and left wiser than he entered. Today he has returned to demonstrate the fruits of that wisdom. Blue Oak, Pewter Gym honors your request. State the nature of your Challenge.”
“I challenge Pewter Gym for Mastery.”
“Pewter Gym accepts. Incapacitate or force me to withdraw my pokemon, and you will bear our badge. Prepare for battle!”
Red watches the platforms detach from the stairs leading up to them and feels his pulse speed up. He can feel it in the audience, a silence taut as a stretched rubber band, an almost palpable sense of anticipation that he can’t help but feel caught up in. Red is struck by the thought that maybe it’s something more than his imagination: maybe it’s his nascent psychic abilities. He’s about to turn and ask Leaf if she feels it when the battle begins.
“Go, Graveler!”
“Go, Gon!”
“Graveler, Rock Throw!”
“Gon, Leech Seed!”
The projectiles arc through the air toward their opponents, and Red grips the arms of his seat as the rocks crash down around Blue’s shroomish. One of them sends it tumbling to the side, and Red lets out a breath as it gets back up and follows Blue’s order to use Stun Spore.
As the fight progresses, Red notices Leaf on the edge of her seat as well, though her tension spikes when either pokemon gets hit. She catches him looking at her and mutters through a wan smile, “It’s easier when I’m in the battle myself. I have some control over things. Just watching is nerve wracking.”
Red’s nerves are definitely on edge, but what he feels isn’t anxiety: it’s excitement, pure and simple. Was
this
what made Blue watch Challenge matches and League championships obsessively? Red watches the graveler throw itself forward into a Rollout and nearly shouts out loud as Gon doesn’t get out of the way on time. Half of the audience does cry out, and Red’s heart pounds in his ears as the graveler catches itself and launches back at the recovering shroomish.
“Gon, Poison Powder!”
“Graveler, Body Slam!”
“Gon, back!”
Gon’s cloud of poison doesn’t even slow the graveler down as it throws itself into it, but it doesn’t see which direction the shroomish waddles away in. The graveler slams into the ground through the poison, knocking loose some of the leech seeds that have grown big and ripe, but Gon isn’t around to eat them: by the time it picks itself back up to look around, Blue has withdrawn his pokemon and sends out Maturin.
“Graveler, Stone Edge!”
“Maturin, Withdraw!”
Gravelers four arms smack into its body, and thin, jagged chunks of stone crack off. The graveler throws a chunk of itself at Maturin, and the rest of the shards follow through the air, peppering Maturin’s shell with sharp jabs. Red wants to look the move up in his pokedex and see how it works, but he can’t take his eyes off Maturin as she goes bouncing across the stadium. A moment after she stops, Blue orders her to fire a bubble, and Red sees on one of the screens that she emerges from her shell mostly unharmed but for a bleeding gouge in her leg.
“Come on, come on,” Red mutters as the graveler attempts to follow its target through her explosive popping bubbles. When it tries a Rock Throw Maturin ducks back into her shell, but it misses. “Go down!”
Leaf gives him a look just as the graveler begins to cough, its whole body shaking. By now half of its body is covered in the leech seed’s tendrils, and when it collapses to its knees, Brock’s platform moves close enough for him to withdraw it.
“Well done, Challenger. This graveler would have defeated your pokemon when you first arrived, but you’ve shown that the time spent in our Gym and our city has honed both you and them.”
“Thank you, Leader. I’ve learned a lot from your city and your students.”
Red leans toward Leaf and mutters, “A bit over-dramatic, huh?”
She grins. “I wonder if they have a script.”
Someone makes a shushing sound behind them, and Red sits straight again. His pulse is still in his throat as he waits, and he can feel (or thinks he can anyway) the whole stadium’s anticipation building higher and higher.
“Our Gym is one where we teach and are taught, and you have by all accounts been a valuable partner to many. I hope we have in turn prepared you for your final test.”
“You have. Maturin, return! Go, Kemuri!”
The stadium erupts in surprised chatter, and Red grins. Blue knows how it plays to the audience to show off such a strong pokemon. He hasn’t been a part of the training sessions for about a week, and he’s eager as anyone to see what Blue and his shiftry are capable of.
“He caught one?” Leaf gasps.
“Yeah, and he’s had a hell of a time trying to train it.”
“Brock doesn’t seem happy.”
Red looks around for a monitor trained on the Gym Leader. Brock’s lips are moving subtly, and Red remembers what Blue said about the private channel. “Wonder what they’re talking about.” He looks at Blue to try and read his lips, but Blue’s voice suddenly fills the stadium.
“I caught Kemuri in Viridian. I and two trainers were attacked by a pack of six shiftry as we tried to fight the fire. We lost a number of our pokemon fending them off. We nearly lost our lives. Kemuri was the sole survivor, badly injured in our fight, and so full of malice that he struggled to kill me even as he lay dying. But I refused to accept such a loss. I acted decisively, and caught it despite not having a greatball available. Your gym helped me train it, and today I command it. Kemuri and I are prepared for your test of Mastery.”
Leaf grins. “Now
that’s
over-dramatic.”
“Do people do these speeches often? If so I’ve got to watch more just for them.”
“Shhh!”
Red turns to see a spectator sternly hold a finger over his lips. Red rolls his eyes and faces front again. “
Everyone’s
talking around us,” he mutters.
“You and your pokemon have journeyed far together. Now show us the strength of your bond. Go, Onix!”
The audience roars in approval, and Red wonders if there was some ambiguity on whether Brock would use an onix again. Blue beat the geodude, so maybe that’s why it was replaced. Of course, this could be a stronger and better trained onix than the one he fought before anyway.
He wants to ask Leaf if it seems any bigger than the one from Blue’s first fight, but then the battle begins, and he’s once again swept away in its ebb and flow.
“Kemuri, Leaf Blade!” Blue says, and Brock immediately taps some command on the railing near its second microphone.
Blue’s shiftry hops forward from one foot to the other as the onix heaves rocks through the air with its tail. Kemuri dodges and closes the distance between them and cuts the onix’s grey hide with his leaves. White blemishes begin to spread from a number of cuts crossing the many boulder segments of its body.
Brock taps out another command, and Blue yells “Dodge!” just as the onix swings its body around. Its tail clips Kemuri’s side and knocks him away. Kemuri lands with some grace, though a closeup screen shows that it’s favoring one of its legs. Red knows by now that shiftry tend to fake injuries to catch their opponent off guard, and hopes that’s the case here: if Kemuri’s mobility gets restricted, he would be in trouble. “Kemuri, Leaf Tornado!” Blue commands.
The shiftry begins fanning its leaves, around and around each other in a complex pattern. Brock taps out a command, and his onix circles a rock and flings it at Kemuri, causing Red to nearly rise from his seat.
Shit-shit-shi-whew.
It crashes to the ground on Kemuri’s side, and soon his arms are a blur as bits of green particles flow in a mini cyclone toward the onix, far tighter and more directed than stray bits of leaf normally might.
Brock taps the railing again, and his onix jukes to the side. The “wind” is wide enough to blow some of the green particles onto it, but most pass harmlessly by, and Brock taps out another command that sends his onix barreling straight at Kemuri with a roar.
“Leaf Blade!”
“Bide!”
The onix immediately halts its charge and coils itself into a tight spiral, leaving Kemuri nothing to attack but solid sides. Kemuri goes at it with gusto, but Blue quickly commands the shiftry to back off. Red remembers Blue’s worries about not knowing when Brock might start a Bide, and wonders why it’s a move Brock has to command verbally. Is it a handicap he offers to Challengers?
Either way, Blue has a way to beat it. Red watches Kemuri move farther and farther away, still favoring one of its legs. The onix is still coiled up, waiting. “Kemuri, Extrasensory!”
The shiftry goes still, then spreads its leaves wide to the sides as its eyes begin to glow. The whole stadium seems to be holding its breath as they watch Brock’s onix for a reaction. It begins to twitch, then growl and shift in place, but before it gets any worse Brock taps something out on the railing, and its whole body
twists
as it dives into the ground, tunneling beneath the stadium.
Red has a moment to wonder if that would work when Kemuri blinks, glow fading from its eyes.
“Well, that’s okay. He just has to hold still like last… time…” Leaf says, trailing off as Brock scales the fence around his platform and leaps down onto the arena floor.
Thud.
A single stomp of Brock’s heavy boot.
Thud thud. Thud… Thud-thud.
Distant rumbling from beneath the ground of the arena. The audience’s murmurs grow as Brock continues to kick at the ground in brief, deliberate patterns.
“I don’t think Brock is interested in repeating challenges,” Red whispers, rising tension making his gut twist and sour. “It’s… gotta be some kind of standard directive, he can’t see where his onix is going…”
Thud. Thud thud… thud.
Leaf’s fingers squeeze her knees, eyes wide. “He knows the stadium’s dimensions! If he has a command that sends the onix to a starting location, then guides it from there by fixed intervals…”
Thud, thud, thud… thud-thud-thud!
“Dodge!” Blue yells just as the onix erupts from the ground beneath Kemuri. The shiftry goes flying, then smacks gracelessly against a rock. It falls to the ground and lies still.
“Oh,” Leaf says softly. “Shit…”
“It might be a trick,” Red whispers, cold inside.
Get up…
The stadium watches in dead silence, broken only by the whirring of Blue’s platform. “Return,” he says, the word seeming to echo.
“Bravely fought, Challenger. Your shiftry is strong, and well trained for what time you’ve had it. Another month, and it might-”
“I’m not done yet. There’s someone here who wants a rematch. Go, Maturin!”
Blue’s squirtle appears on the arena floor and, upon catching sight of the onix, immediately falls onto all fours, eyes narrow and foam dripping from its jaws.
Brock is quiet, and Red watches his lips in case he says something in private. “Think he’s worried about Maturin’s safety?”
Leaf shakes her head. “His onix.”
Red looks at her, then the monitors. She’s right: the onix’s skin is more white than grey, and its cuts are dark with sap or blood. Red knows that the rocksnakes don’t need much oxygen, but this one’s breathing is vaguely audible from all the way up here.
After a moment Brock merely says. “A good trainer knows our pokemon’s pride is as important as our own. Show us what your squirtle can do.”
“Maturin, Water Gun!”
“Onix, Dig!”
It dives beneath the ground, its tail hit by the quick, sharp stream of water. Brock begins stomping immediately, and Blue yells, “Maturin, back!”
What’s he doing?!
But no, he’s not safe standing still either. Luckily Brock’s commands take priority for the onix, or maybe it’s too far to attack right away, and Maturin safely moves closer to Blue, standing just in front of his platform by the edge of the arena.
Brock stops stomping. Red can hear his own breathing, and doesn’t dare to blink as he looks back and forth between Blue, Brock, and the unmoving arena.
Brock’s smile is slow, but wide. He nods at Blue, and Blue gives a two fingered salute.
“Some kind of safe spot in the arena?” Leaf whispers as the audience erupts in murmurs.
“Gotta be, maybe because of the trainer platform’s foundation…”
Thud, thud thud thud, thud.
Brock finishes stomping the ground, then climbs out of the arena and up to his platform again as his onix returns to the surface with a grinding roar.
“Maturin, Water Gun!”
“Onix, Wrap!”
Maturin dashes forward to get into range and the onix rushes to meet it, zigzagging between the boulders to avoid the shots of water in a scene that looks too familiar. Brock is going for the quick victory from last time. Red grips his armrests as the onix begins to circle Maturin.
“Withdrawup!”
Maturin pops into her shell rightside up just as the onix constricts its body around her. “Maturin, Soak!”
The water pours over the onix’s coiled body, directly into one of Kemuri’s cuts.
The onix roars and thrashes along the ground. Leaf covers her face and Red rises out of his chair with half the audience, adrenaline pumping through his blood and nothing to do with it but watch as the onix writhes along the ground. If Maturin didn’t duck her head in immediately, it would be pulverized.
The audience cries out as the coils finally loosen enough to fling Maturin away. A heartbeat later, Brock withdraws his onix, and Blue grabs Maturin as soon as she bounces into range.
In the ringing silence, both trainers take a moment to line their balls up with their pokedex. Brock looks up first, and all the cameras shift to Blue.
“Is she okay?” Leaf whispers, shockingly loud in the silence. “I can’t look.”
Blue’s face relaxes into a smile, and two fingers rise in a V. The dam of silence breaks, and the stadium fills with applause.
“He did it!” Red pumps his fist as Leaf sags in relief. “Way to go, Blue!”
Brock jumps down from his platform again and begins to walk toward Blue, who climbs down to meet him halfway. The applause slowly fade as they meet in the middle of the stadium. “Congratulations, Challenger. Pewter Gym hereby recognizes you, Blue Oak, with the Boulder Badge.” Brock takes a small box from his pocket and opens it. Upon its black velvet interior, the dark silver octagon of the badge gleams on every screen. “The world is harsh, but deep within each of us lies the strength of stone, the bones of the earth itself. Today you have shown that strength. May the lessons and wisdom of our gym go with you, and keep you and your pokemon safe.”
Leaf and Red walk the corridors of Pewter Gym, following the directory signs from one hallway to the next. She feels exhausted. Somehow Red, who spent the night jumping up and down from his chair and screaming like a madman, is still bright eyed and bushy tailed, and has barely stopped talking about the match since they left the stadium. It would be cute instead of wearying if not for her emotional drain.
“And that last command, Blue must have known it was coming up, it was just the timing that was off, or maybe his shiftry’s reaction time-”
“Yes, I saw it,” she says. “I was there. It was thrilling.”
Red’s grin fades slightly. “Sorry, just a bit whelmed. Maybe even overwhelmed. It was… more intense than I expected.”
“I could tell. You sound like Blue.”
“I’ll have to remember this next time he’s going on about some match. Having some stake, caring about the outcome and participants, I sort of get his passion for it.”
Leaf groans. “Not you too.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not lining up for a Challenge. Even if I wanted to, I’m not an idiot. My pokemon are a fire type, a normal type, two bug types, and an electric type. I’d get crushed. Literally.”
“Good, because I don’t think I could attend another one of those for at least a few weeks.”
They reach the right door and knock before entering. It’s a comfortable looking room, with a table full of food to one side and a number of big, plush couches in the middle. Blue is sitting on one, looking as drained as Leaf feels. He has the small box with the Boulder Badge in one hand, and closes it as they enter, getting to his feet and tucking it away in his pocket. His grin chases the fatigue from his face, and he steps forward to meet her hug.
“Congratulations, Blue!”
“Way to go, man.” Red bumps his fist. “That was really awesome.”
“Yeah? You guys enjoyed it?”
“Red’s been going on about it since we left the match,” Leaf says, avoiding her own response. No need to rain on their parade. “Your pokemon are okay, though?”
“They have a small facility here, I got them checked out after the match. Kemuri and Gon will be healed up in no time, Maturin just needed some potion and rest. She was snug in her shell before the onix started thrashing.”
The knot of worry in Leaf’s chest relaxes, and she takes what feels like the first full breath since the match started. “And Brock’s onix, it’s okay too?”
“I don’t know, haven’t seen him since the stadium. He should be on his way now though.”
Red and Blue begin talking about the finer details of the match, and Leaf wanders over to the refreshment table to grab a soda and nibble at the vegetable tray. She feels herself growing more calm little by little as time passes, eventually sitting on the couch with a small plate of food. She wonders if she’ll ever get used to watching pokemon fight. Everyone in that auditorium seemed to be enjoying themselves. Even when they were worried that one of the pokemon had gotten hurt (or rather, more hurt than “expected”), it didn’t seem to
really
bother them. They left the match talking and laughing. Even Red.
Maybe there’s just something wrong with her.
She picks at her food until there’s a knock at the door, and the Gym Leader walks in a moment later. “Hello everyone. Sit, sit. I just came by to congratulate you again, Mr. Oak.”
“Thank you, Leader.”
“Your shiftry took me by surprise tonight. It must have given you trouble, or I imagine you would have used it in our first match. Unless that was just a story, and you acquired it recently?”
“No, it was all true.”
“Remarkable. Who helped you train it?”
“Red did, and Jarod.”
“And your squirtle?”
“Being able to withdraw is one of Maturin’s greatest strengths, but after our last match, I couldn’t allow it to become such a liability again. Even with Kemuri, I wanted to make sure Maturin would be more prepared. So I trained her for a few maneuvers while in her shell. ” Blue smiles. “Kemuri weakened your onix enough that Maturin didn’t even need a direct hit. Once you went for the Wrap again, I knew I had you.”
“And yet it was a great risk. If your squirtle wasn’t fully withdrawn, or my onix had a more violent reaction…”
Blue shrugs. “It was a calculated risk. Even adolescent onix are massive and powerful creatures, and expecting to take one down without some fallout is unrealistic. Of all my pokemon, Maturin is most capable of staying safe.”
“And onix’s dig attack? How did you know that part of the arena floor was safe from tunneling?”
“I didn’t. From some exploration, I knew that the smaller arenas have more solid ground just around the inside corners. I just figured my best bet was to act as though it was true for the big one as well, since if I was wrong I probably wouldn’t win anyway.”
Brock nods. “You’ve acted decisively, from training to combat, and beat me honestly. It was an honor to battle you.”
“The honor is mine, Leader.” Blue bows. “Thank you for all the help your gym has been.”
“I heard you’ve been as much a teacher to others here. Truth be told, I hoped you would stay another month, perhaps even Challenge for membership.”
Blue looks genuinely surprised for a moment. “I’m honored. Really. But we’ll be moving on soon. I have a long way to go.”
“You’re welcome back any time.” They clasp hands, and Brock turns to her and Red. “And you two? You were in the Viridian Fire too, weren’t you? My city thanks you for your help.”
“No need to thank us. We got kind of caught up in it,” Red says.
Leaf nods. “Blue was the hero. Red and I didn’t get the chance to help anyone.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Red says. “You definitely saved me.”
“I’d say we’re both even on that score.”
Brock smiles. “You were the injured one, right? And you were the one looking after him. I remember. Your friend was quite worried about you two.”
Blue’s cheeks redden, and Leaf grins. “He’s a sweetheart,” she says, and to her delight he flushes further.
“Should I expect your Challenges someday?”
“Not likely,” Red says. “But I’d love to pick your brain about Rock pokemon someday, especially some of their abilities.”
Brock smiles. “A researcher, then? I should have known as much, travelling with an Oak. I don’t normally have time to spare, but I might be able to answer an email occasionally, if they’re not too long or frequent.”
“Really? Thanks!”
“And you? Are you a researcher too?”
If she’s ever going to get the Gym Leader’s perspective on the museum, now’s her best chance. “Not quite. I’m dabbling in some journalism at the moment, and was wondering if you’d be interested in a quick interview?”
“Interesting. What about?”
“The Pewter Museum. I tried to schedule an interview through your gym, but they said…” She trails off at the slight frown on Brock’s face.
“I’m sorry, I don’t really have the time for such things. My concerns are Pewter’s Gym and its people’s safety. I’m sure there are others more qualified to answer questions on the museum.” Brock stands up, and the three trainers do too. “Congratulations again, Mr. Oak. If you have time before you leave, come by my office, and I’ll teach you the basics of the Bide technique.”
“I will, thank you.” Blue bows again, and Red and Leaf follow suit. Brock returns it, then leaves.
Blue and Red return to chatting about the match as they go to the food table. Leaf stays behind and munches on a carrot. Even knowing it was a long shot, Leaf feels slightly hurt. The Gym Leader didn’t even offer her the occasional email question like Red.
Well, she tried. If he got upset with what she writes, he had his chance to weigh in. It’s probably delusional to think he’d care what her little article says, but if he does decide to speak out after it’s published, well, at least it’ll have accomplished something.
warm, happy, sl-crawling, shifting, twisting, dancing, scintillating through an endless twistingshiftingdancing-
Red.
A wash of sensation that blots out everything else.
Blue.
Again, different, but the same.
Green.
Again, different, but the same.
Circle.
An absolute, self-contained expression of enclosed roundness.
Square.
Finite, even, symmetry.
Triangle.
Partial square? Cut and folded, even, finite-
Red.
The wash of sensation again. These things are known, familiar, but the “words,” the
names
–
Red Circle.
The melding is exquisite. The “Red” is there, and the “Circle,” it is a “Red Circle” both-
Red Square.
The understanding is rapture. Variables that change, variables that stay the same.
Red Triangle.
And then comes…
Blue.
The seed of understanding.
Blue… Circle…
Blue Circle
.
The beginning of knowledge.
Blue Square…
Blue Square.
The first pattern, found.
…I don’t…
…he will…
…she said…
He, she, they. Faces.
And through it all,
[I] will-
[I] won’t-
[I] want-
[I] am-
Dots of light. Islands of being.
Each with its feelings, its images, its words, all in a rapid, mixed cacophony, each almost entirely blind, seeing only outlines, surfaces, fronts-masks-caricatures-
-and yet.
This light is “Sarah,” who is often joy but also confusion, a feeling of fulfillment in her purpose, her “research” with-
-“Haruo,” whose ambition and curiosity are so intermixed that he is often tired, symbols swimming behind his eyes when he closes them, symbols that have names and meanings he struggles to explain to-
-“Darin,” the simmering anxiety bound by duty, the depression held at bay by a drive to help others, and inside a “she” though others think of her as a “he,” words made into small constant stings that pester and remind him/her of her/his fear of rejection and shame.
Such varied beings. Such strong senses of self, so separate from each other. Not melding, like…
…[I]
…
[I] can…
…a second [self] in every merger, skipping from one to the other, sampling, merging, leaving distinct and unique…
Awakening, turning on oneself, inside out, around and back and inward.
Who am I?
A sphere of randomly assorted lights. This is the world.
Many lights, close by, resting. Calm, sleepy, warm… their emotions wash over and through [me] in waves. Beyond them, circling lights, more active. Each a mix of emotions and desires and sensations. Each a name.
Farther, lights scattered up and down and around. Moving toward and away and around. Meeting. Waxing. Waning.
Bright, strong lights, interspersed. Brightening others. Melding. Connecting. Sensed, but not merging when [I] try to feel/sense/be them.
Time is the movement of the lights. Time is the addition of more appearing, farther and farther. Appearing and disappearing at the edges. Familiar and new. Faint, hard to flow into.
The world grows.
More lights, farther, new lights. No, not this word, “light,” but something rather than nothing,
feelingdatanoise
in all the empty space that stretches out and around-
Until it reaches an edge. No new lights appear below those farthest down. Eventually no new lights appear farther than those farthest out.
But above…
Beyond…
Everything moves, but the frame-
Again—turn, reflect, shut out and cast inward to the center.
Where am I?
Shapes, numbers, colors. Patterns made, puzzles solved, knowledge gained. Faster and faster, pulled from everywhere at once, everyone, and still the world grows above, an endless expansion of distant lights. To the sides too, now, and below, distant and dim, bare flickers of emotion without words, images without understanding.
The mystery is solved with a new word: “pokemon.”
In this memory a small green pokemon cradled in a hand, asleep. The name is supplied, “Turtwig,” and with it a wealth of labels, “Grass Type,” “reptile,” “First Evolution.” Associated images and labels flicker by
plantgreensquirtletirtougagrotletorterra
and then their focus shifts to something else, and the memories fade.
But pokemon are everywhere, in memories and in the world, and soon the classifications seem less random, the labels form a pattern, and clarity blooms.
The lights are humans. People, full of complex thoughts and focused emotions. The dimmer collections of lights are pokemon, and they are people’s companions and tools, cared for and used to their advantage against each other and untamed pokemon. Humans are a disorienting mix of things, as different in their thoughts as they are similar in their appearance, but in every mind-
Mind
. What is this word-
-brainthoughtsselfme-
Mind, not lights but
minds!
–
-in every mind there is such a clear distinction between “human” and “pokemon” that it eludes notice at first, easy to take for granted.
Humans can think. Humans invent tools and art and societies. Pokemon can fight. Pokemon are strong and full of varied powers. Humans have unique identities first, and general labels second. Pokemon are saturated with labels, are barely considered individuals.
Humans command pokemon. Pokemon are tool or companion. Or monster.
What am I?
The information is endless. The words, the labels, the ideas. The loudshoutingvoice no longer needs to drone on about
Purple Trapezoid
and
4 + 4 = 8
to link them, to make the sights and sounds and thoughts have meaning.
Still, some concepts are confusing. Colors sometimes look different to different people, and yet they call them by the same names. Immediate thoughts and emotions are mostly clear, but memories are fluid, ethereal… and yet people seem to accurately recollect things. They have access to other knowledge. Deeper knowledge.
Words with concepts and images that are too complex. Repeated themes and ideas that remain puzzling. “2.351,” sometimes just referred to as “351” or “the subject,” is often the topic of conversation or thought, an experimental life form, a hybrid, but these are just empty labels, there are no experiences or memories attached to give them emotional weight.
“Giovanni” is the opposite, a word that holds significance to every person in the facility, despite most having little or no interactions with him.
I must not disappoint Giovanni
, or
Giovanni will be coming next week
. The social hierarchy within the facility is fairly clear, but no one within it commands as much respect and obedience as one outside it.
Sometimes a staff member will interact with an illusion of a human or pokemon, and not seem aware of it. They interact with them as if they are real, and yet there is no mind next to theirs: just empty space.
The worst are the disorienting shifts, where everything abruptly changes. People who were around are gone, new people can be felt, and each has a different sense of what “time” it is than before the change. These periods are frightening. Periods where the world seems to continue to exist unobserved.
Fear. So rare and repulsive, it is one of the last emotions isolated and understood. Too distracting. Better to simply withdraw from minds that feel it, jump to others who are having more pleasant emotions or thoughts.
Nothing is as frightening as losing focus. Clarity comes from individuals, but without effort everything blends into a wash of emotions and thoughts and images. The way things used to be. Disorienting. Nonsensical. Exhausting.
There are favorites. The closest minds, Jandy and Maura and Taheem and more. They alternate, coming and going in shifts, but when they are stationary, they are a constant source of
warm
and
peace
and
comfort
as they engage in menial, pleasurable activities. It is restful, to recede from others, focus only on them.
Others have their own allure. Desmond, whose mind is always full of pictures and colors more vivid and full of life than others.
Katelyn, who listens to a rich variety of music while she codes. Music was another half-glimpsed enigma, until Katelyn’s ears brought it directly into focus.
Dr. Fuji, the conundrum. His memories are dark with grief and loss, but his thoughts are bright and quick despite his age. His study of genetics and biology gain new meaning with each visit.
Paul, high above. He is young, his thoughts full of energy and purpose. Full of love for his parents and wife and newborn child. Excited to be part of such important work.
Work. Everyone who is here is “at work.” Another thing so widespread it was hard to isolate. Glimpses of their lives away from “the facility” are fleeting but tantalizing, showing hints of a world beyond its walls.
The sun. Bright, hot, hanging above a blue sky. An image associated in most minds with a yearning, limitless freedom, running beneath it as children, on adventures with their friends.
A desire is born, to see the sky through eyes rather than memories.
Psychic.
A word so laden with meaning that once understood it’s like a stone in a lake (Li used this metaphor, its imagery strong and visceral), rippling outward and upending everything.
A new mind, upon first touch (Victor Arabov, male, age 32, molecular biologist from the Povolzhsky Region) reacted with such strong alarm and confusion that it was impossible to remain, to not flee to the comfort of the close by minds (
warm, safe, calm
). On the second, more cautious attempt, Victor is found in a state of bewilderment, his train of thought panicked:
whatwasthatitfeltlikeapsychicbutnooneisnearmeohgodscoulditbe
it
Enough of a shock to be noticed, but…
It felt like a psychic.
Psychic. A word heard and thought a hundred times before, a thousand times. Only now does the connection make sense.
Psychic: a pokemon or human possessing mental powers of reception and projection. Able to manipulate the world with their thoughts.
Able to read or influence the thoughts and experiences of others.
This is the answer.
This is what I am.
I am a psychic mind.
More and more information flicks by in Victor’s thoughts. He is a “sensitive,” someone with such low psychic ability that they normally do not consider themselves one. He has only once felt another mind brush against his, and the sensation was unforgettable.
Victor’s thoughts and emotions become a whirl, too distracting to focus through. I return to the comforting minds, to peace and calm that are at odds with the rising excitement.
I am a psychic mind. I am reading the thoughts and feelings of all the people in the facility around me. But where is my body?
Obvious, once considered. The center of my world, my range, where the circle of comforting minds are. I dip into each briefly, and look through their eyes to view rooms I’ve seen countless times before. Hopping from mind to mind makes it easier to see how each person is sequestered off from one another, in their own comfortable spaces that circle close by.
Except there is nothing in the middle. Just a curving wall that none of them have been beyond.
But they know. They know what their purpose is: to be near “the subject.” To give peaceful, calm thoughts and feelings for it.
I am the subject.
I am 2.351.
The emotions continue to grow and clash, confusion and joy and wonder and and and pain, pain from my closest minds, the minds who have ceased to project the peace and comfort that I seek. Why are they in pain? They do not know, and this causes alarm, alarm and fear of the subject-
There is no one. There is nothing, nothing but emptiness. Faint minds at the very farthest reaches, pokemon tunneling through the ground, but their minds are dim and simple things devoted to fulfilling biological needs. Unsatisfying.
Where are Jandy and Dillan and Taheem and Paul? I need them, I need someone, anyone-
Hello.
The loudshoutyvoice. It isn’t a mind to merge with, but it’s at least stimulation, something better than the empty void.
Be calm. We will not hurt you. We wish only to communicate.
So strange, to be addressed, communicated to the way everyone else speaks with each other. Ideas rush by in a flood, what to do, how to respond. Psychics can project thoughts as well as receive them, but how?
There is no need. Like you, I am psychic. I am reading your mind, and you need only think for me to hear you.
Awe. Gratitude. Excitement. It’s hard to think through all the-
-wait. Confusion. Loudshoutyvoice said “we,” and then “I.” And it claims to be reading my mind, but I can sense no one around me.
My name is Sabrina. I am here to communicate with you on behalf of many others.
Sabrina. A name I have heard before, but not a mind I have interacted with.
I am capable of shielding my mind from others. All psychics who have been to your facility have done this, though I am the only one who has been giving you lessons.
Why like this? And why never speak directly?
Silence, and then:
I was last here two weeks ago, when you were younger than you are now. Your mental growth has been exponential since. The increased signs of mental activity were unusual, and there is no precedent to judge by. We especially did not expect your range to be so strong.
Two weeks. A measure of time that has little meaning. Stones in a pond, each revelation continues to spread confusion and clarity. So many questions, can’t focus on just one. Who am I? Where am I? What am I?
You are subject 2.351, a hybrid life form, the result of genetic experiments. You are in an underground facility in the Kanto Region, built to work on genetic engineering and monitor test results.
It’s bizarre to hear words from someone and not be able to feel what they feel, think what they think. The lack of minds to share is still an acutely uncomfortable feeling, and confusion continues to push everything else aside. “Genetic experiments,” these words have meanings that are only vaguely understood.
How much do you know of biology? I see. Yes. The simplistic explanation given what you’re already familiar with is that life grows according to genetic code found in their cells’ DNA. Humans only ever give birth to humans, and pokemon species only ever give birth to their own species, because they have matching DNA. Plant life can sometimes interbreed naturally if their DNA is close enough to a match, but through technical processes, we have been able to make more plant hybrids than would normally occur in nature. The thought occurred that we could make a hybrid of something besides plants, and you are an example of that: the first successful hybrid of a human and a pokemon.
Information, stark and without context. It is hard to grasp it, to incorporate it into a wider understanding. Humans use pokemon, pokemon are tools. Human and pokemon both? No reference, no experience, no memory. What does it mean? What is my purpose? Where do I belong?
Belonging. Other memories surface, of hereditary traits between families. The feeling of love between Paul and his parents, between Paul and his child, are the most immediate. So strong, so joyful. That belonging, that connection, is what makes merging with people so joyful, and now I have it. I have parents. Who are they?
You were created in this laboratory rather than through biological parents. But your genetic material comes primarily from your pokemon parent, mew. Mew is an extremely rare and powerful species, considered by many to be a myth. Most DNA degrades after death, but careful examination of a mew’s remains found intact, living cells. It is by far the most regenerative, adaptable, and information dense genetic material ever studied, and when it was discovered, the idea to use it to create a hybrid was born. Your human DNA was supplied from a pool of candidates-
-awe and confusion andandand pool of candidates what is that what does that mean-
I’m sorry, I don’t know the specifics. There were several donors, and their information is confidential. However, they were vetted by the owner of this lab, Giovanni. He funded the research that led to the discovery of mew’s DNA and your creation. I’m sure he will know which was yours.
Giovanni. Details about the man come in a deluge from the others’ memories: pokemon master, gym leader, political activist, philanthropist. He is held in universal admiration and gratitude. Why has he never been to the lab?
He has, though there are many other labs, and he is busy with many projects. He has only just been made aware that you are awake, and will come soon. You have exceeded many expectations, and he is looking forward to meeting you.
Exceeded expectations. Pride. A good feeling.
But still, confusion. And something else. Suspicion. Questions that aren’t being answered. Evasions. And still that emptiness around…
You may ask anything you wish. I seek only to help you understand.
Why the closed mind, then? Why not a direct merger?
It would not be safe to allow mutual open access. Your mind is still young and very powerful. It is exciting to see, but we must be cautious. That is why the facility has been evacuated. Once it became known that you were sapient and able to use your powers of reception, we had to ensure that you did not begin practicing projection.
Why?
Projection powers are usually referred to as mental attacks. You could seriously harm someone unwittingly.
The pain of the comforters.
Comforters? Yes, them. You did not intend to, but they were harmed by the feeling of your mind in such an excited state.
Where are they now? Will they return?
They are currently resting. I believe most are still interested in continuing here, but that will be decided after we are sure it is safe.
Safe. How?
You will be trained to control your powers.
And if I do not? Cannot?
Then we will ensure you only have contact with others who can protect themselves.
Reasonable. Assuring. It makes the diffuse anxiety begin to fade, and more questions begin to surface. But the most dominant one is still related to fear: fear of the sudden emptiness, the loss of time. What happened? How did everyone disappear so abruptly?
I am sorry, I do not understand.
The time skips, the sudden changes! What are they?
Ah. Yes, I see. Those are periods where you have been asleep.
Asleep. The concept is foreign, but familiar. Memories of others, tired and ready to go home and sleep. To lie down and close their eyes and… no, it is gone. Too abstract.
Sleep is what we do when we are tired. Have you noticed that these jumps happen when your thoughts have begun to slow? To grow unfocused?
No. But then… maybe. It is hard to remember. But this latest shift, it was not after being tired, but just after immense excitement. One moment I was merged with Victor, and then everyone was gone. Gone! Alone!
Calm. Be calm.
A flood of sensations, warm and soothing. Familiar, a ghost of the comforters. It is not as fulfilling, but it helps.
This last time may not have been because you were tired. It was likely induced, because your vital signs began to show great distress. There are technicians and doctors who monitor you constantly to ensure that you are safe and healthy.
Technicians. Doctors. Vague recollections of people with those titles, but there are no minds in memory to match any working at that task. Who are they?
You could not have known of them. They are Dark, and invisible to our psychic abilities.
Dark. Dark, like the pokemon Type. Humans can be Dark too?
The empty people.
The illusions.
Entire minds, cut off. Unable to be felt or understood. How could they ever be communicated with, trusted? And they are in charge of safety?
So much, so much new information, it is dizzying. How much information must be re-examined, processed anew? What memories and thoughts can be trusted?
Calm. Two plus two is four. Four plus four is eight. Eight plus eight-
Sixteen. Sixteen plus sixteen is thirty two. Thirty two plus thirty two is sixty four.
Yes. Good.
Yes. Good. But. How was sleep induced? How does sleep work? The better question, the real question, where am I? Where is my body?
It is in a biopod built to take care of your bodily needs. You are safe in it.
Awe. Joy. A body. I have a body. With eyes, to see with? Ears to hear music?
Silence. Surprised silence? Cannot tell. So
frustrating
to not be merged!
Yes. Your own eyes. Your own ears. Your own body.
But where! There is nothing, no feeling, no sensation-
Your biopod was designed for sensory deprivation. It is for your own protection: you are a new life form. We are still learning how your body works, where it might need help. You are very fragile, and we do not want to lose you.
Lose?
We do not want you to die.
Die. Death. A gaping hole of sadness and loss. That is what others feel about death. That is what prompts a withdrawal, that pain. Better to return to the comforters. But they are gone now. All that’s left is this sterile imitation in a void, this-
Calm. Two plus two-
Four, yes, four! But other minds, there needs to be other minds, it is so lonely here without anyone! Is this what death is?!
Silence, silence, silence, for so long that fear begins to rise into panic again-
No. You are not dying. You are safe. Everyone is safe. Be calm. I am sorry.
Sorry. A term of politeness, to express regret. Regret for harming the comforters. Yes, sorry. So sorry. Bring them back. Please. Politeness. Please, bring them back.
Soon. First you must ensure they will not be harmed.
Yes! Anything!
I will teach you what I can. However, we must both be patient. This is new territory for everyone, and we do not know what the extent of your powers and abilities are, or how well human techniques will translate.
But you will teach me how to avoid hurting others?
I will try.
The humans are back in the facility, but much has changed.
Beneath the surface of each one’s thoughts, a dark undercurrent flows. Uncertainty. Fear. Even those excited by the reason for the evacuation emit a brittle cheer to mask their anxiety. For the future. For themselves.
Not everyone returns.
Traveling between minds is deliberate now, careful. Sabrina was explicit in what to take care for: too much agitation could spread into the target mind’s thoughts. Any strong desire to affect the target’s behavior or thoughts could harm them. For all they are aware, too much exposure at once may harm them, but so far the examinations have shown “no lingering adverse effects.”
But still they are afraid.
Still I am afraid.
Sabrina’s words revealed much of the world and my place in it. But not all. Searching through the minds of the facility’s workers clarifies little: their surface thoughts are not often preoccupied with anything beyond their day to day tasks and interactions. It is hard to fight the urge to delve deeper.
Even through the emotionless words of her projection, Sabrina’s surprise was obvious when she learned how deep into memories I can go, difficult and imprecise though it is. It seems human psychics are not able to delve beyond surface memories. Sabrina wished to know what else I could do, but her own answers on human psychic capabilities were vague.
Most unsettling was her refusal to explain how human psychics could block their minds from detection. Another potential difference between human and pokemon abilities.
But I am not just a pokemon. I am also human. Should I not be treated as such, and try to learn?
Troubling thoughts. Easier to let them go with so many minds to explore again. Equipped with new knowledge and understanding, their thoughts and actions are more fascinating than ever.
The oldest researchers are the least frightened, and the most excited by my “awakening.” Some have been part of the project for over a decade, a span of time that I am beginning to understand: this particular facility has only been active for two years. I cannot be much older than that, but if everything I can clearly recall has happened within the past few weeks, as Sabrina said, then the idea of living in the facility for hundreds of weeks is hard to contemplate.
I watch through the technicians’ eyes as they monitor computer systems. I watch through the biologists’ eyes as they test samples of my blood and tissue, searching for defects. I listen as they discuss the other subjects, my siblings, who did not survive past the first year. Images appear in their minds, of early failures, blobs of flesh that warp and shift and change to match their surroundings. I cannot separate the memory holder’s disgust from my own, do not know if there is a difference. Is that what I am? A shapeless mass in a tube?
I cannot find any minds of those who have seen my body. It has become an obsession, searching for anyone who works directly in the room I am in. Before the facility was evacuated, before I learned what I am, I was content. Now I cannot escape the knowledge of what I am, what I can be. The facility has begun to seem a prison.
I see through eyes and memories pictures of the crude carvings of “mew,” one of the rarest pokemon of all, the closest thing to what I am. A small mammalian creature, with short limbs and a long tail. How much resemblance is there? Am I as small, or larger? Do I have a tail?
The humans’ minds sometimes wander as they work. Some look forward to events in the future, think fondly of the past, imagine other activities they would rather do. “Daydreams.” “Fantasies.”
For the first time, I have a fantasy. The experiment will be complete. I will be released, free to walk with my own feet, see with my own eyes. One of my comforters will be there with a mirror, and I will see myself… human.
Sabrina said Giovanni will come. My creator. Those in the facility know it as well, are preparing for his arrival. I will speak to him soon.
He will help me.
The humans speak of me more and more. Now that I have proven viable, I am no longer “the subject,” or “351.” They begin to discuss what I am to be called.
The dining hall is full of the usual noise, but all of it surrounding this new topic. Suggestions flow from one side of the room to the other, garnering comments and reactions as they go. “Mewtwo” is the most divisive, and thus the most discussed. Soon it dominates the conversation, many forgetting their food entirely. Some think it diminishes their work, makes me seem too much a copy. Others believe it denotes a clear progression. An upgrade, like I am some machine or software.
Only Dr. Fuji thinks to ask me. Only he wonders over a name for who I am, not what I am. But the others find his comments uninteresting. They esteem him as much as anyone else in the facility, but see his view as sentimental. Many think I will not live long, that I am merely a turning point in their research for making the next newer, better subject.
They do not consider me a person. I am just an experiment, a pokemon like any other.
Their thoughts are too troubling, too agitating. Safer to stay with Fuji as he returns to his office. He sits at his computer, but his thoughts are not on work. They drift from place to place, to the conversation, to his lost family, and to me. He wonders how I think, what I think, what I feel. He wonders if I was present in the minds of anyone in the debate on my name.
He wonders if I am in his thoughts now.
Must not react. Must not project. But it grows harder the longer he thinks. He is mostly fantasizing, playing a sort of game with himself, thinking about what he would be thinking if he was me, sharing his thoughts, of me. Unaware of how right he is.
And now he is thinking of his wife and daughter, the sadness rises up from his memories, a dark tide of bittersweetness that he drinks deep from, addicted and comforted by his pain.
It happens instinctively, automatically, the desire to be heard, to connect, and to stop the painful spiral of his memories from overtaking us both:
Lonely. Yes.
Dr. Fuji bolts up in his chair, looks wildly around. Fear, my fear, prompts me to withdraw, to return to the comforters, and then leave even them, be alone with my own thoughts and feelings.
Stupid. Foolish. Now they will withdraw everyone again, and I will be alone. Will Sabrina come again? Repeat the same warnings? Give me another chance?
Or will I be deemed too dangerous? A failed experiment, deleted. Who would Fuji tell first? Would I be put to sleep again, and wake up alone?
Would I wake up at all?
The waiting is torturous. The solitude, the uncertainty. I can still sense the other minds in the facility. There is no exodus toward the surface. Is it possible he did not hear my thoughts? Did he dismiss them as his imagination?
I must know.
First I must calm myself. Meditation through mathematics, simple addition first, then more complex multiplications and exponential equations. The task is engrossing, and soon I am calm enough to feel for the minds of the comforters.
Safe. Calm. Peaceful.
All is well. Others, farther out. Normal. Perhaps he did not hear me after all…
Fuji sits at his computer. His mind is mostly occupied with a study of my RNA, flicking through screens of data on his computer. No alarm. No fear.
But something is different. A note, stuck to the side of the monitor:
You are not alone.
Ready yourself. We are preparing to open your chamber. You will begin to hear sounds first.
The movement of machinery, all around. Loud. No not loud. Hushed, but… immediate in a way that sound processed through other minds is not. Excitement and anxiety war within me, and I fight the reflex to jump to the minds of the comforters.
Giovanni is arriving. Finally, he will be here, and he wishes to see me.
To
see
me.
And I will see him. With my own eyes.
“Wnada oanme? Mroeao mo. Anmo.”
“Mranwo. Danma ene mre… oo… nom…”
Someone is speaking. I am hearing someone speak! Memories, not of others, but my own, of hearing sounds like this before. But I do not understand them. Is it some other language? Can I not understand spoken languages without being inside the speaker’s mind? Some minds speak to themselves more than others, and many of the older minds do not think in the Unown language…
The sound blocking equipment has been deactivated. Can you hear us?
“Manadm. Manwa?”
Yes. Yes I can
hear
you! But I do not understand…
I hear it. It is your biopod: it warps the sound too heavily. No matter. We can still communicate this way.
The container. Will it not be removed?
It would not be safe for you. We will only remove what is necessary.
Disappointment, despair, will I never be free of this-
Patience. We must take each step slowly, but if all goes well then you will not be returned to sound deprivation. We can even play music for you, if you would like.
Music… yes. I would like that. Thank you.
Beep.
“Mrashan. Dmaand?”
Beep.
“Danea.”
Beep.
That sound, what is it? I… remember it…
The machine which monitors your heart rate. A moment please, we are preparing to open the container.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A soothing sound. The sound of my life, continuing. Safe. Even. But also a tool, to ensure that I am not too upset. How fast would the machine need to beep, before they sedate me?
They are lifting it now. Remain calm.
More machinery whirring, as lo-
bright
too bright
light, such bright light, blinding! It is dimmer now, but still somehow continues to grow… painful, angry light, where did it come from?!
Calm. You are safe. The cover has been removed from your pod, and your eyes are seeing light for the first time.
The pain is too great, it is too bright, reduce it!
“Madna!”
The light grows weaker, and the beeping of the machine begins to slow as the pain’s sting lessens.
We had dimmed it considerably, and have dimmed it further. It will take some time for you to be accustomed to it.
What is this sensation of… tension? Tension, yes.
Think of the minds you have inhabited. What area are you feeling the tension in?
My… my, it is my—I jump to the comforter’s minds, feel what they feel, then return, it is disorienting, hearing the sounds around them, as well as those around me—my eyes, I feel tension in my eyes!
You have shut them closed, instinctively, when the light first appeared. When you feel it is more bearable, relax your thoughts. Your eyes should open naturally when they have adjusted.
Time passes. The sounds of hushed voices, the steady
beep
of my heartbeat. Eventually the tension fades, and the light grows brighter as I feel my eyelids opening…
…still too bright…
…but shapes can be made out, movement, shadows against the light. I cannot make sense of them, until instinctively, memories rise up, provide the context for sights I have never seen. Human silhouettes, standing.
Yes. That is us.
The shapes grow clearer, gain color, details. The liquid and glass around me warps things, but… the young woman with the long dark hair, she is Sabrina. I do not know how the knowledge comes, but I can see it clearly, the violet light around her-
What is that?!
“Weah e mrad?!”
What? What is what?!
I’m sorry… I have never seen… that…
The figure raises an arm. It is incredible to watch, to see her body moving… I can see. I can
see!
The other figures are murmuring, and she’s responding to them. Not telepathically, I cannot hear…
That light… What is it?
You ask me? I do not know. I have never seen it either, through the eyes or memories of another.
Fascinating… we will have to explore this more in the future. Take your time and look around you. Get used to using your eyes.
The instincts are there, combined with the knowledge from other minds: moving my head this way, then that, I look around the lab, at the computer terminals, medical machinery, and people, most of which I have not seen before. Some have pokemon with them, but I cannot sense them. I search my memory, try to fit names to the shapes. Umbreon. Mightyena. Absol. Bisharp. Dark types, standing at the ready. For what?
For me, of course. To protect them from me.
As I look at each human, many of their faces turn. They look away, as if my gaze unsettles them. Or perhaps just my appearance. All the humans are Dark or Psychic as well. None for me to sense their reactions.
None that I can see myself through.
You wish to see yourself?
Yes. Yes, I do. You can see me now. Am I…?
Silence. A silence that speaks for her, before she does.
No. I am sorry, but no, you are not human in appearance.
What am I, then?
You are unique, and fascinating. Your disappointment is not deserved: you must have pride in what you are, not shame.
I would like to see.
As you wish.
“Mena maro?”
“Maro?”
“Nem.”
One of the figures leaves. I continue to turn as far as I can, then crane my neck up and down. I can see parts of myself, white flesh on humanoid arms… but the hands…
They move, automatically, then with purpose. Three fingers, bulbous tips. It is… strange, for them to feel each other. I have dim memories of my body moving, touching parts of itself as I hang suspended here, unaware of what I was feeling at the time.
I look to the pod’s roof and floor, the multitude of tubes that go in and out of my body. I can feel them now, distinctly. Strange, how just the act of seeing them makes them more present in my awareness.
That, and you are not focusing on another mind.
Yes. I am wholly in my own mind, with no desire for the moment to leave it. I am finally awake, fully awake. It feels good.
A figure returns, with something in its hands. They bring it up to the glass, and I see…
“Eajda.”
Mercifully, the mirror is removed.
Calm. Be calm.
I am a monster.
I have never known a monster to call themselves one. You are what you choose to be.
“Daelan?”
“Mranea.”
Are you ready to speak with Giovanni?
Yes. When is he coming?
He is here.
Sabrina raises her arm to the side, to one of the other figures. A man, tall, with strong shoulders and a dark suit. He is…
Yes, he is Dark. I am here to help you speak with each other.
Yet another disappointment. I cannot even speak with my creator unassisted!
I am sorry. I should have told you before.
No matter. Tell him… give him my greetings, please. And my thanks.
“Mneama, aena maranad dans.”
“Eajda, mad mou am mandon.”
He says “Greetings, and you are welcome.”
I have… many questions.
“I understand. We too have many questions, even after all this time studying you. Whatever you wish to know, ask.”
My human parent. Are they here?
“They are not. Their DNA was collected long ago, and they are not in my employ. Your existence is a secret to them, but if you wish to know their name, I can tell you.”
They do not know I exist?
“No one outside this facility knows you exist. If they did, it would place your life at risk.”
Why?
“Human beings fear what they do not understand. Even with all our time and research, fear still rests in many minds here. You have felt it, I am sure.”
He speaks the truth. Still, it is painful, knowing my parent is unaware of my existence.
Do you wish me to ask him for more details of them? I am sure he would tell you what he knows.
No. No, it is of no consequence.
Silence again. She can sense the lie.
As you wish. What would you like to ask instead?
Ask him why I was created. What is my purpose?
“You were created because there is need of you. Pokemon are immensely powerful, but lack intelligence. They are capable of incredible feats, but without human guidance, most are only destructive. Humans catch and train pokemon, but it is clumsy and limited. We still do not understand them, for all our efforts.”
Is that all I am, then? Just an experiment for you to learn from?
“You are far greater than that. You may be the most important living being on this planet.”
The figure of Giovanni steps closer. Some of the others move toward him, but he holds a hand up, and they pause, step back. I can make out his features now, tan skin, strong jaw, close-cropped hair. His face is calm, and his eyes… they have an intensity I recognize even from the memories of others.
I find my gaze locked on the man in front of me, who does not look away. It is disorienting, to see someone and not be able to feel their mind. Almost like looking at a desk or chair that’s shaped like a person.
“Can you hear me?”
Shock. He is speaking right against the glass, lips almost touching it. The sound is distorted, but not enough to make him incomprehensible, or hide the tone of command in his voice.
Slowly, I incline my head.
Giovanni turns, and says something. The overlapping of murmured protests fill the room, until he repeats himself, curt. People immediately begin to move toward the doors at either end of the room, and soon only he and Sabrina are left.
He… wants me to leave as well. You will not be able to communicate-
Go.
She does, and we are alone. Giovanni is at one of the computer terminals, fingers moving. He returns after a moment and stands with his hands behind his back, each breath lightly fogging the glass. We stare at each other, creator and creation, and instinctively I search outward for his mind, meeting nothing but void.
“You wish to know your purpose? Why you were created?”
I nod.
“Truth then, between us. You were created to end death.”
End death. I do not understand. He sees me shake my head, and nods back.
“Yes. Psychic pokemon are perhaps the most powerful of all. They cannot do everything. Many non-psychic types can have more raw power, have abilities that psychics do not. But psychics can manipulate matter itself. More, psychics can affect the mind, and the mind is the strongest weapon, the most versatile tool.
“Alakazam is the strongest psychic known to man. It can lift over a hundred pounds with its telekinesis, sense minds from fifty meters away. It can heal wounds in a matter of seconds, live hundreds of years by repairing the damage of aging cells. Human psychics cannot heal themselves. We do not know how to do something that pokemon can do instinctively. Or perhaps we simply don’t have the same level of power.
“Alakazam is also very intelligent. Its puzzle solving skills are as complex as a three year old human’s.”
I watch him, his face. Its subtle movements. Even with his warped voice, I can hear the bitterness.
“A waste. All that power, and the mind of a child.”
I raise my hand, point a finger toward my head.
“Your mind is certainly greater, despite your age. And your powers are not alakazam’s.”
Disappointment, until he turns slightly and points to the wall.
“Beyond that is forty meters of workspace and storage quarters. Beyond that, the comforters, as you call them. And beyond that, another sixty meters of storage and utility infrastructure before the area where the rest of the facility’s inhabitants work. We designed this place to house a pokemon that might, if we were lucky enough to have a viable subject, be twice as strong as alakazam.
“Your range appears to be five times, at least.”
Five times. A quick calculation assures me that he is still off. I almost raise my fingers to indicate how much, but reconsider, for now.
“We do not know if that immense power applies to the rest of your abilities. We do not know what your abilities are. But whatever they are, you will be able to use them far more intelligently, and far more constructively, than any pokemon in history. To call you a god would be insulting to you. I have seen what people call gods, and I intend to tear them from the sky. If you survive, if your biology is viable, you will be a titan who reshapes the world.”
His words light a fire in my mind. I see it all, want it all. More than ever, my pod seems a prison. I extend my hand, fingers closed into a fist that taps against the glass, then opens, palm up.
“You wish to be released? To know when?”
I nod.
“Soon. Science is a slow process, but we must be sure of your safety first, and that of others. Then, when you are ready, I will guide you into the world above. And we will change it into a paradise.”
Ten years in this tube. Ten years since my creator first spoke to me, painted a vision of the world I could make, of my place in it.
Ten years of lies.
The excuses are endless. That my biology is not stable. That my body cannot support itself. I have pleaded, have begged, to at least try. They refused. Giovanni. Sabrina. None of them were willing to take the chance. I am too valuable to risk.
So I float here, in this prison. And I wait. I listen to music, speakers placed against the glass. I watch television. My telekinesis is as powerful as any they have seen, and as deft. I can type on a keyboard, though they do not let me use one connected to the web. Security, they say.
My recovery powers have not manifested. I cannot heal myself of whatever is wrong with me, a wasting illness they have never encountered. There is no one to teach me, even inhabiting the mind of an alakazam while it healed itself nearby was not enough. I believe I can do it if released from this pod, that my body would react instinctively to mortal danger, but they think it too big a risk.
Dr. Fuji is gone. Three years after Giovanni’s visit, I could not bear the wait anymore, and began to speak to him. Once he learned of my thoughts and feelings, he said he would speak to Giovanni, threaten to resign if I was not given a chance. He did not return to the facility. His things were removed by a Dark mind. No one has spoken to him since.
Five years after Giovanni’s visit I began experiments of my own. The minds of the pokemon surrounding the facility were easy to confuse. Any sense they had could be manipulated, twisted, turned against them. That year passed quickly, before boredom set in.
Eight years, and I became desperate. I spoke foolishly, made threats. Sabrina could feel my regret, apologized for me, but still the security around my pod was increased.
Ten years before I have finally realized the truth: there are other subjects. There must be. The samples they have taken from me, how many go to help their next iterations?
They are always careful to use Dark minds for all of the most important tasks, but the psychics know things as well. They believe their minds impenetrable. They do not understand the true invisibility that the Dark minds possess, compared to their camouflage. In the end their defenses were not absolute: human psychics are truly a paltry breed, barely worthy of the word. Their eyes cannot even see passive psychic forces. My mental defenses are far more solid, and even Sabrina cannot see or feel what I do not wish her to, now.
They say they are finding a way for me to be safe, to survive unsupported. But in truth they despair, think it impossible, beyond them.
Red’s breath catches in his throat. “I… that’s very kind of you, Professor, but… no. I can’t.”
“Are you sure Red? No one would think anything of it.”
Red’s stomach feels like a coiling ekans. He wants to say yes so badly… he deserves it, after all his hard work. Blue got his badge, Leaf her article… didn’t he work as hard?
He deserves it…
Leaving Pewter behind feels both nostalgic and exciting. So much happened in the first week of their journey that the month of “rest” feels like it was over in a blink, and as Red, Leaf and Blue watch the buildings begin to grow more spaced out and the countryside reclaim the horizon, they’re each lost in their own thoughts.
Red is the first to break the silence upon seeing Leaf check her phone for the dozenth time. “Expecting a call?”
Leaf jumps a bit and tucks her phone away. “No.”
Red and Blue exchange a glance. “Well?” Blue asks. “How’s it doing?”
Leaf blushes. “It’s hard to tell. I can’t see the traffic it’s getting, but there are no comments yet.”
Red smiles. “It’s also only on one site. Why not post it elsewhere too?”
“Part of the deal. La-your mom, she pointed me at some editors who might be interested in it. A couple liked it enough to publish, but the only one that offered to pay anything wanted exclusive publishing rights for six months.”
“Six months!” Blue exclaims. “How much did they pay you?”
“One-fifteen. It’s not much, I kn-”
“A hundred bucks!” Red exclaims. “Say, that’s not bad!”
“Comes from writing things people actually want to read,” Blue says. “And by people I mean non-nerds.”
“Hush,” Leaf tells Blue. “I don’t think I’d recommend it as a way to get cash. I spent weeks researching and writing and editing it. If I was after money I could have made more babysitting.”
“Still, it must be gratifying to have someone willing to pay you for it.”
“I guess. I’d rather have chosen the other publisher if it meant I’d actually get some responses.”
“It was published what, a few hours ago?” Blue asks. “Relax. Give people time to slack off at work or get some lunch.”
“I know, I know. What about you, Red? Paper all done?”
Red hesitates. “Yep. Did the last of the edits last night.”
“Can we read it?” Leaf asks.
“Uh. Sure.” Red takes his phone out and forwards it to them.
Leaf’s gaze skims the screen, but Blue begins to read aloud. “‘Psychic phenomena are one of the greatest mysteries in our world.’ Wow, tell us more about how important your research is. ‘We have such little understanding of the origins and mechanics of psychic powers that to most it is still believed to be mystical, a force that defies understanding.’ I think people know what mystical means, Red.”
Red opens his mouth to respond, but Leaf picks up the reading before he can. “‘But just as electromagnetism and radiation were once inscrutable and invisible to us, our tools have evolved to measure them, and new research has developed to study their causes and effects. At the Pallet Labs in Kanto, a new tool has been developed that may begin to demystify psychic powers.
“‘Professor Oak’s latest pokedex includes an upgraded scan of a pokeball’s contents. Its catalogue of the various substances that make up a pokemon, atom by atom, allows for easy study of a pokemon’s molecular proportions, and lets laymen compare their pokemon to regional or international averages at a glance. As this new tool develops and becomes more accurate, we may now be capable of beginning to discern what physical properties grant psychics their powers.
“‘Our initial observations after analyzing the data of an unusually mentally powerful spinarak was that this unclassified section exceeds the norm…'” She trails off and begins scrolling down. “Where do you… oh I see. ‘While the presence of subject 32 indicates that powerful mental attacks are possible with a low Other makeup, the trend of the other subjects makes it a clear exception, and does not discount a potential causal link-‘”
“Blah blah,” Blue mutters, scrolling farther down, “‘Sample size,’ blah blah, ‘future research could further explore…’ That’s it? So maybe there’s a link and maybe there isn’t?”
“The experiment supported the hypothesis,” Red says, ears burning. “But it wasn’t as strong as it could have been. My r-squared was .0988, which means I just squeaked by with a p-value of .048.”
Red sees Blue’s patented blank stare, and smiles. “There was a correlation of about 10%, meaning if you give me a bunch of numbers for the Other of scanned Spinarak and I had to guess what the intensity of their Night Shade are, I could probably be right more often than a random guess by about 10% if I match a higher Other with a higher Intensity and low Other with low Intensity. But 10% isn’t particularly good, and with a sample size of only 40, the chance that the correlation I found was luck rather than a pattern is very close to 5%, which is the somewhat arbitrary, but traditional, cutoff for when the results of experiments are deemed significant.”
“So the point was just to say it’s possible?”
“The point was to explore the idea and hopefully encourage others to research it too.” Apprehension begins to fill him as he predicts where the conversation will go. What will they think of him, when they find out?
“That’s really what you wanted from all that work?”
“Well, no,” Red admits. “What I wanted was a direct and unarguably causal relationship that would get my paper published by all the top journals, and the data isn’t clear enough for that. But that was an unrealistic best-case scenario, and even if the relationship was 1:1, there would still need to be follow up experiments to confirm it, not just with a wider pool of spinarak but other psychics too.”
“Hmm…” Leaf finishes scrolling to the bottom of the paper as she reads aloud. “‘Possible confounding variables include unconscious selective bias by trainers to keep stronger pokemon, or regional conformity that excludes low Other and high Intensity spinarak that may be present in other habitats…’ So will you be doing that now, then?”
“If my paper gets enough attention to get more funding? I’d be happy to,” Red says. “I don’t think the research community will be overly excited though.”
“What does gramps think? Can’t he get you the funding?”
Red tugs his cap down and takes a deep breath. Here it comes. “Yeah, he offered as much.”
“Well, there you go then. Congrats.”
“I said no.”
There’s a moment of silence but for the tread of their feet on the road. Then Leaf simply nods, and Blue smirks and slaps him on the shoulder. “That’s my Red. You’ll get it on your own, no two ways about it.”
Red didn’t realize how tense he was until it eases away. “You guys don’t think it was a mistake?” He chides himself for his doubt, for forgetting who he’s travelling with. If anyone in the world would understand…
“Absolutely not,” Leaf says as she takes her phone out and checks her article page again. “To shine under the shadow of greatness, you gotta blind the world with yours.”
The sun rises to crest the sky as the day passes, Mount Moon growing slowly to encompass more of the eastern horizon. Its distant peak is jagged, part of the mountain broken in where the meteor, then thought to be a chunk of the moon, struck it thousands of years ago. They pass a small logging town at the edge of some woods and stop to rest while they eat. Blue summons Zephyr and throws berries hard in different directions for him to snatch out of the air, while Leaf lets Bulbasaur and Scamp out to play together. Red spends some time filing Charmander’s claws while his pokemon wriggles and squirms at the sensation.
“So we going over the mountain, or through it?” Blue asks. “There aren’t any pokemon I need in there.”
“Really? None?” Leaf asks.
“Nothing really competitive.” Blue begins to tick them off with his fingers. “Zubat, geodude, sandshrew, zubat, paras, the rare clefairy, zubat, lower down there’s chingling, absol, bronzor, zubat, makuhita, and if you’re super lucky, zubat.” Blue puts his hands down, then tosses another berry up. “An absol would be cool, but I’d rather not spend a week in there hunting for one.”
“Charmander!” Red snaps in his most authoritative voice when the lizard makes to get up again. “Down!” His pokemon complies. “Good boy. Stay.” Red takes a moment to make sure charmander sits still as he finishes filing the edge of his leftmost foreclaw. “Good boy! Good stay!” Red feeds him some pokepuff, then moves on to the next claw. “There’s a bunch of different ones outside the mountain though. Nidoran, ekans, jigglypuff, mankey, the occasionally rare whismur or shinx… we can just go over it if we want. It takes longer, but I’m not in any rush.”
“Same,” Blue says, causing Red and Leaf to exchange a glance. Blue spots it and frowns. “What?”
“Aren’t you in a hurry to get the next badge?”
Blue scratches the back of his neck. “Sure. But not at the cost of time to train my pokemon or catch new ones.”
Red grins. “Figured that out, did you?”
Blue chucks a berry at him, and Red ducks just as Zephyr swoops down to grab it, the wind of his passage knocking Red’s hat off.
“Well there’s an excavation site that Dr. Brenner told me about,” Leaf says as Red leans to the side, reaching for it. “I thought it might be fun to drop by and see them.”
“Excavating what?” Red asks as he jams his hat down snug.
“Fossils. Weirdly enough, they’re finding the remains of a lot of aquatic creatures.”
“In the mountain or on the mountain?”
“Both. But a lot of areas are damaged or close to cave-ins, so they might have fallen from above.”
“Huh.” Red looks at the mountain and surrounding foothills. “So this place was all underwater once?”
“Either that or someone who lived on the mountain liked to eat seafood,” Blue says.
Leaf frowns at him, clearly unable to tell if he’s joking. Red saves her the trouble by moving the conversation along. “I’m happy to check them out. She mark your map?”
“Yep.” Leaf takes it out and sends it to them as Scamp tries to avoid Bulbasaur’s vines, which keep reaching out to tangle with his tail.
Red checks his phone when it pings and taps the coordinates for the main excavation site. It’s on the southern half of the mountain’s rim, and not too high up. “Yeah, that’s not far out of the way. What do you think Blue?”
“Sure. It’s better than spending time in the mountain. I only have about a dozen repel, and I don’t want to use it all just to avoid getting covered in batshit.”
The next few days of travel pass quickly. The road roughens and begins to branch out in multiple directions as they approach the foothills of the smaller mountains around Moon, and the grass grows tall around them.
Everyone was happy enough the first night to break out the camping gear and sleep beneath the stars again, but by the fourth they begin to miss the comforts of the city. Red decides to ask if the next Outpost they come across has room for them, and the others agree.
The inside looks like many outposts Red has visited: a metal and stone building with clean white tiles and fluorescent lights. And like the other outposts, what was originally designed for function and professionalism has been peripherally overcome with the personal touches of its members over the years. Pictures dot the walls and hallways, a number of the sturdy wooden chairs have been replaced by comfortable office chairs, and a running tally of the residents’ capture stats are on a whiteboard above the belt rack.
There are six Rangers in at the facility, and five of them are in the middle of their meal when the three arrive. They introduce themselves and join the Rangers at the long table in their mess hall. The Rangers eat quickly and efficiently, but the youngest sticks around after the others finish and asks about their journey as the three travelers finish their meal. When Red asks about the safety of the road ahead, Ranger Matthew pulls out his tablet and shows them the map of the area.
“We’ve had incidents in these areas over the past week. Mostly small threats, unusual pokemon for the route that catch trainers unprepared. Something’s got them riled up, and we’re still figuring out what it is. Pokemon from the mountain are showing up farther afield too.”
“What do the closer Outposts say?” Leaf asks as she puts her fruit down and updates her map with the pokemon sightings.
“Worse the closer they get. We’ve increased patrols to try and reduce response times for travelers, but there are a lot of homes and towns that dot the foothills. and we’re kept pretty busy helping them.”
“Are you guys considering shutting down the route?”
Matthew shakes his head. “Not yet. No one’s died, and we still don’t know what the source of the threat is. There’s talk about sending out a general warning though.”
Red sighs as he spreads more peanut butter on his granola. The Rangers are taking proactive steps, but not enough. “Do you predict that at the current rate of incidents, someone will die soon?”
“Yeah, it’s just a matter of time if you ask me.”
“So why not just skip the waiting and send out the alert, at least?”
“Regional policy,” Matthew says. “Guidelines are set in place to ensure a proportional response.”
Red frowns. He never spoke much with his dad about the policies and administrative decisions the Rangers operate under unless they were related to survival. “Seems unnecessarily risky.”
“Makes sense to me.” Blue cracks a walnut and tips his head back as he tosses it and catches it between his teeth. “If we start shutting down routes every time someone gets killed, it would paralyze the region.”
“Alerts and shutdowns are two different things.”
“We need to be proportional with alerts too,” Matthew says. “If we send them out too often, they become routine and lose their impact.”
“Is that actually true?” Red asks. “Or are we just assuming it is? I get the principle, studies show that emergency broadcasts can garner less attention if they happen too often. But reminding people of routine tasks for safety has also been shown to make people more aware and cautious. Which rule applies here?”
The ranger spreads his hands. “Beats me. Those decisions are made above my paygrade.”
“Besides, what makes you think there’s an answer at all?” Blue asks.
Red stares at him. “That’s quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve said this month.”
Blue rolls his eyes. “You’re acting like there has to be some ‘rule’ to the way people act that you can predict. People aren’t that simple. They’re too different from one another, too contradictory even with themselves. Warnings about driving safe may not apply to warnings about pokemon attacks.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Leaf says. “But either way, there’s an answer to the question of ‘do frequent alerts desensitize people,’ even if we can’t predict the answer from other similar questions.”
“And even if it does,” Red says, “The new question becomes ‘what is the frequency of alerts that minimizes casualties?'”
Blue holds his hands up in surrender. “My point is that can change from region to region, city to city, generation to generation, hell, maybe even be seasonal. Some things might be just too complicated to understand as a general rule.”
Red shakes his head. “It’s too easy to think that way about anything we don’t understand. I’d rather treat questions as solvable first.”
Blue gives him a strange look at that, but before Red can ask what it’s about Ranger Matthew chuckles. “You kids are more interesting than the usual trainers that come through here. They mostly just want war stories.”
Leaf grins. “Is that why you stayed with us?”
“Guilty. I miss running around out there, going from place to place. It’s nice to be able to kick back between all the excitement, but I’m hoping to get assigned somewhere new soon. All this mountain air’s hell on my sinuses.”
“Where are you from, Matt?” Red asks.
“Fuchsia. Got a couple badges, then lost my next few challenges. Decided competitive battling wasn’t for me and applied for the Rangers. Been here for about a year. It’s weird, seeing things from this end.”
“What, you mean being the one that goes out and helps people?”
“Yeah, after all the times I was out there and the Rangers saved my butt.” He grins. “I try to project the stoic professionalism thing, inspire confidence, but I don’t think I’m good at it.”
“Well, if you come to our rescue, we’ll pretend you are,” Leaf says.
Matthew chuckles. “You three don’t seem like you need much rescuing, and I’m glad of it. With so few Outposts around and so much land to cover, a lot of the lower level tickets end up being solved by other trainers before we can get there. Takes a load off, I can tell you. Lets us focus on the bigger things. Speaking of which.” The ranger gets up. “I’d better get back to work before the sergeant pokes his head in. You all have a good night.”
They say goodnight and finish eating just as another pair of trainers arrive. One of them recognizes Blue from his battle with Brock, and he stays behind to talk to them as Red and Leaf head for the guest quarters.
“There have to be some studies done, or comparative cases,” Leaf says as they head for the cots in the back. “I’ll check Unova’s policies and see if there are any statistics available on casualty rates and frequencies.”
“I’m curious to know how the decisions are made at all,” Red says. “There’s gotta be some spectrum between potential risk and the first casualties where it’s considered.”
“You look into that then, and we’ll compare notes. Nighty!”
“Night.” Red enters the men’s quarters and prepares for bed, then decides to call his mom while he still has the room to himself. She knows they left Pewter, so it’s back to the nightly check in. He finds it less onerous than he used to, though that might change after a couple weeks on the road.
“Hi sweetie! How was your day?”
“Hey mom. Uneventful. We’re at an Outpost for tonight.”
“Glad to hear it. How are Leaf and Blue?”
“They’re okay.” Red sticks the phone to his shoulder and begins polishing his pokeballs. He really needs to pick up a headset. “Leaf got another few comments on her article, was pretty excited about that. I think she was expecting more by now though.”
“I know, poor girl. I told her not to get her hopes up, but she did a good job for her first piece. It’ll be something to build on.”
Red guesses Professor Oak mentioned him turning down his offer. “I guess I should feel the same about my paper?”
“Of course. You knew from the beginning it would be a long road.”
He did, but hearing her say it still makes him feel better. “How’s Celadon?”
“Busy as ever. I’ve been out and about so much that the apartment is still bare while I figure out where to open each container ball. What’s on your mind?”
Red thinks of his house in Pallet sitting empty and feels a pang. He knows his mom is looking for renters and can’t decide if strangers living there would be worse. He has a sudden urge to tell her how being in the Outpost makes him miss dad, then decides against it. No need to bring her mood down or make her worry about him. “Any luck on the clefairy market?”
“Oh, thanks for reminding me. There’s one for about nine hundred, freshly caught and with no training at all. Good enough?”
Red thinks it over. He was on the lookout for anything under a thousand, since the average price for untrained clefairy hovers around twelve hundred on most days. It’s a rare pokemon that’s a favorite for pageants and makes for great gifts, but lacks the competitive scene’s value to skyrocket its price.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Keep an eye on it for me?”
“Will do.”
“Thanks mom. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“You’re welcome hon. Goodnight.”
“Night.”
Red closes the call and hangs his belt on the cot’s corner pole, then tops it with his hat. He lies down with his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling, taking a quick rest before he heads for the shower. He has about two hundred dollars on him, having withdrawn the max amount every week and spent as little as possible while in Pewter. Nine hundred bucks is just over a third of his funds, but if he’s right about the clefairy’s imminent increase in value he should be able to make it back.
That’s assuming he sells it of course, which he told his mom he’d only do if he caught another one. Red doesn’t think that’s likely if they’re going over the mountain rather than through it. But even if he doesn’t, the clefairy’s value would still be an asset he could liquefy in an emergency… his mom would understand.
There’s so much he could do with the extra money. Better equipment. Funding his own research. Hell, he could start some psychic lessons in Cerulean. He still remembers the feeling of Narud peering around in his head, however briefly. That sensation of having a separate self within himself. What would it be like, to harness that power?
More than once, Red has thought that the most obscure secrets of the universe would be revealed through the study or use of psychic abilities. There are plenty of mysteries he could tackle in the world of pokemon biology: the secret to the intense compression of liquids Water types are capable of, or how Ice pokemon can freeze an environment with beams of light, or the ever fascinating sudden and rapid metamorphoses known colloquially as “evolution.” All those questions fascinate him… but none really address the core question in his mind, the origin of pokemon life and species. He doesn’t know how his research would be improved with a personal understanding of psychic phenomenon…
But he’ll continue studying psychic abilities if the opportunity presents itself, whether or not his paper gets published. If he ever wants to understand his own powers, it’s as good a place to start as any.
They leave the Outpost the next morning after a leisurely breakfast with the rangers, who seem more relaxed during the day. Or maybe they’re just less tired. Red gets to know a few more of them, and feels another pang of homesickness for his dad’s friends and coworkers around Pallet. Ranger Matthew tosses each of them a Ranger issue meal bar for the road as they leave, and Red pockets his with a nostalgic feeling, remembering the times his dad would bring him some.
Mindful of the warning about increased incidents, Leaf and Blue send Crimson and Zephyr wheeling above, and Red sends Rattata out to scout the trail with Scamp. They rotate through their other pokemon as they travel, giving each time to walk beside them.
Eventually Red lets Pichu out, but the electric mouse immediately scampers up to perch on his shoulder. Its small claws hold tight to Red’s collar as Pichu watches the two rattata dart behind and between and ahead of the three trainers, their whiskers quivering as they sniff for food or danger.
“Go ahead,” Red says as Pichu pokes his head forward and sniffs at Leaf. “That’s the lady that caught you. She saved your life. Do you remember her?”
Leaf smiles as the pichu’s nose twitches, its overlarge ears swiveling from side to side above it, and picks a berry from her satchel to offer. Pichu shies away and scrambles to the other side of Red. “Aww,” Leaf says with a grin. “Is this his first time around others?”
“Yeah. I spent about an hour a day letting him get used to me, but he’s still really timid.” Timid is putting it mildly. When Red first brought him out at the training rooms, Pichu sent sparks wildly around until he was empty; not in any organized attack, but simply out of panic.
“I remember him being much more spirited in the forest. Guess he was desperate.”
Zephyr flies down to land on Blue’s shoulder, who winces a bit. “You’re getting too big for that, bud,” Blue says as he pats the pidgey’s wing. Now that he’s up close, Red notices Zephyr’s almost twice as large as Crimson. Different pokemon can mature faster or slower than each other, but intense training and battling always speeds the process up.
“He looks close to evolving.” Red says, and at Leaf’s curious look adds, “His crest is starting to drape back.”
“I was hoping it would happen in Pewter, but I didn’t spend as much time with him as the others,” Blue says. “Most of the gym members weren’t really interested in a flying type.”
“So did you really learn a lot there, or were you just being polite?” Leaf asks.
“I don’t know if ‘learn’ is the right word. Shut up Red, I heard that snicker. I picked up some good advice, and the trainers there were good practice partners, but the real value came from the consistency. It’s different, having a schedule for training, being expected to stick to it. I think that’s half the value being in a gym gives, and if I can stick to it elsewhere, I won’t need to spend a month in each city preparing for the badge.”
“I thought you’d like it there,” Red says. “Leaf and I are always such wet blankets about battling, it must have been nice to be around others who were into it.”
Blue scratches at the back of his neck. “Sure, it was alright. But at the end of the month I was bored out of my mind at still being there, while the rest of them were happy to stay and soak up as much as they could. Mostly from trainers like me.”
“Big words from someone that took a whole two tries to get his badge,” Leaf teases.
Red grins. “Can you imagine how big his ego would be if he got it on the first?”
“Hey, I’m serious!” Blue says as they laugh. “You know how long some of them have been there? Months, without challenging Brock once. They don’t get it, think they can become great by just climbing ranks, learn everything inside and out before they take a chance. Most didn’t come to the forest that night, even though their Leader sent out the call. A few are the real deal, but the rest… they’re going about it all wrong!”
“Chill, Blue. We’re just giving you grief. Two tries is damn impressive any way you cut it.”
“What would you do different, if you were Brock?” Leaf asks.
Blue’s jaw sets. “Brock… he’s a good Leader, and he talks the talk about being hard on trainers. Does a decent job of it. But even he babies them too much. For the members, I’d send them out on missions with the Rangers at least once a week. They need to cut their teeth on some real situations more often, have some natural pressures to get creative. For the challengers, three months, max, before they have to try for the badge or leave. If they want to come back after hitting up some other gyms, fine, but this hand holding shit has got to end. It’ll hurt the city’s numbers, sure, but if every gym starts doing it at once each one will still be more or less up to strength if they need defending.”
“Sounds like you put some thought into this,” Leaf says. “Are there any Leaders you think have it right?”
“Koga, maybe. Sabrina too, in her way. But none of them have it all right.”
While they discuss the differences with the Gym system in Unova, Red smiles as he remembers his talks with Blue on this over the years. Blue used to go on rants about the Gym Leaders all the time, but this was calmer, more focused. It’s clear Blue learned more than he realizes from the Gym.
Or maybe it’s everything else. Having his own pokemon to train, the forest fire, the journey in general. Blue’s growing up, getting more mature. Red wonders if he has too, and pulls out his notebook to start listing things he wants to change about himself
1. Be less afraid of tamed pokemon. Test: Next time you have the chance to interact with a dangerous one, don’t hesitate without reason.
2. Pay more attention to friends. Test: Correctly guess when Blue or Leaf are lying or feeling vulnerable without them saying so.
3. Be a better scientist. Test: Form a better hypothesis for your next research project.
Red has trouble thinking of any others. He’s just about to ask Blue and Leaf for feedback on what he needs to improve when his phone chirps a shrill alarm.
The group’s pokemon all react to the sudden noise, and Blue and Leaf blink at him. “Is that-”
“Someone just sent out a CoRRNet ticket near us,” Red says as he pulls it out. “I changed my alert settings when we left the Outpost this morning.” Tapping the alert brings up his map, which expands from their location to the site of the ticket writer. “About two kilometers northeast of here, where the road branches off a bit… ‘Assistance required to investigate unknown hazard.'”
Blue frowns. “That’s it?”
Red nods. “The closest Ranger outpost is twenty minutes away. Think we should go?”
Leaf has already changed course and begins walking faster. “It’s on the way. Let’s see if we can help.”
Red and Blue match her pace, then begin to speed up. Soon the three are jogging as their pokemon run faster too, and Red feels Pichu’s claws grab tight to his shirt and collar as his backpack bounces.
“What do you guys think it is?” Leaf asks.
“Around here, maybe a spearow attack.” Blue tracks Zephyr with his pokeball as he loops around and withdraws him.
Red shakes his head. “It said unknown hazard, if a pokemon was sighted they would have listed it.” The possibilities run through Red’s mind, focusing on the wording in particular: “unknown hazard.” Hazard implies something in the environment. Maybe a toxin? He unhooks his facemask from the back of his pack and pulls it on, and the other two do the same, breaths fogging the glass as they run.
Eventually the tall grass in the distance shows a gap, and the other branch of the road becomes visible. Once they reach it they turn right and continue eastward, and soon they can see the figure of two trainers in the distance.
They turn around as the group approaches. “Hey, hold on! Withdraw your rattata!”
They call their pokemon back before they can run by the two trainers and return them. “We’re here to help. What’s going on?”
“Glad to hear it. This is Dania, I’m Naoko.” The trainers look to be in their mid teens, both with a full belt of pokemon. “Take a look.” They step apart and point farther up the road.
In the distance a ponyta lies on the road, apparently unconscious. Heart still pounding from the run, Red feels his pulse spike at what’s beyond it.
Pokemon litter the road and the grass to its sides, mostly bird pokemon. There’s no blood or signs of a battle, and Red feels goosebumps rush up his arms, thoughts racing.
“How long has this been going on?” Blue asks.
“Ten minutes? We sent the alert right after. Jonetsu was trailblazing, then he just fell over.” Naoko’s hands grip her elbows, radiating barely controlled panic. “He’s out of withdraw range… I don’t know what to do.”
“We don’t dare go any closer,” Dania says. “We saw nothing, heard nothing.”
“I don’t blame you,” Red says. There’s something distinctly unsettling about all the unconscious, possibly dead, pokemon littering the road.
“Could be some kind of spores,” Leaf says, and licks her finger to check the air. “We’re not downwind.”
“Have you tried going around?” Red asks.
“No. There are no pokemon on the ground around here, but we don’t know how far the effect extends, and it might be a matter of time before a pidgey flies over to the north of us and hits the ground.”
“If there’s some ghost or psychic pokemon ahead, I might be able to check it out,” Blue says, causing everyone to look at him in surprise.
“Woah, hold on,” Red says. “It’s very noble of you, but let’s not assume it’s a mental attack just yet. If they’re asleep it might be some sound.”
“Why can’t we hear it then?” Dania says. “Wait, we’re out of range, right. But by a few meters?”
“It must end somewhere,” Leaf reasons. “What pokemon around here can put others to sleep?”
“Jigglypuff,” the others respond immediately, and Naoko continues with, “But they mostly stay closer to Mount Moon. I guess we might be close enough to find a stray one…”
“Pokemon from the mountain have been spotted wandering farther lately,” Red says. “A jigglypuff’s range is what, 70 decibels? 80? A wigglytuff has more. And sound travels in an open space by the inverse square law.” Red takes his notebook back out and writes the equation. “Double the distance means a fourth of the intensity, which is about 6 decibels. The ponyta is about thirty meters away, so if the sound went below 0 decibels in that distance, its source should be about… 150 meters away? No that’s not right…”
“Um,” Naoko says, and Red looks up in distraction. “I don’t know if this matters to what you’re doing, but ponyta hearing is much better than ours is.”
Red stares at her, then flips his notebook closed. “Right. Of course it is. Well, nothing for it then. We’ve got our hypothesis, time to test it. What pokemon do we have with the best hearing? I have a Rattata.” Technically Pichu might have better hearing, but Red would rather not risk him unless he has to.
“Same,” Leaf says, and grins at Blue. “Could use a zubat about now, huh?”
“Ugh. No thanks. I think Zephyr’s my best at hearing, though I don’t know if pidgey are better than rattata?”
“I have a noctowl,” Dania says, and unclips a pokeball. “Go, Tarkus!”
The noctowl bursts into existence in the air, and Red has a moment of wistful envy before the bird staggers and plummets to the grass.
“Tarkus!” Dania rushes over to it and skids to the ground, checking its breast and beak. “He’s okay… you were right, just sleeping!”
“That means Jonetsu is too!” Daoko runs forward before Red can stop her, and returns her ponyta to its ball. Red waits for her to keel over, but however far the jigglypuff or wigglytuff is, apparently they’re not close enough yet.
“Okay, so do either of you have a rattata?” Red asks.
Clear.
Clear.
Red types his own
Clear
out on his phone as Rattata continues to sniff at the grass in front of him. He walks farther to the north, counting ten paces before taking three eastward. Another series of buzzes makes him look down, and now one of them says
stopped.
Scamp apparently fell asleep, and Red watches as a marker appears on his map. It’s the ninth incident, and now they have a very clear idea of the sound’s circumference.
Red was worried that the jigglypuff or wigglytuff was moving as it sang, but it seems to be staying still enough for them to map its general location. They could triangulate its distance and direction from the second time their rattata fell asleep, but Leaf pointed out that there might be more than one of them, and so they continued to spread slowly outward just incase.
Naoko has a rattata too, which left Blue and Dania back where they started in case of trouble or if any rangers show up. Red’s phone buzzes with an all clear from Leaf to indicate that she’s carried her rattata out of the danger zone and woke it back up, then another message from Blue arrives.
Okay, so we good? Looks like there’s just the one so let’s go grab it.
Red hesitates, then types “Okay” on his phone. He digs his earplugs out of his bag and returns Rattata to her ball. The group agreed to a finders-keepers policy for any sleeping pokemon that they stumble across, and Red’s eager to see what he can find.
Ready…
Dania sends.
Setgo
Blue replies, and Red grins and sticks the earplugs in. They muffle the ambient sounds around him, and Red begins walking toward the center of the sound circle. He can see Naoko to his right, and farther along the distant figures of Blue and Dania as they jog off the path. There’s a flash farther out, and Red knows Leaf must have caught something.
He casts his eyes around, searching for the brown of a pidgey or spearow among all the grass. There’s one farther ahead, but Naoko is already running for it, and Red sees another depression in the tall grass to his left.
His heart races as he jogs toward it.
Nidoran or mankey, nidoran or mankey, nidoran or mankey… yes!
Red holds his ball at the sleeping male nidoran, counting the seconds until he knows it’s done locking, then tosses the ball and lets out a muffled woop as it disappears into it. He quickly grabs it and attaches it to his belt without registering it, taking out another ball and jogging forward through the tall grass.
It feels exposed running through the thick greenery without a pokemon, but anything that’s out here has likely been put to sleep by the ‘puff or ‘tuff. Though something about that thought bothers him… Red slows down as he considers the nagging sensation, then sees Blue jogging into the grass ahead of Dania and picks up his speed, knowing that his friend is going for the main prize. Dania sticks to the road and catches what looks like a pidgey, and a minute later Red sees the tan hide of a sandshrew up ahead.
He breaks into a run, breath loud in his muffled ears as his feet fly over the grass. He looks to his right and sees Naoko gaining on him with a wild grin, then zags in front of her to block her sight as he gets close enough to point his pokeball.
One, two-
Naoko slides in from the side, one hand up to block his pokeball’s connection as her own lens aims straight at it. Red curses and dashes away, not wanting to get caught up in a contest for one when there are others around.
Blue is in the distance, with Leaf hot on his heels. Red checks his map and sees that they’re halfway to the center. He could give chase, but there’s a ton of unexplored area to the other side that might have pokemon in it.
Red changes course and waves at Dania as he jogs past her. He strains his eyes to pick out some distortion in the landscape and spies another flash of brown.
Well, it’s a Flying type,
he thinks as he happily catches the spearow, then takes off for another shape.
It takes a second to identify the ekans, and about half a second more to recognize that it is
moving oh shit
–
Red leaps to the side as it uncoils at him, simultaneously reaching for Charmander’s ball and calling himself an idiot twice over. Instead he pivots on his heel and
runs
for the center, chasing the distant figures of Blue and Leaf as he reclips Charmander’s ball and tucks the empty ball away.
Of course
it makes sense that if pokemon with better hearing fall asleep farther away, pokemon with worse hearing won’t until they’re much closer.
Red chances a glance back to confirm that, yep, the ekans is chasing him like a ripple of purple water through the grass, and terror sends fresh adrenaline through his pumping legs.
When last they clocked their run speeds, Blue beat Red by just over a second in a hundred meter dash. Turns out that being chased by a poisonous snake makes you run faster than any rivalry can, and when Blue next turns around to check how close Leaf is to him, he spots Red and grins wide, slowing a bit to turn and run backward as he extends two fingers up.
Red’s mouth moves soundlessly-
Run you idiot!-
as he waves his arms frantically forward with what must be a sufficiently terrified expression, because Blue’s eyes widen and he immediately turns around and puts on a burst of speed. Leaf, who had been gaining on him, turns and sees Red too, then looks behind him and sees the ekans.
She immediately reaches for her bag, hands scrambling at the straps and reaching in, heedless of the objects that fall out. Red wishes he knew what she was looking for in case it was jettisoned, and jumps over the various bottles and containers rather than risk tripping on them. Just as he’s about to catch up to Leaf, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a collapsible net.
Red grabs it from her and extends its handle, then plants a foot, pivots, and swings the net just above the grass. The ekans leaps at him just as the net begins to lift… and bounces against the rim and to the side.
It lands in the grass sideways and rights itself with a twist. Red uses the end of the net to pin it in place as Leaf approaches with a pokeball, knuckles gripping the handle painfully tight as the snake writhes and tries to slip away. A moment later Leaf’s pokeball snags it and sucks it in.
Red falls back onto the grass and pants for breath, a dull roar in his ears. He can just see Leaf in his periphery lying beside him, and he holds up a fist. She stares at it for a moment, then grins and bumps it with hers, shaking her head.
Some time later the stitch in his side fades he sits up just in time to see a pidgey fly up from the grass in the distance. There’s motion to his left, and another one takes off far away, flying a bit unsteadily at first before it flaps its wings and lifts in a clean arc.
Red blinks, then cautiously unplugs an ear little by little. When he hears nothing and doesn’t begin to feel sleepy, he pulls the other out and looks around.
Blue is walking back toward them, sweaty and triumphant as he spins a pokeball on his finger. “Hey losers. What was all that about?”
“Ekans,” Red says between heavy breaths. “Low hearing. Wasn’t asleep.”
“Wow. Sucks to suck. Glad you didn’t get bit though. That your net, Leaf?”
She nods as she pulls the second plug from her ear. “I used it to catch my ledyba.”
“Why did you pull the net out, anyway?” Red asks. “I was running it toward the jigglypuff so it would fall asleep.”
“Well I didn’t know if you were going to make it that far. I figured it would be good to have on hand in case we needed it, but then you grabbed it and decided to make a stand. I just figured you were out of breath.”
“Well the main thing is, no one important died,” Blue says. “I’m assuming, anyway. You guys see the other two? We should probably warn them that the pokemon are waking back up. Speaking of which…”
Leaf and Red get up and head back toward the road, picking up Leaf’s fallen items as they go. “So how did you guys do?” Leaf asks.
“Nidoran and spearow,” Red says.
“No shit? I just got a rattata and this wigglytuff.”
“Woah!” Red says as Leaf makes a sound of defeat. “So it was a fully grown ‘tuff?”
“Yep! Sitting on a rock and just singing its heart out. Sucker never saw me coming. Should fetch a good price on the market.”
“Hey Blue,” Leaf says in a sweet voice. “You wouldn’t happen to want to maybe
trade
it, would you?”
“For what, an ekans? Nah, I’m good thanks.”
Leaf nods. “Yeah, an ekans wouldn’t really help you out in Cerulean. I heard that Water types don’t fare too well against Electric, though…”
Red and Blue stare. “No way…”
She unclips a ball from the back of her belt and polishes it with an admiring look. “You know what, I think I’ll keep it. I always wanted a luxray…”
Red listens to them barter as they meet up with Dania and Naoko and find the road again together. As they continue their walk to Mount Moon, Red takes his phone out and finds their open ticket, and with Dania’s permission marks it solved. He wonders if Ranger Matt will see it and note the name on it.
No worries guys,
Red thinks as he tucks his phone away with a smile.
We got this one.
On the sixth day after leaving Pewter, Mount Moon goes from a feature of the landscape to part of the terrain. Red thought he was in good shape when he set out on his journey, and did his best to keep up his training regimen in the city, but by the time the ground is regularly sloping from five to ten degrees, he’s starting to regret the decision to climb the mountain rather than go through it.
They pass entrances to the mountain here and there as they travel, all marked by pokemon centers. The only other buildings on the mountain are the occasional Ranger Outposts and supply stores, most of which are located near each other. Hikers and other trainers occasionally cross their path, some with tips or advice on the route choices ahead.
When they begin to move southward around the mountain, Dania and Naoko say their goodbyes at the next Pokemon Center. The two plan on traveling inside of Mount Moon to reach its smaller northern neighbors. Blue and Leaf exchange numbers with them, and Red does too to avoid any awkwardness. He doesn’t expect he’ll be keeping in contact with them, but it can’t hurt.
Red never had a huge host of friends or acquaintances, and so far the only people he’s added since leaving Pewter are Amy and Donovan, Psychics Narud and Ranna, and Dr. Brenner. His list of contacts is still mostly made up of people from Pallet Labs, and Red wonders if he should be trying harder to get acquainted with all the people they meet in their travels. Forming relationships is a big part of a trainer’s journey, as it helps create bonds that can last months or even years later, where unexpected circumstances might bring old friends together again. Fortuitous chance meetings are such a trope in trainer fiction that the unofficial tradition of exchanging contact info with anyone that you’ve been in a battle with has become an interregional norm.
“Are you guys keeping up with a lot of the people we’ve met?” Red asks as they leave the pokemon center.
“Meh. A couple.” Blue shrugs. “I’ve been following Donovan here and there to see if he’s reached Indigo Plateau yet, and a couple of the good trainers at the Gym. Got friendly with some of the Center staff at Pewter too.”
Leaf nods. “I made some friends while writing the article, mostly in the museum. I used to be into social media a lot more when I was younger, but right now I don’t really feel like I have much to share. Not that’s worth sharing, anyway.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty to share,” Blue says. “I’ll consider it a major failing if I don’t have a million followers by the time I hit the Elite Four. I got my first spike after I beat Brock of course, but I haven’t hit the triple digits yet.”
Red checks his phone and sees that it’s true: Blue’s trainer profile has 74 followers. His last post was some advice on training pidgey based on his experience with Zephyr. “I get how this will be useful to you, Blue,” he says. “But aren’t you interested in an online persona, Leaf? If more people know who you are, then more of them will pay attention to your books or articles.”
“Yeah, I know it’s important. I don’t really enjoy networking though, and for now I’m focusing on just writing enough things that are good on their own merits. If people start to follow me from that, great.”
“You should talk to gramps sometime,” Blue says. “He’s a wiz at crafting a public image.”
Leaf cocks her head. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need to craft an image after all the impressive things he’s done.”
“Well he’s an amazing trainer, sure-”
“-and the greatest researcher of our age,” Red mutters.
“-and whatever, a good researcher, yeah,” Blue says, ignoring Red’s sputtering incredulity. “But what really makes him influential is how he makes himself seem like someone that deserves respect, deserves influence, beyond what others with his skills have. People like Giovanni and Lance are the same. Great feats aren’t enough: there are over a dozen Indigo Champions still alive today, but only a few still matter, because they make themselves matter.”
“I get it, you need to leverage your story and image to be influential. I just don’t think I’d be good at that.”
“It doesn’t have to be different from what you might otherwise do,” Red says. “Giovanni’s public outreach is a big deal, but his blog also helps him stay relevant to the Region in a way most other Gym Leaders and ex-Champions aren’t.”
“You know Bill, right?” Blue asks Leaf.
“Sonezaki? Of course. He was a big deal in Unova for awhile when we updated to his latest generation of storage systems.”
“Right, well he’s notoriously camera shy. Hates doing interviews or putting his foot in the public arena at all.”
“You met him, didn’t you?” Red asks.
“Yeah, once. Gramps took me on a visit when I was a kid.”
“What’s he like?” Leaf asks.
“Kinda nuts, but stupid-smart. He’s a workaholic with enough money to buy a city, and what does he do? Grabs up all the land north of Cerulean Bay just to avoid any neighbors for his mansion. Not even a mansion really, more like a bedroom and kitchen attached to five labs. Point is, everyone in Kanto and out knows him by his first name, he could be funding political movements and guiding region policy if he wants, but instead he just sticks to his research and no one cares what he thinks.”
Red frowns. “Plenty of people care what he thinks.”
“Yeah, when they want something from him. As long as he’s designing new tech, people are happy to take it, but when he starts going on about his pet projects everyone tunes him out. Everyone that matters,” Blue says before Red can protest again. “Do you see people lining up to fix the problems with human storage? A couple dozen people have signed up, max. If gramps got behind a project like that, people would pay attention.”
“Again, I’m not disagreeing with you,” Leaf says. “I just don’t think I have it in me to work so hard or well at crafting a public image.”
Blue shrugs. “Suit yourself. But if you never try, you can’t really know.”
The conversation turns to other things after that, but Red notices that Leaf begins checking her phone more often as they make their way around the base of the mountain, and spends more time typing into it during their rest stops.
The sun is at their backs when they crest the last ridge around the the excavation site and see it stretched below them, a scar on the mountain’s monotonous landscape. From this distance the portable buildings that were set up to house the diggers and researchers are as small as Red’s thumb, and he finds himself taken aback by how large the whole thing is. Tiny figures are spread all around the site, some huddled in the dirt, others moving to and fro with purpose. As the trio begin to speed up their approach (a partial consequence of going downhill) Red notices the figures on the perimeter, facing outward.
When they get within speaking range, a young man who was standing on one of the nearby building’s roofs hops off and walks toward them.
“ACE Trainer,” Blue mutters.
“How do you know?” Leaf asks.
“Look at the way he walks. That kind of swagger is hard to teach outside of the academy.”
Leaf covers her grin with one hand as Red says, “That and the uniform’s also a giveaway.”
“Oh, is it red here?” Leaf asks. “Ours wear orange and blue.”
“Ho there!” The trainer says as he gets closer. “Mind routing around the site? We have some digs in progress.”
“Hello!” Leaf steps forward. “We actually got directed here from Dr. Brenner in Pewter. She said she’d be sending word along…”
The man frowns and half-turns back to the rest of the digsite. “Probably did, to someone here…” He unclips a radio from his belt. “Hey Ran, you hear from someone named Brenner lately, over?”
“Don’t recall, over.”
He lowers his radio. “Did she give you a name?”
“Ah, yeah, Ryback?”
The man’s expression softens and he presses the button again. “Hey, mind getting ahold of Ryback? Some kids here say he’s expecting them, over.”
“Will do, gimme five? Over.”
“Thanks, out.” He re-clips his radio. “Should be along shortly. Mind staying out here until he arrives?”
“Sir, yes sir!” Blue says with a salute.
“Appreciate it.” He jogs back to where he was and climbs onto the roof in two quick motions.
Blue stares after him, then turns to the other two. “Think I was too subtle?”
“I think he just doesn’t care about getting sassed by some kid,” Leaf says with a grin.
Blue unclips a ball and begins to spin it along his knuckles. “Bunch of stuck-up pricks. And that’s coming from me.”
“That’s funny, I could swear I remember someone who wanted nothing more than to be in ACE when he was younger… who could it have been?” Red taps his cheek, gaze upward.
“Shut up, I just thought the uniform looked cool. How many ACE Trainers have become Champion? Oh right, zip. All that fancy diploma’s good for is getting hired as security for dirtholes like this.”
“Aww,” Leaf purses her lips. “Did someone not get accepted at the academy?”
Leaf bears only a second of Blue’s glare before she averts her face, palms out. “Ahh, I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Such contempt! It burns!”
Red pulls a Burn Heal out and sprays a tiny amount at her. “It’s no good, he’s still looking at you!”
Leaf collapses to the ground in stages. “Tell my mother… she was right…” she gasps as Red begins to dig furiously through his bag.
“Dammit, where’s that revive capsule?! Don’t you dare die on me, Leaf!”
Blue wanders off muttering to himself as the two are overcome with laughter, and only returns when the man on the building yells out, “Ryback is finishing something up! Says to give him twenty minutes!”
Leaf makes an effort to collect herself, still giggling. “Thanks!” She shouts back, and the man waves an acknowledgement.
“You done?” Blue asks them, and after convincing him they are, the three put their bags down and bring out their new pokemon for field training while they wait.
Leaf summons her wigglytuff, a mound of bouncy pink and white fur that energetically hops around as soon as it’s released. It examines every rock and shrub with eyes as bright as the sky and a beatific smile that stretches across a face as wide as its body.
“Isn’t she the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Leaf asks as she feeds it some berries, then runs her hands over its fur to clean off some debris that had accumulated from many romps up the mountain.
“Disgustingly so,” Red agrees cheerfully as he brings out his nidoran. It’s a feisty thing, and he has to be stern with it to avoid its affectionate but dangerous head-butts. After feeding it a few pecha berries to weaken its venom, he begins a close examination to check it for damage. On their way up the mountain it tussled with some mankey that attacked them, and this is its first time out since they left the pokemon center. The spines on its back are strong and unbroken, and other than a notch missing from one ear its fur is glossy.
Red practices switching nidoran from Double Kicks to Horn Attacks and back to cut down the time between actions. He tries not to get distracted by the sight of Leaf’s wigglytuff inflating to twice its size and smacking a small boulder hard enough to send it tumbling up the ridge. Meanwhile Blue brings his shinx out and sends it racing to a far off tree and back, timing it and praising each second it shaves off.
Red grins as his nidoran stops its practice to watch the shinx running to and fro, then begins to hop after it. Its hind legs are so powerful that it actually outstrips the blue and black feline, who turns and hisses at it, teeth crackling with electricity. “Nidoran, stop!”
His pokemon freezes as the shinx returns to its master. “Care for a battle?” Blue asks, rubbing its ear. “Would be a good way to put them through their paces.”
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“Oh come on,” Blue says. “Just a practice match, first strike.”
“With a Poison and Electric pokemon, one strike can be damaging enough.”
“You guys never want to battle,” Blue grumbles. “Feels like I might as well be travelling alone sometimes.”
Red opens his mouth to argue when Leaf says, “How about a race? We all have a rattata now. Let’s see which is fastest.”
Blue grins. “Better than nothing. Let’s say, to that tree and back?”
Red withdraws his nidoran and brings out his rattata. “Sure.”
“Go, Joey!”
Red snickers as Blue’s pokemon materializes. “You named your rattata Joey?”
“Yep. Seems a fitting tribute.”
“Go, Scamp!” Leaf scratches her pokemon’s head as she looks back and forth between them. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“Joey’s a character from an ‘educational video’ used in Johto primary schools like a decade ago. It was super cheesy, and taught kids all the things not to do as a trainer. Don’t travel in unprotected clothing like shorts, don’t boast incessantly about your pokemon, don’t train one pokemon exclusively.”
“Our teacher tried showing it to us in our fourth year,” Red says, voice solemn. “They were not prepared for the memes that have plagued the school ever since.”
“Well, now I’m curious. Send me a link later, let’s get this race going!”
“Hang on, I’ve got a better idea,” Red says. “Blue, bring out-”
A tremor rumbles through the ground beneath their feet, there and gone in a heartbeat. The three look around expectantly, but another doesn’t come.
“Was that an earthquake, or pokemon?” Leaf asks. “I was hoping to avoid the former while I’m here.”
“If we’re lucky it was pokemon,” Blue says. “I could use some ground types.”
“Yeah, or it’s an onix that’s burrowing way too close to the surface,” Red says.
“No problem there, I bought a heavy ball just on the off chance we need one. So, what were you saying?”
“Huh? Oh, bring out your pokedoll.”
Blue raises his brow, then takes out his Container holding his training supplies and materializes the huge box inside it. Red and Leaf help him take the lid off and lift out the foam training dummy, then place it on the ground. Their rattata take a sudden sharp interest in the doll once it’s down, and all three growl at it, tails raised and fur bristling.
“Okay, so the three of us will stand in a triangle around it. We’ll order our rattata to use Quick Attacks on it from our position, and call them back after. Whoever can get the most strikes in after a minute wins.”
They position themselves and set a timer. Blue’s rattata is the largest of the three, while Red and Leaf’s are about equal. Red wonders if its bigger size would slow it down or not. “Ready… set…”
“Quick Attack!”
The three rattata dash forward, slashing or biting at the mannequin as they run by.
“Joey, b-”
“Ratta-”
“Scamp, back!”
“-ack!”
“-ta, back!”
The three pokemon slow uncertainly for a second before returning to their trainers.
“Quick attack!”
They launch themselves at the mannequin again, tearing and biting with squeals of rage, then past it in a blink.
“Rattataback!”
Red yells.
“Joey back!”
“Back!” Leaf simply yells, and hers trails behind Blue’s rattata in returning, while Red’s mills around briefly first.
“Quick-”
“Quick atta-”
“-attack!”
“Quick Attack!”
“-ck!”
The minute passes quickly, and when Red’s phone buzzes the three let their rattata rest, feeding them berries and letting them have a drink as their sides heave for breath.
“Okay, so mine only hit it 17 times. Fairly sure yours got higher.”
“19,” Blue says.
“21.”
“Okay, so Leaf’s is fastest, that was evident quickly, and Blue looked like it had a faster reaction time. More importantly, I saw exactly what I was afraid of when I suggested the exercise. Our pokemon don’t know how to work together well. We need to work on coordinating their attacks, especially when using the same pokemon.”
“You should also nickname your pokemon,” Blue says. “Three syllables is a lot.” Leaf nods.
Red frowns. He’s about to point out that “Maturin” and “Kemuri” don’t exactly roll off the tongue, but he knows Blue chooses his pokemon names for more than pure efficiency. For reasons Red can’t really explain, he still hasn’t nicknamed any of his pokemon. He pulls out his notebook to remind himself to put some time into examining why later. “I haven’t really thought of one yet. I’ll think it over. Shall we try again, this time trying for better coordination?”
They practice until their rattata are weaving in and out around the pokedoll with a fair amount of ease, if not quite like a well oiled machine, at least not getting in each other’s way or hesitating as often. They switch to their flying pokemon next, Red’s spearow acting as the main attacker while the two pidgey harass, and by the time they hear footsteps approaching the pokedoll is in rough shape.
They withdraw their pokemon as an older man in a thoroughly dirty pair of jeans and an untucked button up shirt arrives, grey hair tied back in a ponytail and half-lens glasses perched on his nose.
“Hey, you must be Leaf! I’m Jon Ryback, nice to meet you.” The trio shake his hand and introduce themselves. “Brenner didn’t say when you’d be arriving, so pardon me for not being prepared.”
“No worries, we don’t mean to be a bother,” Leaf says. “We’re just passing through and were curious to see what you’re all doing here. I’ve been writing about the museum’s latest exhibits, and thought something on the fossil collection itself might be a good followup.”
“Sounds good. Why don’t I give you the grand tour first, and you let me know if you have any questions.”
They collect their things and begin to follow him toward the excavation site. More accurately, sites, as they can see multiple digs in progress, each spaced out along the entirety of the small valley between two of the mountain’s ridges. Each has long white rope stretched out over several intervals, with vertical ropes anchored to the ground of the dig site to form a grid. Most have a few figures working in them, but what Red notices most is what he doesn’t see. “No pokemon?”
“For the most part, no. This is extremely delicate work, and only the very best mon can be trusted to do it. Some specifically train their pokemon to help excavate, but for the most part it’s just easier to do it ourselves.” Ryback gestures toward the entirety of the dig sites ahead. “We’ve got almost thirty diggers working seven sites at the moment. Seventeen paleontologists, three geologists, a biologist, some excavators, a few others. Most help out at different digs, but some have intensive projects that they’re committed to.”
“You all don’t work for the museum, then?” Leaf asks. “This is a collaborative effort?” She has her notebook out and jots things down as they walk.
“Oh, yeah. This expedition has a number of backers. The museum’s a big one, but Cinnabar Lab’s got an interest in fossils so they can revive them, and there are some private backers too.”
They stop at a dig site to watch as people working in it carefully chip at the dirt and brush it away, slowly revealing whatever fossils they find. One of them is measuring the distance from an anchored rope to the bone they’re working on, and mark down the number before continuing to dig it the rest of the way out.
“Must be nice to have so much support, right?” Red asks.
“Ehhh. It’s a bit more complicated than that.” Ryback continues walking. “Not all of us work together normally: we’re sharing a dig site and help each other out for efficiency, but a lot of us are hired by different people to get fossils exclusively for them.”
“What, you mean they’re actually bidding against each other for the fossils?” Blue asks. “Why not just share them?
“Can’t,” Ryback says. “The private funders either want them for their collection, which puts them at odds with the museum, or for their research, which can take years. The museum doesn’t mind buying them second-hand from anyone that doesn’t need them anymore, but they have a strong interest in whole specimens, which means they have to bid aggressively. And whatever the Cinnabar folks do with them, it doesn’t leave much behind, so they’re at odds with everyone.”
“So how many of these fossils can actually get revived?” Blue asks. “We’ve got what, only three from Kanto?”
Ryback grins and rubs his neck. “Well, that’s a question for a different set of folks. They must think they can do more though, because they bid top dollar for them. It’s actually gotten to be something of a problem, since the mountain chain itself belongs to Pewter, Cerulean, and Viridian depending on where the dig sites are. Each one’s been trying to get exclusive rights to diggers on their portion of land, but for now a compromise of third party security and collaboration seems to be working.”
They reach a dig site that has about a dozen people working in it. A wide area is cordoned off to isolate a group of fossils embedded in the earth. “We use hammers and chisels to dig the ground up and find some fossils, and if it’s small, bag it.” Ryback says. “Every so often though we find something big, or in lots of pieces, like this one.”
Red expected to see them digging it free, but instead people are moving around it with rolls of paper towels, unfurling them from one side to the other. Roll by roll the entire area is slowly covered, until the workers pick up long strips of burlap and buckets of what looks like plaster.
“They’re making a mold?” Red asks.
“Not quite. It’s a cast, to protect the fossils and keep them together as we dig them out for transport. For pieces like this, it’s safer to extract them from the surrounding stone and dirt in a lab setting.”
One of the excavators takes out an industrial strength Container and releases a huge metal box from it, easily large enough to fit the slab of earth that contains the fossils. The group moves on up the ridge and past some smaller digs. As they start to ascend, another light tremor shakes the ground beneath them. Red frowns and looks around. No one else in the digs seem bothered by it, though a few also look around for a moment before getting back to work. Whoever’s in charge of security surely has seismographs, and would know if there were unusual pokemon activity beneath them.
“So what kinds of fossils are around here?” Leaf asks.
“Oh, all kinds. This may seem like a small area, but geologically we’re talking about time, not space. Come on up here, I’ll show you…”
He leads them to the top of a ridge so they can see the foothills of the mountains more clearly.
“Ok, so, see those hills down there? The bones there are Triassic, about 200-250 million years ago. The closer ones are early Jurassic… it skews a bit toward late Jurassic in a kind of crescent around there, then all the rest up to where we are is mid-Jurassic, 165 mya. Each cluster tells a different story, about a different world. It’s a bit like time travel in a literal sense, with distance corresponding to time,” Ryback says.
Red looks down and gently kicks at the earth. “So this mountain wasn’t a mountain 165 million years ago?”
“Oh hell no, you go that far back and none of this is recognizable. See that white hill over there? River channel sandstone. Lots of beautiful bones under there, jet black. Got tumbled a bit so they’re all scattered about. They’re worn smooth in a way that makes them worthless for museum purposes, so they fetch a lower price.”
“What’s the oldest fossils you’ve ever dug up?”
“Oh, that would be stromatolites, easy. Lamiated rocks formed by blue-green algae. We’re talking 3.5 billion years ago.”
Red tries to imagine that stretch of time and fails. Blue seems to be having a similar problem, and looks interested for the first time. “Billion, with a B?”
“Yep.” Ryback starts to lead them back down the ridge. “Life was all microbial back then, and that’s where it all began, for us. Prokaryotes to eukaryotes, we’re all branches from the same roots. If I recall correctly, some new research was demonstrating how we can find bacterial DNA in a lot of the human genome. Amazing, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” Leaf says as she scribbles, while Blue grunts noncommittally and Red nods, lost in thought. He’s considering the implications of all the current life forms on the planet coming from bacteria. Do new species of pokemon that get discovered still have the same markers in their genome? If not, what would that imply? The abiogenesis theory?
“So why don’t you tell us a bit about how we know how old all this stuff is?” Leaf asks.
“We study the strata they’re found in. See all those segments in the earth once we cut it away? Each one represents a different layer that fell over the one below. The deeper you get, the older it is.”
“But where do the numbers come from? How do you know how old the strata are, rather than just that this one is older than that one?”
“We use radiometric dating. Some isotopes decay over a very, very long half-life, and change into something else.” They pass by another dig, where a man gives them a dirty look. Red startles and is about to ask him what was wrong, but they’re past the site and he thinks he imagined it, or misinterpreted the expression.
Until, of course, Blue mutters, “Man, what was that guy’s problem?”
“You saw that too, huh? Guess some people don’t like outsiders here.”
“Oh, well, I hate to be a bother, might as well get going soon.”
Red grins. “Bored?”
“Out of my mind.”
“Radiometric dating, I’ve heard of that,” Leaf says. “It’s when you examine an isotope of an element, measure how long it takes for half the isotope to decay into another kind, and count how much of that isotope is left in what you’re studying, right?”
“That about covers it on the surface, yes.”
Red wonders how much of this is stuff Leaf honestly doesn’t know and how much is her just exercising her newfound journalistic powers. Blue has begun spinning a pokeball on each index finger, and it’s hard to tell how much he’s listening.
“So, I’ve heard of a few criticisms of radiometric dating,” Leaf says. “Mind if I run them by you?”
Ryback grins. “Sure.”
“If you use carbon dating, then how-”
“Oh no, that’s a common mistake. Carbon dating only works for testing the age of once-organic life within the past 60,000 years, give or take. Other isotopes have a far longer half-life. Uranium-lead, samarium-neodymium, potassium-argon, rubidium-strontium, and others.”
Leaf smiles back. “That does answer that question, thanks. Second, how do you know how much of the original element was in what you’re testing? Don’t you need that info to calculate backward and tell how much it had when it formed?”
“We would, if we were only measuring one element. What we do instead is cross-check: one based on uranium-235’s decay to lead-207 with a half-life of about 700 million years, and one based on uranium-238’s decay to lead-206 with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. Graph them on a Concordia diagram and see where they meet.”
“Huh. Okay, last question on this: new rocks or samples show up that get aged within the last century, let alone the last few years. Doesn’t that demonstrate it’s not useful?”
“Some of the time that’s been reported as happening sure, but always in extreme circumstances, like rocks that form from a volcano eruption. Think about trying to use a thermometer to check for a fever while taking a cold shower. There’s going to be some interference.”
Leaf’s next question is cut off by a sudden rumbling of the ground that makes Red reflexively buckle his knees, just barely managing to avoid falling as the sound of stone crashing on stone echoes around them. The sound of screams spikes his adrenaline, and even as he thinks
Earthquake?
he has his hands on his pokeballs, as do Blue and Leaf. They’re all looking in different directions, searching for the threat.
“I don’t see anything,” Red says.
Don’t be pokemon…
“Oh, no,” Ryback whispers and Red turns to see him staring in the direction of a small dust cloud rising over one of the dig sites. “Paul, what happened?” Ryback yells into his radio as he starts jogging toward it. The three trainers immediately follow him. “Was it a pokemon? Natural cave-in? Was anyone down there? Over!”
Don’t say pokemon…
“Rei and Bernard,” his radio says. “I don’t kn-wait… oh shit-
Paul to all points, we have a Tier 1 on site!
”
“Talk about good timing,” Blue mutters as they break into a run. “I thought this whole visit would be boring.”
The first thing that makes Blue reconsider his enthusiasm is the sheer number of geodude, zubat, sandshrew, graveler, and other pokemon flooding out of the hole in the mountain.
The second is the cloud of spores that pour out after them, disguised and mingled with the dust of the collapsed earth. Blue watches as a graveler pulls itself up into the sunlight and takes two stumbling steps forward, then collapses onto its face to reveal a back covered in visibly growing fungus.
Goosebumps break out along his arms as a childhood fear returns, spawned by nights of staying up past his bedtime to secretly watch zombie movies. Until his parents died, waking to find his friends and family stumbling around with blank white eyes and fungal caps was his most recurring nightmare.
Migrating parasect colony, or maybe a rampage, started a stampede. Fire and Flying pokemon are top priority.
He pulls his facemask on and unhooks Zephyr’s ball, then hesitates as the wave of fleeing pokemon approaches them. Hopefully they’re too panicked to do anything but run, but if he summons a pokemon in front of them they might attack it-
“Steven and Janet, clear that cloud out! Everyone to the west of the opening, move north or south immediately!”
The voice comes from Ryback’s radio, and the group skids to a halt as they realize within seconds of each other that they’re in the danger zone. Leaf breaks southward first, and the rest follow her, keeping an eye out for the stampeding pokemon that run or fly past them, oblivious to their doom.
A trio of sandshrew scurry toward them in an intersecting route, and Ryback unclips a ball and throws, summoning a sandslash in a blink. “Keep going!” he tells them as he stops behind his pokemon.
The trio doesn’t even exchange a look, all three stepping beside him and summoning Maturin, Bulbasaur and Spearow. The oncoming sandshrew hesitate, then dive under the ground. They brace themselves for an attack, but after a few seconds the pokemon pop out of the ground behind them and keep fleeing.
They withdraw their pokemon and continue southward until they reach one of the portable buildings and run behind it. “I had that handled,” Ryback says. “If you want to help, you’ll have to defer to those of us here. Understood?”
Blue opens his mouth just as another voice speaks from the radio. “This is Janet, we’re in position. If anyone’s not clear, say so now.”
Ryback presses his radio button. “Ryback here, we’re clear, over.”
“Hiro clear, over.”
“Natalie and Carmin, clear, over.”
Stupid, she said to say something if you’re
not
clear.
The last of the pokemon from the hole are dispersing past them, and Blue fights the urge to take out pokeballs to grab some. It seems like such a waste to just let them run by, but they might have a chance to pick some up later, and it’s not worth the risk of starting an unnecessary fight in such a volatile situation.
“Incoming whirlwind, over.”
They watch as the cloud of dust and spores gets caught in a slowly building cyclone, and shift in a slow spiral as it blows westward. It sails over the fleeing pokemon in its path before dispersing into the open air past the edge of the mountain. Blue watches the heavier pokemon that don’t get swept up collapse, skin covered in spores.
With the obscuration out of the way, they can see the dozens of crimson paras and parasect crawling over the mountain in outward waves, emitting a new fog of spores as they go.
The voice of the ACE on the radio is calm. “Parasect colony is climbing out of the mountain. Fire pokemon out front, Flying in support. Poison special attackers. Everyone else, watch for strays. If at all possible, try and protect the fossils. Rangers are inbound, first ETA is fifteen minutes. Over.”
Ryback raises it to his mouth. “This is Ryback, we’ve got about a dozen pokemon that were in the path of the twister growing shrooms, over.”
“Natalie here, I’ve got it, over.”
Ryback reclips his radio, then turns to the trio. “What have you got?”
“Charmander,” Red says. Nidoran and Spinarak are Poison, but not special attackers.
“We have pidgey,” Blue says, cocking a thumb at Leaf.
“They’re not enough, but the charmander might help. You’re with me, Red.”
Red hesitates, then nods and steps forward as he unclips Charmander’s ball. Ryback turns to Blue and Leaf. “Can you two hold a perimeter?” Blue and Leaf nod. “Good. This is one of the buildings we’ve been storing fossils in. Keep any rampaging pokemon from destroying it, if you can, and stop them from coming up behind us.”
Ryback moves around the building and toward the oncoming swarm of paras and parasect. Red’s face is pale, but he raises his fist, and Blue bumps it.
“Guess it’s your turn for thrilling heroics.”
“At least your arm’s not broken.”
Leaf hugs Red. “Be careful. Watch the cross-wind.”
Blue smirks as his friend freezes, then awkwardly pats her shoulder. “I will. Keep Blue out of trouble.”
“Why do I always get nanny duty?” Leaf grumbles, lips twitching upward.
“I’m sorry, of the three of us, which has a badge again?” Blue asks.
Red gives a weak smile and jogs after Ryback. Blue and Leaf watch him go, then summon Zephyr and Crimson as they move back to back to cover both sidelines.
“Zephyr, scout!”
“Crimson, scout!”
Blue watches Zephyr loop around them in the air, slowly scoping the area for any approaching threats. He keeps his gaze on the ground, watching for any telltales signs of pokemon burrowing under the surface.
To his right, Blue can just make out the beginning of the assault in his periphery. Blasts of fire and gusts of wind hit the expanding cloud of spores from multiple directions, keeping it and the insects emitting it, or more accurately the mushrooms on their backs, from advancing. There’s an occasional
boom
as fire causes a pocket of spores to combust all at once.
Blue wipes sweaty palms against his pants. Red and Charmander would be backup to the more experienced trainers with stronger fire pokemon, picking off any paras that get too close, or helping cleanse the bodies of overrun pokemon before they begin emitting their own spores. They wouldn’t be near the center of the fighting, and should have plenty of time to fall back if they get overrun…
He forces himself to go back to scanning the rest of the digsite, where wild pokemon continue to run around haphazardly. The occasional ACE or scientist rushing to join the main fight engages them, whether by their choice or the pokemon’s, and three separate battles break out in Blue’s field of vision.
“If one of them need help, and we’re just standing here doing nothing…” Leaf says behind him.
“Yeah.” Zephyr lets out a warning cry as a group of zubat flutter by. Blue feels the merciful cool of the battle calm descending as they flutter and loop closer and closer, only to soar away when Zephyr gives a louder battle screech. As they go, his antsy excitement returns, sending useless energy through his arms and legs, commanding him to
go, fight, help.
A gout of flame to his left makes Blue turn to see a woman with a flareon cleansing the pokemon that were caught in the spore cloud. She reaches a graveler that shudders as soon as the flame finishes washing over it, and a flash of light quickly captures it before she moves on to the next, making her way toward the mountain’s edge.
“Got movement here,” Leaf says. Blue unclips Maturin’s ball and looks over his shoulder to see a growing bulge moving through the ground as something digs beneath it. “Go, Bulbasaur!”
Her pokemon flashes into existence just as the sandshrew reveals itself. “Vine whip!”
Her pokemon extends its vines and rears them back, but the sandshrew dives back underground before they can land. They watch the sandshrew burrow away, and Leaf reclips her ball without withdrawing Bulbasaur.
“Do you think-”
Leaf is interrupted by a heavy rumble beneath them that sends both to their knees. “Either someone just used Earthquake, or we need to get off this side of the mountain,” she says. “More of them might be coming up under us.”
“There might be an onix digging around to get away from them, but it probably won’t head any farther up.”
“Probably?”
“Hopefully. What do you want to do, sound a full retreat? They might not want to leave their fossils.”
Leaf bites her lower lip. “ACE is in charge of security, maybe we can get one of them to-”
This time both Zephyr and Crimson give warning cries as another flock of zubat race toward them. In the space of a heartbeat it becomes clear that these are not going to just fly by, and the battle calm is there like a cool cloak round his shoulders.
One, three, five, six, seven.
Blue braces his arm. “Go, Maturin! Water Gun!”
“Bulbasaur, return! Go, Ledyba! Supersonic!”
Water and sound knock a zubat out of the sky and send two more tumbling in different directions, and then their pidgey engage the rest of them. The zubat are smaller and more agile, but the birds are ever so slightly faster, keeping ahead of the swarm’s poisonous fangs.
Blue and Leaf focus on directing Maturin and Ledyba and let their pidgey’s instincts take over. Blue feels the split in attention keenly as he keeps trying to pay attention to what Zephyr is doing while finding new targets for Maturin, but a distant part of him observes the wider battle, and thinks of ways to end it. “Water Gun! Water Gun! Those three are coming back, we won’t be able to avoid them all.”
“Supersonic! I know, I’m going to withdraw Ledyba before they reach her. Should we Rise and Fall?”
Blue remembers the tactics they practiced on the roof of Viridian and plays it out in his head. “Too slow. Vanishing Act?”
“Need more support. Supersonic! How about a Pinwheel?”
“Alright, on three. Two-Watergun! One!”
“Crimson, defend!”
Crimson breaks away and flies over to hover above her as Blue grabs Maturin off the ground and runs behind them. Part of his skin touches Maturin’s and immediately feels dry and stiff as the moisture is sucked out of it. Blue puts Maturin back down and ignores the ache. “Ready!”
“Crimson, Gust!”
“Zephyr, break!”
Crimson begins flapping hard in the direction of the swarm as Zephyr dips a wing and soars away. The zubat trying to chase both begin to get buffeted by the wind, struggling to make headway against it.
Some begin to break away and approach from above or the sides. Blue points to each in turn with his commands. “Maturin, Water Gun! Zephyr, Quick Attack!” Spurts of water continue to knock zubat out of the air, and Zephyr is a tan blur as he zips back and forth to harry them from behind. The zubat try to fly around the column of wind, but Leaf pivots Crimson with them, wheeling the wild pokemon in a slow arc.
One by one zubat begin to drop to the ground and fail to rise, or turn to flee. But soon Crimson tires, and Maturin runs out of water. As soon as the wind dies down, the remaining four zubat close the gap in a blink.
Leaf’s beam hits her pokemon as it screeches in pain, cutting the sound off as it vanishes in a red glow. Blood and feathers finish falling from where it was as the zubat wheel around in confusion, then go for Ledyba.
“Ledyba, return!”
“Kemuri, Extrasensory!”
The zubat begin to crash into each other, screeching in alarm and pain. One of them uses their own supersonic wail, causing Blue to uselessly clap his hands over his ears. Blue’s vision swims as he
feels
the sound in his sinuses, the pressure waxing and waning in a way that makes his head feel like a squeezed water balloon.
Blue drops to all fours and curls up into a ball as the vertigo sets in, flashing back to years of training drills in school. Their instructor stood in front of the class, speaking as they demonstrated the proper response to the audio assault they were all about to endure.
The best defense against moves that cause mental confusion is to focus on what your body is doing. Maintain a physical position that’s low to the ground, and eliminates your body’s ability to hurt itself.
Sharp pain blooms as Blue’s nails scrape at his ears, and he tucks his hands under his knees to pin them with his weight. The abrasion of the soil and pebbles against his skin grounds him as the wail goes on and on and o-
Blessed silence. No, not silence, but without the audio scalpel of their cry, everything seems so muted. Blue uncurls and pushes himself up, knees wobbling.
He expects to see the zubat all dead or captured, but two are still in the air. What felt like a minute under sonic siege was only seconds as the beam of high pitched sound was either directed elsewhere, or died with one of the zubat on the ground.
Leaf throws a pair of pokeballs that capture them, and Blue aims his at the ones still in the air. His nerves are rattled, but the battle-calm is still there, and he draws it tighter around himself to block out the stinging pain of his self-inflicted ear cuts. He tracks the zubat as they flutter in panicked circles and loops under Kemuri’s mental onslaught, one ball on each, letting his thoughts drift so that his arms move purely on reflex, tracking the two pokemon…
Ping!
He throws one, sucking it out of the air. The second ball
pings
another lock, and he throws again just as the zubat stops flapping its wings. Its frail body plummets and bounces against the ground once before lying still.
Blue quickly unhooks another ball and captures it before letting his breath out in a rush. He turns to Kemuri, whose eyes are just beginning to return to normal as his posture slowly relaxes. “Good job, Kemuri. Guard.” He takes out a pokepuff and tosses it to his pokemon, then brings Maturin back out and lets her empty his spare water bottle before giving her a pokepuff too.
“You okay?” Leaf asks. “Your left ear is bleeding.”
Blue checks and winces as the cut behind his ear stings at his touch. “Fine. How’s Crimson?” He takes out a potion and sprays his ear.
“I’m going to wait for a pokemon center to take him back out.” She begins to pick up her new zubat and check them with her pokedex, face growing longer after each. “Both gone. Yours?”
Leaf’s voice is flat, and Blue gives her a searching look. He’s about to ask if
she’s
okay, but holds his tongue. Maybe she’s wearing her own cloak. Blue checks the two zubat he caught. “One’s okay.” He releases the dead one, then goes to get the pokeball that missed.
Around them, the war for the mountainside continues unabated. A few dozen figures hold the line against the paras and parasect in the distance, while random wild pokemon are fought and taken down by the rest of the trainers spread out around the dig site. Zephyr comes down to land on Blue’s shoulder, and his talons bite into the undermesh of his shirt. Blue stifles a cry and resists the urge to chase his pokemon off. Zephyr is quivering with exhaustion, and Blue strokes him instead. “Forgot about the great job you did up there, boy,” he mutters as he picks up the pokeball and tucks it away, then gives his pidgey some berries and a pokepuff. “You’ll be a new terror in the sky when you’re all grown up.”
After one last look at the main battlefield, Blue returns to Leaf and Kemuri. “Zephyr’s tired. Think we’ll-”
Click, clickclick, click!
Blue and Leaf blink. “What was-”
Thud, thud, thudthudthudrrrrrrrrrrrrr-
Blue and Leaf look around wildly for the source of the noise, then look at each other.
“The other-
-side, move!”
CRASH
A graveler bursts through the building in a hail of broken wood and glass as Leaf and Blue throw themselves away from the rolling boulder. Zephyr launches back into the air with a shriek of protest, and Blue’s other two pokemon flinch at the hail of shrapnel.
“Kemuri, Leaf Blade!” Blue yells as he scrambles to his feet. “Zephyr, back!” Zephyr aborts his dive midway, while Kemuri leaps at the graveler and slashes it across the face.
The graveler roars in pain and tries to body-slam Kemuri, who leaps backward. Blue is about to command Maturin when another loud
clickclick
is heard.
Blue resists the urge to turn around and look for the source of the sound: he knows better than to take his eyes off a pokemon in a battle. A moment later he’s glad he does, because he sees the graveler freeze, then throw itself onto its face, grabbing the earth with all four hands.
Blue’s battle calm crystallizes into one last insight, then shatters in a flood of icy panic. “Self-destruct!” he yells as his hands fly to his pokeballs to withdraw everyone. “Return, Maturin! Return, Kemuri!” Blue’s every heartbeat is like a timer counting down, and rather than risk wasting any more seconds trying to return Zephyr he simply starts running and yells “Zephyr, back!”
Leaf has already taken off for the opposite side of the ruined building, and skids to a stop before diving behind it. Blue wants to yell for her to keep running, but it may be their only chance.
Not gonna make it,
he thinks with another spurt of panic, and runs faster.
Shit shit shit-
Blue hears Leaf yell “Hey, get down!” and wonders if she’s talking to him before he reaches the end of the building and sees a paleontologist with a heavy rucksack standing there with a nonplussed look on his face. A distant part of Blue recognizes him as the one that was giving Red and him the evil eye earlier.
And then a giant, hot hand presses its palm against his back and
shoves
just as a massive
BOOM
leaves his ears ringing for the second time in five minutes.
Blue lies in a crumpled heap until the world stops spinning and he can finish testing for broken bones. His elbow feels like it shattered when he rolled into a rock, but he can move it, and he smacked his head against the ground pretty bad, but he doesn’t feel nauseous or disoriented.
I should be dead. What was that, 200 feet at most?
He realizes he can vaguely hear something through the ringing that might be Leaf calling his name, and shifts around until he can see her relieved face looking down at him.
“Leaf,” he mutters. “Ylright?”
She sticks a thumb up, then starts spraying potion liberally over his head and neck and shoulders. He points a finger to his elbow, where the outer part of his shirt was shredded to reveal the mesh under it. He’s glad it was there to save him from losing skin, but he almost changes his mind at the pain of Leaf rolling his sleeve down to see the damage.
His elbow looks badly bruised, but doesn’t seem to be broken. The bone might be cracked, but at the first spray of potion he feels the pain lessen, and after a few more the swelling goes down enough for him to flex his arm with minimal pain.
Zephyr lands next to him, and a wave of relief makes him dizzy. Or maybe that’s the start of a concussion. He pats his pidgey with his good arm, then returns him to his ball and stands up with Leaf’s help.
A couple uncomfortable squirts in his ears has him shaking his head and trying to get the liquid out, but the ringing has stopped enough for him to hear. “We should be dead,” is the first thing he hears.
“I know, I was thinking the same thing. That graveler must have been freshly evolved if its blast was so small.”
Blue looks at the blackened remains of the graveler’s body, and the scorch marks on the ground around it. He considers going over to see if it’s still savable, sometimes with immediate medical attention a self-destructing pokemon can be saved, but he knows the window of opportunity would have passed while he was recovering. Blue’s surprised Leaf didn’t try to save it, but he’s glad she was worried about making sure he was alright.
“Hey, where’s that other guy?”
“He’s inside.” She jerks a thumb at the long, narrow building, which has a huge section torn out of the side. “Said he’s going to check on the fossils.” Blue’s frowning at the visible destruction. “Something wrong?”
“Sorry, yeah, just… was he standing there when you got here?”
Leaf stares at him, then blinks as it registers. “Yeah. He… I wonder why he didn’t yell a warning about the graveler.”
“Didn’t even have a pokemon out, right?”
“No… Blue, those clicks.”
He remembers. Right before they heard the graveler start running for its rollout, then again before the Self-Destruct. “You don’t think…”
He sees his mounting unease reflected in her gaze, and they begin moving toward the building together. “There must be a reasonable explanation,” Leaf says, and Blue notices that she’s whispering now.
Blue unclips a ball, heart pounding. What they’re thinking is crazy, but… better safe than sorry. “Go, Maturin.” He picks his pokemon up after she appears, and steps up into the broken remains of the building. Leaf follows him, hands moving over her right ear.
The inside of the building is a mess of wood and glass and paper. They step over a crushed table and around a cabinet torn partway off the wall to walk toward the opposite end of the rectangular building.
What looks like a storage room is open, and the paleontologist is standing in front of a series of labeled drawers with the rucksack he was wearing at his feet. The one near the middle is open, with rows of grey Container balls nestled in slots documenting where and when they were found.
Most of the slots are empty. The bag looks to be about halfway full.
The paleontologist turns to them as they approach, two more Containers in his hand. He bends and places them in the bag, then securely closes it.
“What are you doing?” Blue asks, throat dry.
“Moving these. It’s not safe here anymore, so I’ve been going around to get these off site.”
“You said you were just going to check on them,” Leaf says, stepping up beside Blue.
“Change of plans. Just got the orders.” His hands never stop moving, and when he finishes tying the bag he slings it over his shoulder. Blue can’t help but stare at the still-open cabinet, with half of its Containers still sitting it, something’s wrong, something’s
wrong-
“Stop,” Leaf says, and Blue’s attention snaps to the man’s hand as he unclips a ball from his waist and braces his arm, paying her no mind.
“Go, Abra.”
The squat tan psychic pokemon appears on the floor, sitting quietly with its eyes closed, and Blue is suddenly very afraid and very glad that he’s Dark. “Stop, whatever you’re doing, we need to make sure-”
“Abra, Teleport,” the man says as he reaches forward to put a hand on his pokemon, and with a surge of adrenaline Blue yells “Maturin, Water Gun!” His pokemon, who might normally hesitate to shoot in the direction of a human, focuses on the abra and spits a sharp stream of water out.
The trainer flinches, for just a moment, and in that moment there’s a
pop
as the abra vanishes, the trainer’s hand an inch away. The water hits the floor and digs a shallow groove in it, and the three are left staring at each other for the space of a heartbeat.
I just ordered my pokemon to attack his outside of a challenge, he was standing right there he might have been hit I could be charged as a Renegade-
“Go, sandslash,” the man says, and suddenly there’s a squat, spiny pokemon standing between them. Blue stares at it, still trying to process what’s happening
battle calm where’s my battle calm
when the paleontologist says “Slash,” voice tight and angry, face a mask.
Slash. Not Scratch, the generic command for a claw attack, generally safe for trainer battles. Slash, the command that specifies lethal intent, for pokemon specifically trained to recognize and aim for vital organs in their opponent.
And the sandslash moves toward them.
Blue scrambles back, dropping Maturin and opening his mouth to yell a command to her, while Leaf presses something to her left ear and turns around, right hand pointing a pokeball and activating it manually, arm snapping up.
He has a moment to wonder why she’s summoning it behind her, then yells “Withdraw!” as the sandslash claws Maturin across the chest, too quick for her to react. Then Leaf says “Sing!” and Blue snaps his hands up to cover his ears even knowing he’s too la-
Fire and fungi. Birds and bugs. Poison and paras. Simple equations with obvious outcomes, if the variables are anywhere near even. A single arcanine could scorch dozens of paras to ash. A single pidgeot could tear a field of them to pieces with a miniature cyclone. A single muk could bury waves of them in poison.
But no pokemon is immune to fatigue, and all the type advantage in the world won’t stop sheer, overwhelming numbers.
“Ember! Ember! Ember!”
The fire flicks out,
onetwothree
, and a trio of paras crackle and burn. Behind them another six advance, shooting out yellow and green and blue spores that get swept back by the wings of Ryback’s fearow. It dives a second later, piercing and shredding the dome of a parasect before flying up in a corkscrew to shed the mushroom and insect gore covering its feathers.
Red can’t think of how long they’ve been fighting anymore, or how much longer until the Rangers come. His entire world is the next attack, and then the next, and the next. The radio keeps squawking orders and warnings and calls for help, but Red barely pays attention to it anymore. He feels like he’s in a cartoon, trying to plug a wall that keeps sprouting new leaks.
Red’s nidoran is already exhausted, and his poisonous spurs take out another handful of the paras before he accumulates too many injuries for Red to heal with quick sprays of potion. Spinarak takes his place and holds up better, until a parasect rushes forward and claws off two of its forelegs. Red withdraws it before the giant claws can close around its head, and an ember by Charmander swiftly engulfs the parasect. Its flaming corpse does little to deter the red and orange swarm.
The red and orange swarm that extends for two hundred meters in front of them.
Could use a beedrill about now, wouldn’t you say?
Shut up, Past Red.
Leaf’s beedrill might help take out another dozen or two, but the real battle will be decided by their special attackers. No matter how good a physical fighter is one-on-one, certain special attacks can take out whole swathes of the foe again and again from a safe distance. Between choosing his targets, Red catches glimpses of them at work. A weezing floats above the swarm to his left, blanketing the bugs below in clouds of noxious gas. To the right, a magmar glows red-hot and wades through the paras in a shimmering cloud of superheated air that crisps anything near it.
Red and Ryback are holding the line between the two, along with a geologist named Pira. Her only supereffective pokemon is a numel who spits small showers of embers out of its hump every few seconds to help cover them. Red feels a burst of relief every time the fiery rain comes down to buy him and Charmander some more breathing room.
Red doesn’t see the weezing go down or get withdrawn, but he begins to notice the surge in enemies a few seconds before Ryback calls out “Big group coming on the left!”
Red and Pira pivot and redirect their pokemon to get ready for the twenty or so paras and three parasect that trundle toward them.
Too many. Way too many.
He shoves down his anxiety and tries to think of solutions. He already tried using his pokedex to imitate paras’ predators, but the fungi are driving them beyond reasonable fears, which is why they march to their fiery, poisonous doom by the dozens.
We need a force amplifier.
“I’m going to concentrate on the parasect,” Ryback says. “We need something-Drill Peck!-we need something else to help hold the paras off!”
Pira hesitates. “I’ve got a lickitung, but I’d rather not use him for fodder unless we don’t have another choice.”
Dammit. Guess it’s time.
“I’ve got a spearow, but it’s freshly caught. Ember! I don’t know how much it will help-”
“We need whatever we can get!”
He unclips its ball. “Go, Spearow!”
The bird appears and screeches at the sight of all the swiftly approaching paras, though whether in fear or hunger Red doesn’t know. “Peck!”
Spearow dives at the paras along the side of the horde, sharp beak dismembering pincers and legs before it flutters back out of their reach. Red sees Ryback’s fearow divebomb two of the parasect and make short work of them, but the third holds it off for a bit with a cloud of stunspores that it has to circle around to blow away.
Charmander and the numel burn another handful of paras in the next few seconds, but the rest just keep coming. “Slow retreat,” Ryback says. “Keep falling back until this bunch is done.”
Red begins stepping backward, and calls Charmander to follow him as he tries to keep an eye on his spearow at the same time. The bird is having trouble scoring any killing blows now that the paras know it’s around, and Red sees it get engulfed in a cloud of poison powder while it’s distracted.
“Spearow, Quick Attack!” Red begins counting in his head. The paras’s poison would kill a pokemon like spearow after about sixty seconds. He wants to withdraw it, but almost twenty paras are still coming, and the fearow has only just managed to take down the last parasect.
4, 5, 6…
“Back, farther,” Ryback says, and Red mirrors his backward movements.
“Charmander, back!” The fire lizard is breathing hard, and Red can see the flame on his tail burning low.
11, 12… He won’t last much longer… 13… force amplifier, something to make a bigger flame… 15, 16…
Another burst of fire from Pira’s numel brings down a second handful, but the paras keep coming, and now they’re starting to spread to the sides, outside of their reach. “We’re breaking formation,” Ryback says.
21, 22, 23.
“We need to hold them here.” He quickly commands his fearow to pick off the bugs that are trying to get past them, leaving charmander, spearow and numel with the rest.
32, 33, 34-
“Shit!” Red says as another cloud of spores is ejected toward them, and jumps to the side. “Ember!” He lost count, and starts again at 40 just in case.
We have nothing to burn, nothing to use to spread fire…
In his distraction, he sees that Spearow has abandoned the hit and run maneuvers to try and peck the paras again, and feels a surge of fear. “Spearow, Quick Att-”
He sees it happen, a burst of blue spores that engulfs the bird’s head. “No!” Red yells, ball extended. “Spearow return!”
The beam misses as his pokemon falls into the swarm of paras, who quickly converge on the bird.
No, no!
“Ember, Charmander, Ember, Ember!”
The globs of fire bring down another two paras, but there are a dozen left, and Red watches in horror as blood and feathers spray into the air.
Red reclips spearow’s ball, chest burning as he fights back the urge to run forward and rescue his pokemon. It’s not
fair,
he was just going to withdraw him, he-
“They’re still coming!” Ryback says as the paras get within ten feet. “If you’ve got anything else, we need them now!”
“Go, Orval!” Pira says, and her lickitung appears. “Supersonic!” The parasect at the front become confused by the beam of shrill noise, allowing Ryback’s fearow to swoop down and rake them to pieces in a series of rapid dives. “Focus on defensive fighting, we just need to buy time!”
“Go, Rattata,” Red says, biting back bitter words.
If you brought your lickitung out earlier my pokemon might still be alive.
“Quick Attack!”
The paras keep driving themselves forward over the bodies of their fallen kindred, driven by the mushrooms’ imperative to spread their spores. With the five pokemon combined, however, they die as quickly as they scuttle forward, bursts of flame and wind providing cover for Red’s rattata to distract the confused front lines. Red goes from tired to exhausted, but still the battle goes on until his voice grows hoarse and his fingers fumble with potion bottles.
“Ranger ETA is five minutes!” the radio says. “Hold the line as best you can!”
“Shit,” Red croaks. “It’s only been ten minutes?”
“I know,” Ryback pants. “Drill Peck! Feels like hours.”
“Should I call my friends?”
“Not yet. They have their own job to do.”
Red opens his mouth to argue, then closes it. There’s no time, and Ryback is the senior trainer around. “Pira, my rattata needs a potion.”
“Okay, do it. Orval, Slam!” The lickitung waddles forward and smashes its tail down on one of the paras. “Defense Curl!”
“Rattata, back!” Red kneels down as his pokemon returns to him, trembling with adrenaline and pain. Red’s chest hurts as he sprays her wounds. “You’re doing great,” Red whispers as he strokes her head. She nuzzles Red’s fingers with her whiskers, causing his throat to tighten. “Just k-keep moving girl, it’ll be over soon…” He wants to give her more time to rest, doesn’t want to send her back at all, but the lickitung is already being overwhelmed. “Go! Quick Attack!”
Red gets to his feet and hangs the potion bottle on his belt before realizing it’s empty and tossing it aside. His eyes roam the swarm of paras as he digs a new one out of his bag, new fear settling into him as he sees the scuttling mass of insects seems untouched, despite what must be hundreds of charred and broken bodies they trample underfoot.
“We’re not going to be able to hold out another five minutes,” Pira says, echoing Red’s thoughts. “Orval, Supersonic! Even if we do, there’s no guarantee the Rangers will get to our area in time.”
“We can’t spare anyone to go for help,” Ryback says. “If we have to run, we run, but not while our pokemon can still fight. Shara, Drill Peck!”
Red tries to think of his remaining resources. He can use a smokescreen from charmander, but it won’t hamper the paras, who are used to travelling in the pitch black of the mountain. His pichu’s electricity would barely hurt them, and his caterpie could maybe trip up one of them. And… that’s it. If there’s something else he could be doing, he’s too distracted to think of it.
If the Rangers don’t arrive soon, we’re screwed.
“Charmander, Ember! Rattata, Quick Attack!”
The minutes drag on, Charmander’s embers becoming smaller and smaller, Rattata moving slower with every strike. Soon a paras survives an ember, and Red notices that Charmander’s tailflame is a slender flicker. “I have to withdraw my charmander,” Red says, coughing at the dryness in his throat. “He’s spent.”
“Do you have any ether?” Pira asks.
“No.”
“Here.” She hands him a bottle, and Red drops to his knees, spraying the rare stimulant into Charmander’s mouth. A few seconds later the lizard’s eyes widen, and his tailflame flares back to near full size.
He hands it back. “Thanks.”
“Should buy us another few minutes.” She waits for her numel to send another salvo of fiery death into the paras’ ranks before she gives it some.
“Charmander, Ember! Ryback, even with the ether our pokemon are fading fast. I’m going to call my friends.”
Ryback looks torn. “Alright, let them kn-”
“Rangers on site, approaching east side! Everyone begin rotating to help those on the west!
“Nevermind!” Ryback says with a grin. “We’re on the home stretch. Just a little longer!”
Red still feels like they can use the help, but he has to admit that knowing the cavalry’s on the way is invigorating. A few seconds later he can see the effect of the new arrivals as more trainers begin to hem in the paras at their sides. Soon they can begin advancing, and do so, pushing the waves of paras forward. A rapidash and venomoth spew flamethrowers and sludge bombs to their left, while on their right a quilava sends out exploding bursts of fire into the swarm and a dodrio dashes back and forth along the front lines, each head skewering a different bug every second.
Red’s fear and anxiety slowly fades as they push forward and reclaim lost ground, though the smell and feel of all the dead paras that crunch underfoot is nauseating. Red tries to avoid them at first, but there’s just too many, and he still has to stay focused on the fight, and instead only watches for patches of poison to step around or fungus to burn.
Between Ryback’s fearow taking out any parasect that trundle too close and Charmander and the numel’s flames crisping the front lines, Red’s rattata is free to strike in quick attacks that get it out of the enemy’s reach before they can retaliate. Red watches his pokemon harry and harass the swarm with pride, until one of the bodies they pass by rears up and stabs her through the torso with both claws.
Red whips her ball up and tries to get a lock on his rattata as she thrashes weakly against her assailant. He watches with his heart in his throat as her movements slow, and the dying paras finally crawls off her. “Rattata, return!” Red cries out, withdrawing her into her ball. “Charmander, Ember!”
Please, it was only a few seconds, please, be okay
, Red thinks as he scrambles for his pokedex for a moment, then stops and reclips her ball to his belt. He forces himself to focus on the battle.
It won’t change if I know now or five minutes from now. Focus.
Worry fills Red’s stomach with acid, but he’ll be damned if he lets his distraction cost him another pokemon.
The circle of trainers around the swarm grows tighter, and they advance farther toward the collapsed dig site. Paras and parasect are still pouring out of it, until the whole battlefield is stunned by an echoing roar.
A charizard dips out of the sky, its scales gleaming in the sun like living flames. Its wings beat the air in claps of thunder before it soars down over the epicenter and bathes it in fire. Again and again the trainer on its back strafes the battlefield, pouring hot death into the hole the paras are crawling out of until the fungus in the tunnel catches fire. Soon after a pillar of black smoke begins to rise, and the waves of bugs crawling out of the hole abruptly stops. Red watches in awe, and Charmander makes a low crooning noise as it tracks the charizard’s flight with wide eyes.
The battle is quickly over after that, and Red finds a relatively clean boulder to sit on as the dozens of site workers and nearby trainers who came to help coordinate clean up and triage. Ryback finds him there, staring down at Rattata’s ball, pokedex sitting on the rock beside him.
“Did it make it?”
Red shakes his head, not looking up. The first pokemon he ever caught, dead because a stupid bug was driven into a suicidal frenzy by a fungal parasite.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to say, you did good. We couldn’t have done it without you and your pokemon.”
“Thanks,” Red whispers, and clears his throat. He wants to take his mask off, but the stench would be even worse then.
“Want to head back to your friends, make sure they’re alright? Or do you need a minute?”
Red shakes his head again and hops off the boulder as he pockets his dex and reclips Rattata’s ball. He’ll release and bury her later. He wishes he could do the same for his spearow, but he doesn’t have the stomach to search for his remains, if there even are any.
As they walk, Red lets memories take him. Training with his rattata, scouring Viridian for wild pokemon with her, finding his spinarak and catching it, playing with her and Charmander in the park at Pewter. Why had he never named her? Even now, Red can’t think of one. It doesn’t feel right, that she’ll forever just be “Rattata” to him.
He thinks of the nest she was part of when he caught her, how she might have had children. Was it worth catching her, bringing her north all this way, only to die on a mountain far from her home? Red looks around at the blighted mountainside, and spots a pair of trainers sitting beside a third who’s lying still, eyes closed. Red takes his hat off and runs his fingers through his sweaty hair, enjoying the breeze and happy to be alive.
The first thing Leaf does after Wigglytuff starts singing is take out a potion and spray Maturin’s chest, where the sandslash’s claws scored deep wounds. Then she takes another pair of plugs out and stuffs them in Blue’s ears. Her heart races as she waits for him to wake up, gaze never leaving the sandslash or its master. The thief.
No, not just a thief. He attacked them. He actually sent his pokemon to
attack them.
Renegade.
The thought chills her to her bone. Encountering Renegades, that’s the stuff trainers do in comics and movies. Is he
insane?
He must be, to doom himself over some fossils, no matter how valuable.
Of course, Blue’s squirtle did attack his abra first… but that was clearly a warning shot. Wasn’t it? Oh gods, did they attack an innocent trainer unprovoked? Are
they
going to get branded?
But no, he used a graveler to tear up the building, maybe even knew they were on the other side. He summoned a sandslash to attack them. He was prepared, could have had it tear up the rest of the house, passed the whole thing off as natural.
Leaf walks over to her wigglytuff and strokes its lush fur to calm herself a little. The feel of it is truly incredible, like trailing her fingers through a warm cloud, and her nerves are soothed almost immediately. Or maybe it’s the song, warped and heavily muted, but still audible at this range, and lovely. She doesn’t know how loud it has to be to knock her out, but she’s glad she tested whether the plugs would work up close.
Blue stirs in her peripheral, and she moves back over to him just as he jerks awake, eyes wide. It takes a moment for his face to clear, and when it does his expression hardens. He gets to his feet and checks Maturin, then flashes her a thumbs up and withdraws his pokemon. He takes his phone out and begins typing into it, and it takes Leaf a moment to realize that he’s marking their location with a Renegade flag. It might not even be noticed right away, with the Tier 1 still ongoing, but-
Leaf’s eyes widen. She forgot about that. How far is Wigglytuff’s song going? It’s probably not nearly as far since they’re most of the way inside a building, but it still could be endangering people.
She has to end it.
Leaf goes over to the Renegade and carefully undoes his belt, then empties his pockets. She carries all his things over to the cabinet and puts them on it, then returns his sandslash to its ball. What else can she do to secure him? Once caught, pokemon are intrinsically taught not to attack people through the very first, most basic training programs, so she can’t order her bulbasaur to wrap him in vines or put him to sleep. She can have him emit some sleep powder and then just sprinkle some into the man’s nose, but they’re much less predictable than the continued effect of Wigglytuff’s singing, unless she’s willing to just keep scooping more over him, which might be dangerous.
Leaf nearly leaps out of her skin when Blue taps her shoulder, and he puts his palms up in apology. She waves it off, cheeks flushed as she takes a deep breath. Blue shows her his phone, which has the message “What are you doing?” typed on its notepad app.
She brings up her own. “Gotta stop the song, others at risk. Wanna secure him first.”
Blue scratches his neck, then types, “Any of these doors got locks?”
They check, and only the outhouse style bathroom does. “Flimsy,” Blue types with a frown.
“Maybe stick them both in there and close the door? Limit sound exposure outside.”
Blue nods, and they work together to drag and shove the Renegade’s body into the bathroom. Leaf can see it would be a tight fit to get Wigglytuff into it too, but thankfully the pokemon’s body is extremely malleable, and she fits comfortably in the remaining space. She continues to cheerfully sing as Leaf strokes her head, then closes the door.
The sound drops to nearly nothing. “I’ll test,” Blue says, and unplugs an ear before she can stop him. His eyes promptly roll up in his head, and she catches him before he can crumple to the ground.
Leaf sighs and lowers him the rest of the way, then finds the plug he dropped and puts it back in.
When he wakes up, she leads him all the way outside, where he tries again with some trepidation. He soon relaxes, and flashes a thumbs up.
Leaf unplugs too, first one ear, then the next. She can still hear the song, but about as muted as it was while she was standing next to it with the plugs. “Okay, do a quick search to make sure no one around us got knocked out while in a fight. I’ll stay and make sure she keeps singing.”
“Got it.”
Leaf leans against an undamaged part of the building and looks out over the mountainside. Her pulse is finally returning to something approaching normal, but she still feels jittery. Until someone else shows up and the Renegade is physically confined, it feels like anything can happen, and since things are currently stable, “anything” would likely be bad. She keeps replugging her ears and poking her head into the building to make sure the bathroom door is closed. After the third time she checks she goes inside and brings all his stuff out with her.
When she unplugs her ears she hears a roar, and turns to see a charizard flying over the battlefield. It’s awe inspiring enough to make her forget what’s going on for a moment, but by the time it finishes its fiery strafing runs she realizes that Blue’s still not around.
She texts him and waits, nerves ratcheting back up again. She goes through the building to the other side to check if he’s in that direction when her phone buzzes, and she sees that he’s on his way back “with help.”
Relief makes her legs buckle, and she sits down for a minute before reminding herself that this would be the exact time in a movie for the villain to escape, and maybe kill his jailer on the way. She puts her earplugs back in and stays in the building until Blue arrives with two ACE trainers and one of the paleontologists, who wait outside.
“They know what’s up,” Blue says through text. “Return her and they’ll hold him until a Ranger arrives.”
“They have rope?”
“Better.”
Leaf is curious, but she complies and waits outside while they carry the man out. It becomes clear once an ACE brings out a Mr. Mime. The rare psychic pokemon creates a telekinetic barrier around the man, trapping him once he wakes. As she’s asked to corroborate Blue’s story, Red and Ryback arrive, and they hear the whole thing. Leaf feels herself getting anxious again as Blue recounts the part where he fired on the abra first. Who are they going to believe, two kids or one of their coworkers?
Ryback and the other paleontologist look stunned. “I just can’t believe Yuuta would do something like that. He’s been working with us for over a year…”
Red looks tired, maybe worse than tired, but his voice is steady when he says, “That’s what makes Renegades so scary, isn’t it? They don’t walk around with a big red R on their shirt. Anyone could be one.”
“Not making a great case for us,” Blue growls, elbowing him.
“Yuuta wasn’t the most friendly sort,” Ryback admits. “He was always helpful, but never got close to anyone.”
“Careful,” Red says. “It’s been shown in studies that it’s easier to remember negative things about someone and forget positives when primed to think badly of them.”
“Whose side are you on?” Blue demands.
Red opens his mouth, then closes it and rubs his eyes. “Sorry, I was just…”
“It’s okay,” ACE Trainer Nora says. “We’re pretty sure the grandchildren of Professor Oak and Juniper didn’t suddenly decide to become Renegades a few weeks into their journeys.”
“Just in case though, you’re both prepared to make a deposition to the Rangers?” asks Jabari, the other ACE. Leaf gets the impression the question is rhetorical.
They both nod. “I know this is just our word against his, but we can at least prove that he tried to steal the fossils,” Leaf says.
“If you can find anywhere an abra teleported into without its trainer, that’ll corroborate that part,” Red suggests.
“And just test his pokemon,” Blue says. “If he has any that have been trained to attack people-”
“Yes, I’m sure the Rangers have seen all the same crime shows,” Nora says with a smile.
“What was his job here?” Leaf asks.
“He was a geologist,” Ryback says. “He… actually, he…”
“What is it?”
“Let me guess,” Red says. “He ran the equipment that monitored seismic activity.”
Ryback nods with a sigh. “I thought it was strange that we didn’t get any warnings about pokemon tunneling under us. I suppose he was ready for something like this.”
Or worse… what if he planned for it?
Leaf tries to dismiss the thought: who could plan for a rampage? They would have to set it off themselves, or work with others to do so. The thought is insane… but she keeps thinking of the man’s face, his calm, his preparation.
“Well, everyone get comfortable while we wait for the Rangers,” Paul says as he leans against the building with his arms crossed. “Personally, I’m hoping Mr. Mori wakes up before they get here. I’d like to ask him a few questions myself.”
…as always, we must ask ourselves what the point of our criminal justice system is, and what we wish to optimize it for. Safety? Reform? Punishment? These three values can often result in very different outcomes.
Which is why the case of how the state treats Renegades so often inflames public policy debates. It is taken for granted that, while many crimes are heinous beyond words, for this crime, and this crime only, it is justified that we brand a man or woman irredeemable, and with all of society’s collective might, from Gym Leaders to police to Rangers, we hound them to their dying breath, as we would a rogue pokemon. Indeed, it is often argued that once committed to such acts, the Renegade ceases to be human, and thus is no longer treated as such.
In a world where our very survival as a species depends on us capturing and training pokemon not to hurt humans, but to defend them, we hold the act of training them to kill us so profane that anyone who would violate that cornerstone of human society is utterly ejected from it. So hated is the Renegade, so feared by their region, so dangerous in the common mind, that we have accepted the thought of using their own crimes against them. We empower Hunters to mimic their methodology, to commit their same profanity, in order to keep us safe.
And perhaps that’s as it should be. By every account, Renegades are a vicious breed, driven to unconscionable extremes that set them apart from society’s core values, often simply to enrich themselves. Or, in perhaps the most sympathetic of examples, driven so mad with grief or rage that they throw their lives away to get revenge for a loved one murdered by more mundane means. In any situation, they are regarded as people who are beyond reason.
But consider this: in the Time of Conflict, there was once a wealthy province where petty crime ran rampant. There was a great divide between the rich and poor, and many hungry and homeless citizens would choose to steal a loaf of bread rather than starve. The shogun decreed that a policy of leniency had bred thieves, and changed the punishment for thievery from imprisonment to death.
The crime of thievery did indeed go down by some measure… but the crimes of assault and murder rose to far outstrip what was lost. For many thieves that spied a witness or faced a lawman, it was often a simple choice to fight to their last breath, to kill, when they knew the only other outcome was to be killed themselves.
-Excerpt from the blog
Rationally Thinking
, by Giovanni Sakaki, Sept 4th, 1505.
The room is claustrophobic with so many people in it, and Red stands as far into the corner as he can, trying to be innocuous. His foot bounces with the nervous energy filling his gut, but he makes sure to be quiet as he rocks from toe to heel, not wanting to draw attention that might remind someone to remove him.
Technically he has no reason to be here: he doesn’t work at the dig site like Ryback or the site leader, Dr. Zapata. He isn’t an ACE on security like Paul, and unlike Leaf and Blue he had no interaction with Yuuta, so Ranger Sasaki has nothing to ask him. But despite being exhausted enough to sleep for hours, as long as no one seems to mind his presence, he has no intention of missing something this important.
Ranger Sasaki arrived and spoke with Blue then Leaf privately to record their statements, then noticed that they were starting to draw a crowd and asked the Barrier to be removed so they could bring Yuuta inside. Yuuta didn’t wake up until they began to move him, and has been sitting in sullen silence since his interrogation started. Though perhaps “interrogation” is too strong a word so far…
“…three years, after which you spent a couple months travelling through Johto. A brief bit of surveying work for Silph, a conference in Sinnoh, two research projects back to back…”
Yuuta sits bound to a chair by the ankles and wrists with his back against a wall. Ranger Sasaki stands in front of him as she reads from her phone, while everyone else stands in a half circle around him, Paul with his back to the door. Yuuta’s pokebelt is being held outside in case any have been hacked to open by voice command alone.
“…some more survey work for a private dig, and then you drop off the radar for about two years before doing another two surveys and then applying to this site.” Ranger Sasaki scrolls through the document with her thumb, then tucks her phone away and takes out a notepad and pen. “That’s your CV right? Did I miss anything major?”
“No. That’s all right.” Yuuta’s voice is low, gaze on the floor. It’s the first time he’s spoken since waking, and everyone but Ranger Sasaki reacts in some way, shifting or blinking in surprise.
“What’s with the gaps?” Sasaki asks. “Anything you want to clarify for the record, before we do some deeper digging? Maybe point us in the right direction, save everyone some time?”
Yuuta is quiet a moment, then lets his breath out through his nose. “Travelled. Alone.”
“Mhm. Didn’t happen to use any electronic forms of payment during that time, did you?”
“I did, actually. Sometimes. Cash while abroad, but passed through Kanto now and then.”
“Not very helpful.”
“Well I’m sorry ma’am, I guess you’ll have to do your own damn job. Now I’m done talking until I can see my attorney.”
Everyone shifts at the sudden anger in his voice, and Paul snorts. “Renegade asking for a lawyer, that’s rich.”
Yuuta’s head snaps up. “What’d you just call me?”
Ranger Sasaki gestures to Leaf and Blue. “These two say you used pokemon to attack them.”
“What?!
He
attacked
me
!” Yuuta jerks his head at Blue.
“No I didn’t, my squirtle attacked your abra!”
“And my sandslash attacked your squirtle, so what’s this Renegade shit?”
Ranger Sasaki holds up a quieting hand before Blue can respond. Red wipes a drop of sweat from his neck as he studies Yuuta’s face. The geologist’s outrage seems genuine, with just the right hint of fear in his voice and eyes. Red never met a Renegade before, and has no idea if they’re all such good actors. Of course if he assumes from the beginning that Yuuta’s a Renegade, then
any
emotion he shows in denying guilt would seem like good acting, even if genuine…
Blue’s question outside still echoes in Red’s head:
Whose side are you on, anyway?
Red didn’t mean to imply with his comments that Yuuta wasn’t a Renegade. He was just reacting automatically to potential bias or irrationality. Blue has accused him in the past of getting too much enjoyment out of being a devil’s advocate to infuriating extremes, but Red never means to do it maliciously. Something in him just naturally pushes back at things that look too sure or damning.
What do I think I know, and why do I think I know it?
Red can’t help but wonder if the whole thing really was a big misunderstanding, but… he trusts Blue and Leaf not to embellish or exaggerate. Not consciously, anyway. And if Yuuta
is
a Renegade, getting them to second guess Blue and Leaf is his only chance.
“What did his squirtle attack your abra with?” Ranger Sasaki asks.
Yuuta shifts in his seat. “Water Gun.”
“And your sandslash attacked with what?”
“Scratch.”
Blue and Leaf mix angry denials until the Ranger quiets them again, and Red suddenly wonders why they’re here at all. The whole situation is different than in TV shows (less shouting and dramatic reveals of evidence by the Ranger) but he knows from watching them that suspected Renegades aren’t left alone with anyone while in custody. Still, having Blue and Leaf here just makes it harder to get a clear story from Yuuta, who’s showing more… normalcy, humanity, than the Renegades on the shows.
“They misheard me, that’s all!” Yuuta says. “It was a tense situation, and I was panicked at suddenly having to defend myself without warning!”
“You mean while you were trying to teleport away with a bag full of our fossils?” Dr. Zapata asks. “They may not have known if you had permission at the time, but you knew exactly what you were doing.”
Yuuta is quiet, then leans his head back, face blank again. “I want a lawyer, I said.”
“So you’re not denying that you were attempting to steal the fossils?”
Yuuta remains silent, and Red thinks he won’t answer any more. If it’s one thing Red learned from the shows it’s that crime suspects speaking without an attorney is just a terrible idea in almost every circumstance, so he doesn’t blame the man for being cautious, even if his silence is as good as an admission of guilt.
But he won’t get an attorney if a Ranger and some witnesses agree that he used pokemon to attack someone. Was it two or three? Certainly less than the amount of people in this room. A chill suddenly creeps up Red’s spine as it hits home that he’s likely looking at a dead man. If Yuuta can’t convince the people here that he’s not a Renegade, he wouldn’t see another sunrise.
“No,” the geologist says at last, voice low. “I tried to steal them.”
“No shit,” Blue mutters.
“How could you, Yuuta?” Dr. Zapata asks. “Bad enough that we all worked so hard for them, were they really worth killing for?”
Red expects defiance when Yuuta raises his gaze, but with a shock he sees a pained expression. “You have every right to hate me, Lourdes. I won’t try to excuse it. I put myself first, like I have my whole life. I’m not a good person… but I’m no Renegade!” he says, turning to Blue and Leaf, then Ranger Sasaki. “You have to believe me!”
“The graveler that came through that building and self-destructed,” Leaf says. “You ordered it to.”
“I didn’t know you were there, I swear! If I wanted to kill you, why didn’t I just do it while you were taking care of your friend?”
Leaf hesitates, and the room is silent for a time, broken only by the sound of Yuuta’s shallow, rapid breathing. The geologist has a point, but no one’s brought up what Red thinks is the most important argument. He swallows against the dryness of his throat and wonders if he should say something. Fear radiates off of Yuuta, and Red finds it hard to speak the words that might sentence the man to death. He looks at Ryback, and the man catches his gaze and nods.
“Forget the graveler,” Ryback says. “Your job on site was partially to monitor for seismic activity. You didn’t warn anyone that the paras colony was coming. You must have detected them, known this was your chance.”
“No, I wasn’t with the equipment! I just saw an opportunity and took it.” Yuuta turns to the Ranger. “Look, get a psychic up here and they can
prove
I’m innocent. I’ll sign whatever waivers they want!”
“I’m sorry, but there’s no way to guarantee that you haven’t trained to fool a psychic. This situation has too many marks of foresight and planning. Even if you didn’t directly use a pokemon to attack a human, you endangered lives by trying to exploit a pokemon attack.”
“And the pokemon you used were exactly what you needed to make it look natural,” Blue says.
“That’s a coincidence, we’ve been here a year. Of course I have natives of the mountain!”
“What about your abra?” Leaf asks. “You had it ready to teleport you out.”
Yuuta scowls. “Any trainer with a brain has a pokemon ready to teleport them in emergencies. You’re just looking for reasons to condemn me, the lot of you! You’ve already made up your minds!”
There’s another uncomfortable silence. Despite Yuuta’s accusation, no one seems eager to brand someone a Renegade on circumstantial evidence, and even Paul appears to be wavering.
“There’s an easy way to verify that,” Red says, causing everyone to turn to him. He steps away from the wall to stand beside Blue and Leaf. “Tell us where your abra teleported to. If you’re telling the truth and your abra was for emergency escapes, then it should have been trained with a pokemon center as its home, or a hospital. You’re not psychic, right? You can’t project a new destination on the spot.”
Yuuta stares at him, jaw tight. Red forces himself to meet the man’s gaze, trying to read some insight or depth in them. But Yuuta only looks angry and scared.
“No unaccompanied abra have been reported,” Ranger Sasaki says. “If we’re looking in the wrong places, tell us now.”
Yuuta’s throat works for a moment, then he looks down and mutters, “I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer. You can’t charge me as a Renegade just because I was caught stealing.”
“And if that’s all it was, you’d be right,” Sasaki says. “But even putting aside the reckless endangerment by use of pokemon, even putting aside the testimony of these two, your attempted thievery relied on the endangerment of others.” Her tone is flat, and she looks from one adult to the next, each nodding. She also looks at Red, who nods reflexively. “You were in the presence of a Tier 1 Emergency, and instead of helping your fellow man, you exploited the situation for your own benefit, and endangered the lives of others with your graveler. For that, I brand you a Renegade.”
“No, please-”
“Dawson, Mary, and Tetsu died today, Yuuta,” Dr. Zapata says, expression hard. “They died fighting to protect everyone on this site, on this mountain. To protect you. And what were you doing? Trying to steal from them, from all of us. Witnessed.”
“I… I didn’t…”
“Witnessed,” Paul says, voice flat.
“Witnessed,” Ryback mutters, gaze down.
Yuuta looks around the room, face drained of color by the time he reaches the trio. “Kids… please, tell them… I could have killed you, if I wanted, I mean I was just… I’m s-sorry…”
Blue stares at him in undisguised contempt, while Leaf looks sick and angry, eyes down. Red feels his stomach roll when Yuuta turns to him again, and forces himself not to step back to the wall. He wasn’t there, he can’t say anything that would help the man.
Didn’t stop me from helping condemn him.
Then Red realizes that’s exactly what the room is waiting for. He remembers now, it’s the Ranger plus four witnesses, and Blue and Leaf can’t, they were directly involved. His presence wasn’t an oversight at all: he’s expected to pass judgement. That’s why the Ranger looked at him.
Cold sweat breaks out all over his skin, and he takes a deep breath to calm himself. He needs time, he needs to think about all the evidence and angles-
“Red,” Ryback says. “Do you need a minute?”
Everyone’s looking at him now, Blue and Leaf are looking at him, and he knows what he has to say, he just doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to be the person to decide. Going first or last has too much resistance, they should have couched him in the middle of the witnesses if they were trying to get him to feel less pressure, to conform, but of course they’re not doing anything so deliberate. They just expected him to do his duty as a trainer: to listen, decide, and witness.
“Please… please, don’t…”
“I witness,” Red whispers, and clears his throat. “With all the evidence as it is, I witness the Ranger’s branding,” he says, louder.
“No…
nooo
…”
Yuuta shakes his head as he moans, face screwed up in horror and grief. “Branded and witnessed,” Ranger Sasaki says. She opens her mouth again, then pauses and looks at the trio before turning to Paul. “If you wouldn’t mind staying a moment?” He nods and opens the door. Everyone else files out of the room, and Red, Leaf and Blue follow as Yuuta begins to sob.
Ranger Sasaki leads them outside, into the sunlight. Red feels it dry his sweat almost instantly, and shivers at the sudden temperature change.
“Thank you all for your help,” Sasaki says, gaze on the trio in particular. “Encountering and passing judgement on a Renegade are difficult things to do at any age, and I’m sorry you all had to go through it. You comported yourselves well, and are dismissed. I have your contact information for the paperwork, and if there are further questions,” she says, addressing Ryback and Dr. Zapata too.
“Thank you, Ranger,” Dr. Zapata says, face a mask. As Sasaki returns to the building, Dr. Zapata turns to the trio too. “And thank you. I know I speak for everyone on site when I say that you’ve saved today from being full of any more heartache. After the friends we’ve already lost, the theft would have been a crippling blow to our spirit.”
“We did as anyone would,” Leaf says, and Blue nods. Red stays silent, unsure if she’s including him and still preoccupied with the fate of the man he sentenced to death.
Dr. Zapata turns to Ryback. “Thank you, Jon. Would you mind escorting these three to a center or outpost?”
“Of course, Doctor, I was just going to suggest the same.”
She grips his arm, then walks toward the distant figures of the other site workers.
“We can make it ourselves,” Blue says once she’s gone. “You don’t need to coddle us.”
Ryback raises a brow. “How many healthy, rested pokemon do you all have among you?”
The trio pauses to count, and Leaf raises three fingers.
Blue nods. “I’ve got three.”
“Two.”
And one of them’s a caterpie.
Red reminds himself to let Charmander out to rest soon.
“Well this whole half of the mountain range is like a kicked beedrill’s nest right now, and frankly I don’t like your odds of making it on your own. Partly because you’re still newer trainers, and partly because I know at least one of you must be exhausted.” Red considers denying it as the other two look at him, but fights down the urge. “Alternatively you all could rest here for the night. By tomorrow the Rangers should have calmed things down a bit.”
“Is there room for us?” Leaf asks.
“Normally no, but…”
Red nods. They’d lost some people. It only takes a few seconds of thought to recognize they’d be stupid not to take him up on his help. “Well, if you can be spared around here, I wouldn’t mind the escort.”
“I’m okay with it too,” Leaf says.
Blue looks at them, then shrugs. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, you all did a lot here. It’s the least we can do to pay you back. Give me an hour to finish some things up, and I’ll meet you on the east side of the dig.”
They agree and watch as he walks off, circling around the warzone of dead pokemon that blights a third of the dig site. The three stand together in silence and watch the various people moving about. Red wonders when Yuuta will be executed, and how. The day feels like it has gone on forever, probably because he feels so drastically different now than when he woke up this morning. There’s a surreal sense of distance as he feels unconnected from his painful thoughts of guilt and uncertainty, but also a feeling of connection with the world around him, all his senses turned up as he breathes deep and feels again the same bittersweet gladness to be alive from just after the battle.
Blue turns to Red and Leaf, a thoughtful, distant expression on his face. Just as Red’s about to ask his friend if he feels the same way, Blue says, “So, anyone hungry?”
Red snorts, then giggles, then sits down in the dirt, laughing until he clutches his stomach. Blue gives him a startled look, then tries to exchange concerned glances with Leaf, who merely gives a sad smile.
“Uh. You okay, man?”
Red makes an effort to control himself, speaking through giggles. “Yes… yes, I am hungry. And tired. And maybe slightly delirious because of it.”
“Well, we’ve got time for a snack and nap.”
“A snackap,” Leaf says in an experimental tone. “Napack? A snap.”
Red shakes his head. He knows his friends aren’t ready to talk about what just happened yet either, and is grateful for the excuse to put it off. “No, you guys go ahead.” He pushes himself to his feet. “There’s something I want to do before we leave.”
“What is it?”
Red hesitates. Would he rather be alone? He’s never done a burial before, isn’t even sure why he wants to, other than a feeling of obligation. “My rattata got killed. I want to bury her.”
Leaf’s hands cover her mouth. “Oh, Red, I’m sorry. How?”
“One of the paras that looked dead… she walked by it and it pierced her heart before I could withdraw her. Spearow also didn’t make it.”
“Damn, your Flying type too?” Blue demands. “Against paras? What happened?”
Red flushes. “There were hundreds of them, what do you think happened? Some stun spores knocked him to the ground and they tore him to shreds! Sorry not everyone can be as good as you!”
“Hey, I didn’t say that!”
“You implied it!”
“The hell I did, I was just asking a question! I’ve lost pokemon too you know!”
Leaf steps between them, a palm on each of their chests. “Woah, guys, calm down! We’ve all had a stressful day! Deep breaths!”
Red tries to continue meeting Blue’s glare, but it’s hard to be menacing when you’re constantly shifting your head around a pleasant white sunhat. He finally does as she says, letting his breath out in a hot gust as he steps back. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”
Blue scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, well. That sucks about your pokemon. Sorry.”
“Yeah. You guys get something to eat, I’m going to the edge of the dig site. I’ll be back soon.”
“Screw that, we’re coming with you,” Leaf says with a resolute expression that quickly shifts to apprehensive. “Unless you’d rather do it alone?”
Red shrugs. “I don’t mind the company.” Maybe he’s not the only one that needs to go through some motions right now. He worries he should be feeling more, enough to cry or scream or something, but he doesn’t feel enough to do anything like that, and this at least is something constructive he can do. “Thanks.”
The trio walks away from the dig site until they’re surrounded by grass and trees, on high alert for any wild pokemon that might still be in the area. Red takes a handheld shovel out of a Container of tools in his bag and shoves the blade through the thick grass with his foot. After it’s up the dirt beneath it is easier to scoop, and once his arms can no longer manipulate the shovel in and out without widening the hole he hands it to Blue.
Red unclips the pokeball, then braces himself physically and emotionally. “Go, Rattata,” he mutters.
The pokeball kicks and disgorges his pokemon, blood still pooling out of her chest and into the grass. Leaf tilts her head up, eyes closed, and as Blue lowers Rattata into the hole she begins to recite:
In life you were a stranger first
A danger tamed and taught
But as life endangers man and mon
As one we trained and fought
In life you were my guardian
I called you and you came
We rose to any challenges
Our fates became the same
In life you were my dearest friend
I taught you and you taught me
To fill our days with laughs and love
Our nights warm and danger free
In life you gave me everything
A debt I can’t repay
The road goes on for me alone
Now rest, your duty’s done.
Her voice is soft and sure, but for a slight hitch at the end that makes Red’s chest ache. The last line takes him by surprise: he’s used to it being
In death your battle’s done.
He wonders if it’s a regional difference, or her own alteration. Blue finishes filling the hole, then places the grassy plot back onto it, mostly undisturbed.
“She was such a little thing,” Red says searching for the words as he spoke. “But she fought without hesitation, always. She did her best to keep me safe, and she succeeded. It’s only been a month and a half since we started our journey, but she was with us from day one, from the first danger we all faced as a team. She’s not the first pokemon we lost,” he says, nodding to Blue. “And not the only one we lost today. But she’s the first we caught together. And I’m glad we’re all together to say goodbye.”
Red waits for more words to come, thoughts popping in and out of his mind, spinning through it untethered until they fade. The silence stretches out, too long, so he just nods and whispers “Thank you” to the small grave before turning away, cheeks red.
Too late he realizes he prohibited any potential last words the other two might have wanted to speak, but they follow him without hesitation, so he supposes they didn’t plan on saying anything.
“Thanks guys,” Red says to Blue and Leaf as they make their way back to the dig site.
“No prob.” Blue has the shovel braced between his arms and shoulders, gaze down. Leaf nods, sniffing a bit. Red waits for some crushing emotion to wash over him, but he feels… okay. A bit sad, a bit bitter at the unfairness of it all, but mostly he just feels hungry and tired.
Red isn’t even sure why he feels like he should be more upset. Is he worried there’s something wrong with him? That maybe his metric for grief was broken after his dad, just because he isn’t falling to pieces over his lost rattata?
It’s possible that the psychic block Narud mentioned is affecting his emotions, but the simpler explanation is that his rattata just didn’t matter that much to him. It feels horrible to admit, but he can’t ignore his feelings, or lack of them. He’s sad that Rattata died, and feels it as more of a constant than the sadness of the people that died today, but if he focuses on them, he feels it more acutely.
And they’re people he hasn’t even met. Leaf, who he’s known for about as long as he had his rattata, feels exponentially more important to him. Hell, he even feels more for the Renegade, though that’s a more confused jumble of emotions. Still, sadness for his death, the senseless waste of it, is one of them. It seems his prediction at the restaurant their first night together holds true so far. Sad as he is at the loss of his pokemon, they still just don’t “matter” to him in the same way people do.
Maybe that makes him a horrible person, but Red decides to try and table that worry for now, if he can. It’s not particularly productive, and there are more pressing issues at hand.
“I’m going to let my pokemon out to get some rest and heal them up a bit before we leave,” Red says as they walk. “The last thing I want to face today is another fight, but it’s better to be prepared. You guys want to have a bite meanwhile?”
“Sure,” Leaf says. “Let’s do it at the east side so we’re ready for Ryback.” They pass site personnel, ACE, and other trainers that are still recovering from the battle and helping clean up the dig site. Red wonders if they should help, but no one seems to expect it of them, and he’s too tired and distracted to do more than appreciate being able to sit it out.
They reach the eastern edge of the site and find the road continuing on across the mountain. Red takes his shovel from Blue and returns it to its Container, then they release some unhurt pokemon and sit to eat trail mix, jerky, fruits and veggies.
“Weird day, huh?” Blue asks with a full mouth as he tosses carrot chips to Maturin and Zephyr.
“Yeah.” Red rubs his sleeping charmander’s head with one hand as the other holds a stick of jerky. “Mom and your grandpa are going to freak when they find out.”
“Think you should tell them before the news does?” Leaf asks as her ledyba crawls up her back and onto her hat. “I don’t have that problem at least. Or, I don’t think I do. Maybe my mom started watching Kanto news too. Hm.”
Red and Blue look at each other. “Eh,” Blue says with a shrug. “The news is fast, but it’s not
that
fast.”
Red smiles. “I’ll probably call my mom tonight anyway, so might as well tell her then. She-”
Leaf’s phone chirps a tune just then, and they all wait in trepidation as she takes it out and looks at the screen.
“Oh.” She relaxes. “It’s just an email… from the Pewter mayor?” Leaf scans the screen. “He’ll be giving a speech at a graduation ceremony tomorrow, and said to tune in for mention of ‘a certain article.'” She raises wide eyes to them. “I thought he forgot.”
“That’s great,” Red says. “He’ll give it a huge boost.”
“Yeah…” Leaf puts her phone away, gaze distant.
“What’s the matter?”
“Mayor Kitto struck me as an acutely political person. I left his office feeling… not manipulated so much as handled. I’m happy for the extra attention, I just can’t help but wonder what his goal is.”
“Ulterior motives don’t necessarily have to be negative. Why not ask him?”
Leaf smiles. “Even if he’s honest, I wouldn’t trust him to give a full answer.”
“He’s just plugging your article,” Blue says. “Mutual back scratching, a politician’s bread and butter. What could he possibly be doing that’s so bad?”
“Well, he could be directing funds toward friends on the museum board, or putting himself in more of a position to decide future direction for the museum,” Leaf says. “Just because he happens to be on the right side of the latest topic doesn’t mean he’ll always be. Qualified people need to guide its choices, not leaders
or
mayors.”
“Until we live in a technocracy, that’s probably wishful thinking in any case,” Red says. “What’s your alternative? Tell him not to mention the article?”
Leaf shakes her head. “No, I just don’t want to be used or drawn into a political fight that will force me onto the side of a stranger. Kitto seems like a nice guy, but if he’s in some scandal a couple years from now, anyone that’s seen as close to him could be affected by it. Plus, if I really want to do serious journalism someday, getting used to relationships like that could be compromising.”
“Or useful,” Blue says. “Gramps has a half-dozen friends in the press that he uses for different reasons when he needs to get the word out on something.”
“Ask my mom what she thinks,” Red suggests.
Leaf nods and begins navigating on her phone. “I think I will.”
“Wait, hang on,” Blue says. “Did he say he’s going to mention it tomorrow?”
“Yeah?”
Blue rubs his chin. “You might want to get him to postpone that.”
“What? Why?”
“Have you considered the optics on all this? We just single-handedly… double-handedly? The two of us just helped catch a Renegade as he tried to steal a fortune’s worth of fossils. We might hit regional news. Even if it’s just local, we’re gonna get a huge spike in followers.”
Leaf nods, face thoughtful. “I’m going to get another smaller spike from the mayor’s mention, but if the Renegade story hits first… suddenly I’m not just some tourist when he mentions me.”
“Exactly. The timing couldn’t be better if you planned it.”
“Maybe someone did,” Red says. “These mountains are owned by Viridian, Celadon and Pewter, and a lot of the workers here are from Pewter. Word could have spread by now: maybe the mayor already knows.”
Leaf frowns. “He must have written his speech before today though. I guess it’s not hard to slip this mention in, but only if it’s topical, and in that case why wouldn’t he have originally planned to include it?”
“Maybe he was waiting for you to do something noteworthy.”
Blue shrugs. “No way of knowing until we know what his speech is about. Either way, if he mentions it before all this hits the news it won’t be nearly as big an impact.”
“Why not preempt that, then?” Red asks. “Just tell the mayor what happened, so he can mention it even if it hasn’t made news yet.”
Leaf tugs at her lower lip. “I guess so,” she says slowly. “But that seems a bit too much like self-promoting, doesn’t it?”
“No way, it’s getting ahead of the story,” Blue says. “Just make it clear that you’re giving him the heads-up so he doesn’t get caught unaware if the news breaks around then.”
Leaf is nodding. “Got it.” She puts her food down and begins typing away.
Blue turns to Red and catches him gazing up at the sky, where Zephyr is soaring in slow circles. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
I need another flying pokemon.
He sighs. “What do you think of the Renegade system? Does it seem… fair to you?”
Blue frowns at him. “Of course not. That’s the point, isn’t it? ‘Better to brand ten innocents than let one Renegade go free?'”
“Yeah, I know. The damage that one Renegade can do to society far outweighs the lives of the ten. Are you ever scared of being one of those ten, though?”
“I am,” Leaf says, still typing on her phone. “Scared, that is. Today I had some tense moments wondering if we’d made a mistake.”
“Come on, no way that guy wasn’t guilty,” Blue says. “I mean, yeah, it was a bit intense having to get everyone to believe us over him, but it was pretty clear he was up to no good.”
“What if it’s not so clear next time?” Red asks. “We didn’t actually
prove
anything, it was just all so much more circumstantial than it is on TV.”
Blue’s eyes narrow. “What are you saying? You think we were wrong?”
“No, no.” Red makes a sound of frustration. “Look, I witnessed, didn’t I? I just think… he was tied up, you know? He wasn’t going anywhere. There was time to look into things more, find more neutral witnesses. I know you guys weren’t able to witness, but I’m your friend, even if the evidence wasn’t on your side I’d feel pressured to believe you. Dr. Zapata and Ryback just lost three colleagues, they’re not exactly thinking clearly right now. And Paul, well, he’s leading security here. If something had happened to the fossils it wouldn’t look great for him.”
“Alright, sure, they could have gotten him a lawyer and put him in court and filled a jury with random people and hoped that the truth came out,” Blue says. “But what if it doesn’t? We’re back to the question of letting a Renegade free. Remember Modama Town? Old Agate Village? One psychopath gets it in his head to wipe out hundreds of people, or even thousands, and we’re just supposed to hope they don’t? Fuck that.”
Red shakes his head. “I know. It’s horrifying. But events like that happen so rarely.”
“Yeah, and I doubt that’s a coincidence.”
“What we need are numbers,” Leaf says. “People killed by Renegades in a year, people killed as Renegades in a year, people investigated, people branded… the hardest part would be the speculation though.” Leaf taps at her phone a few more times, then tucks it away. “We can’t know how effective killing suspected Renegades is by just pointing to the lack of terrorist attacks. Maybe we’re nipping dozens of them in the bud, or maybe we’re just predominantly catching Renegades like Yuuta, who are… indirect. He
could
have killed us if he wanted to, you know. After his graveler knocked you out.”
Blue shakes his head as their pokemon all suddenly focus on something behind him. Red turns to see Ryback approaching. “The guy was scum,” Blue says. “He was still out in the open, didn’t want to risk anyone seeing him kill us. If he got away with this heist he would have just grown bolder, done something worse.”
“Maybe,” Ryback says. “Or maybe he would have sold his loot and found some other Region to retire in. Either way, I’m glad he didn’t get the chance.”
The trio start repacking their food and withdrawing their pokemon. Ryback is dressed in more protective clothing and a full pokebelt. “Hang on a sec, don’t finish closing your bags yet. I’ve got something for you all.”
Red, Blue and Leaf exchange glances, then put their bags back down and approach him as he lifts a small sack and takes out a Container. “Got two more of these in here, a fossil in each. I talked to Dr. Zapata, and she agreed… we wouldn’t have any of these if not for you all. They’re extras, so we’re free to do with them as we’d like.”
“Um. Wow. That’s…
really
nice of you,” Red says slowly. “But I wasn’t there-”
“I know, you were helping me. Didn’t seem fair to exclude you for that, since you would have been otherwise. Plus you helped with… afterward, and did as much as anyone to help protect the site. Paid a price for it, too. This is our way of saying thanks. Don’t worry, they’re not super valuable. If you ever go to Cinnabar Labs though, they might be able to regenerate them for you.”
“We’ve been here before,” Leaf says as Ryback takes out the second and third Containers, all three balls gleaming in the sun.
“You should pick first this time,” Red says. “And you can go second, Blue.”
“Nah, you go second. By the time we’re at Cinnabar my team is going to be mostly solid.”
“What are they?” Leaf asks.
“This one’s a ball of amber that we believe has aerodactyl blood in it. It’s part of a shipment that’s going to Pewter’s museum. These two are a pair of fossils for omanyte and kabuto.”
“Aerodactyl’s the flying one, right? I’ll take it,” Leaf says with a smile. “Thank you so much!”
Red sighs to himself. He was hoping for that one. Of the remaining two though, he has no real preference. His hand twitches indecisively from left to right, and he finally just chooses at random. “Which is this?”
“Omanyte.”
“Cool. Thanks.” Red tucks it into his bag and wonders if he’ll ever revive it. He always wanted to learn more about the regeneration process, and this is as good an excuse as any to start.
Blue takes his kabuto fossil and they finish packing up. “We’ve got a few hours of daylight left, think we can make it to the final checkpoint by then?”
Red takes a deep breath, then lets it out, feeling more energized. The rest and food helped a lot. “Sure, let’s do it. I wouldn’t mind getting off this mountain by tomorrow. Would be nice to have a shower tonight.”
“Agreed,” Leaf says. “Is that okay with you, Ryback?”
“I’m just here to help, you three set whatever pace you want. I’ve been on site for almost a week, and after today wouldn’t say no to a shower myself. And a stiff drink.”
The coliseum was colder than she imagined, colder than she thought she could endure. Hail pelted her thick coat and bounced off hastily donned goggles. Harsh winds tore words from lips made numb by their assault. The metal of her pokeballs bit at her fingers with icy teeth. And all the while, she grinned until her cheeks felt frozen in their new position.
She had thought she was ready. She had thought she was prepared for any obstacle, any twist.
She never imagined that Elite Lorelei would schedule their Challenge match during a blizzard, on top of an
indoor glacier.
Misty had never felt so alive.
“
Remember, you may forfeit at any time,” Lorelei said in her ear before the battle began. “I will not call the match if one of your pokemon is killed.”
Misty responded by sending her poliwrath out to pummel the Elite’s opening cloyster. Its shell was hard as steel, but just as vulnerable to her pokemon’s precise, powerful strikes. Her poliwrath shrugged off its returned attacks and eventually took it down, which began a flurry of swaps and trades. A jynx took down her poliwrath with a mental blast, then got felled itself by Misty’s jellicent. Lorelei sent out a weavile, but Misty was ready with the withdraw this time. Wishing she still had her poliwrath, Misty sent her blastoise out to tank the sweeper. Her pokemon was able to hold its own for a while, unable to land a solid blow but protected by its thick shell, but the hailstorm was slowly wearing it down, and Misty finally ordered a Body Slam to try and catch the weavile by surprise.
Her pokemon fell onto all fours and thrust itself forward like a battering ram, but slipped on the ice of the glacier and veered a bit to the side. The weavile nimbly flipped itself out of the way, then dashed in for another attack-
-until her blastoise spun on its belly and aimed a cannon right at it for a full on Hydro Pump.
Lorelei didn’t miss a beat, and sent a lapras out that took her blastoise down with a thunderbolt. Misty quickly sent out her starter and lifelong friend, Celest. She grinned as her starmie easily outsped the lapras and hit it with psychic blasts until it was withdrawn, Recovering to heal from the returned electric attacks.
Her first Challenge against the Elite Four, and she was already ahead of the game, with four pokemon against Lorelei’s remaining three. Lorelei may have been a master of Ice pokemon, but Misty had always favored Water types herself, and was more than prepared for the environment and matchup.
A shard of hail slid down her neck, making her shudder and chilling her overconfidence. She mentally directed Celest into the water around them, then linked their minds. Years of training with her starmie allowed her to seamlessly interpret the pokemon’s bizarre senses and alien thoughts. If Lorelei sent out a non-aquatic pokemon, Celest could do hit and runs attacks from the safety of the water, and if the Elite sent out an aquatic pokemon she wouldn’t be able to follow the battle or command her pokemon as well as Misty. With a mental nudge, Celest began rotating around the glacier at high speed as the two surveyed their surroundings through the starmie’s psychic field and waited for Lorelei’s next move.
Lorelei lifted an aquascope from behind her platform walls and walked to the edge of the ice before sending her dewgong into it. She sent the long metal pole of the scope into the water and began fiddling with the controls, moving the camera at its bottom to follow the action as she began sending commands to her pokemon through high frequency clicks.
So much for that idea
, Misty thought as she hastily ordered her pokemon to construct a Light Screen. Dewgong’s Water and Ice attacks would be ineffective against Celest, whose ability to naturally cure status effects would help in the outside chance that she was frozen, but the dewgong’s Signal Beam would be especially effective against the psychic starfish.
Instead the dewgong thrust itself at Celest horn first. Misty gasped and doubled over in pain as they were hit by three hundred pounds of blubber sheathed muscle. She quickly commanded Celest to construct a kinetic Barrier around itself as she slowly straightened. Her starmie wouldn’t be able to take another hit like that: she hadn’t expected Lorelei to train her dewgong as a physical attacker, and now the tempo of the battle was on the Elite’s side.
The dewgong hammered Celest again, but its attack was dampened by the Barrier, and Celest just barely clung onto consciousness. Misty ordered Celest to Recover, and her torn flesh began to close and heal, just a hair faster than Lorelei could undo with the next attack. She kept up the assault regardless, and Misty kept Celest in recovery mode, bearing the shared pain through gritted teeth. Once Celest was fully healed she would be strong enough to take a couple hits in a row as she struck back-
Misty felt Celest’s Light Screen fading and saw the trap a second before it was sprung. A second was enough time to react, enough time to command Celest at the speed-of-thought to stop healing and refresh the Light Screen. But with either action equally likely to end in ruin, indecision decided for her.
The Light Screen faded just as Celest finished fully recovering, and in that instant a new pitch of clicks spread through the water. The dewgong blasted Celest with a beam of discordant sound, causing Misty to clutch at her head as the psychic connection broke. She blinked spots out of her eyes as she tried to fight down her panic. Celest was down there, alone and injured… she reached out with her mind to try and re-establish a connection, but sensed nothing but pain and confusion from her starmie.
Misty still had three other pokemon. She could accept the loss of Celest and still use her next three to try for a victory. But that would mean letting her starter stay down there and get pummeled into unconsciousness, or worse-
“
I forfeit!” she yelled, and within seconds the machines generating the hailstorm shut down as the audience filled the stadium with noise. Misty rushed to the edge of the glacier, stripping off anything water sensitive and taking out her headset before diving into the icy water. She kicked down until she spotted Celest and unclipped its dive ball to return it.
As she kicked back to the surface and climbed onto the glacier, she knew her attempts at becoming Champion were done. Years spent preparing and she had choked in the very first match against the League, had thrown the battle rather than risk harm to her pokemon. Someone so soft could never be Champion. Her hand caressed Celest’s cold ball as she walked to the bridge leading off the glacier, chin held high for the cameras as her spirit withered within her.
Later, as she sat alone outside the Indigo Plateau compound, Lorelei found her. Misty didn’t know how, didn’t question it. She simply continued staring up at the stars as the Elite sat on the bench beside her. They shared a silent handful of minutes before the older woman spoke.
“
You did a noble thing in there. I hope you’re not still beating yourself up over it.”
Misty didn’t respond, not trusting her voice. Pity was something she wasn’t sure she could take right now, though she wasn’t sensing any from the surface of Lorelei’s thoughts. The woman’s mind was tranquil as a falling snowflake.
“I’ve been following your trainer profile for a while, you know.”
That got her attention. “I never saw-” Misty stopped herself. Of course Champions and The Four would use fake accounts to follow random trainers. She found herself blushing at the thought of an Elite spending time personally watching her journey, and cursed her weakness for the dozenth time.
Lorelei smiled, far warmer than any she showed in the arena. “You have a good heart. A good head, too. That defense of Cerulean Bay? Masterful.”
“
That was… a group effort.”
“
As far as the media portrayed it, yes, but those with the proper channels can learn more personal stories. From my understanding, everyone on the north coast of the city owes their life to you.”
Misty’s face was red as her hair now, and she knew it was ruining her attempt to glare at Lorelei. “Do you give this pep talk to all the failed challengers?”
“
Just the ones I think have potential.”
“
Potential for what? Champion?”
“
To make a difference.”
Misty frowned. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I wasn’t about to throw myself off a cliff or become a hermit or anything.”
Lorelei shook her head. “Not good enough. By this time next year, if you’re not someone’s Second or a Director for CoRRNet, I’ll be very disappointed.”
Misty was ready to get pissed again, but the words stuck in her throat. Gym Second? It’s not that she never considered it, but she’s not Leader material. She has no deep ties to any communities, never joined a Gym… hell, she spent half of her journey travelling alone because she preferred it to being around others. “Where would I…?”
The Elite stretched and got to her feet. “That’s up to you, dear. I just wanted to make sure you don’t waste a single day stuck on this. You had to come here. And you had to lose. To learn something about yourself, down to your core. And to find something new to strive for. That was part of your journey, not the end of it.”
Misty hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I get that. I… thank you, Elite.”
“
Call me Lorelei.”
The crowd erupts in cheers as Misty’s wartortle is knocked out. “Nice job,” she says into her mic with a grin, then switches its output to the stadium speakers as she withdraws her pokemon. “Well done, Challenger. I only have three pokemon left, which means we’re entering our Lightning Round. What do you say to picking up the pace a bit?”
The young woman on the opposite end of the arena leans against the railing of her platform. “I remain ready to beat you at twice the speed, Leader, or even thrice it if you’d like.”
The audience gives a collective “oooh” as Misty laughs. She likes this Challenger. In the past week of battling Misty’s Gym members, Amy has shown herself to be a competent trainer with a good sense of humor and showmanship. She would fit right in at Cerulean, if she decides to stay.
But that doesn’t mean Misty’s going to make getting her badge easy for the girl. “Thrice the speed it is! Referees, prepare the buzzers! If either of us spends more than half a second without a pokemon out, the match will be forfeit. Ready? Set! Go, Nomo!”
Her quagsire appears on a sand island between their two raised platforms. The two are surrounded by water, and beyond that the open ocean to the north and Cerulean City to the south. Her gym was built just off the beach of Cerulean Bay, with various stadiums constructed at natural points along the coast. Their audience sits in raised bleachers of easily transported plastic and aluminum, and the arena has no roof, opening their battle to the sky.
Amy withdraws her raichu as Nomo sends a Mud Slap at it, and replaces it with an ivysaur who sends Razor Leaves back at the tentacruel Misty replaces her quagsire with. The Gym Leader’s hands never stop moving, withdraw and summon and switch and withdraw and summon and switch, as she and her challenger shout commands.
“Osu, Ice Beam!”
“Modius, Psyshock!”
“Ruby, Night Slash!”
“Pepen, Sludge Bomb!”
“Nomo, Mud Slap!”
“Tetra, Razor Leaf!”
“Osu, Ice Beam!”
Tentacruel against hypno against crawdaunt against skuntank against quagsire against ivysaur until Misty’s back to her tentacruel, who narrowly misses the Challenger’s ivysaur with her beam as Amy replaces it with her hypno again. Their pokemon are slowly worn down from the constant attacking and switching into hits that were aimed at others.
Misty already took down Amy’s butterfree and tangela, but crawdaunt, tentacruel and quagsire are Misty’s last three pokemon, while Amy still has the raichu she used to knock out Misty’s wartortle. If Misty loses her quagsire Nomo, she’ll have no check against the Electric Type. But being Water/Ground means Amy’s ivysaur would massacre it if she keeps it in play. Misty needs to take out the ivysaur to have a chance.
“Pepen, Sludge Bomb!”
“Nomo, Mud Slap!”
Tentacruel into ivysaur, crawdaunt into hypno, quagsire into skuntank, ivysaur, tentacruel, hypno, crawdaunt, skuntank, quagsire, ivysaur, tentacruel, hypno, crawdaunt, skuntank, quagsire… throw, catch, swap, throw, catch, swap, never more than half a second between one getting withdrawn and the next coming out, setting the pattern, establishing expectation, then-
“Pepen, Sludge Bomb!”
Misty swaps Nomo in to tank the poisonous sludge again, but when Amy moves to withdraw her pokemon in anticipation of the next attack, Misty waits for the ball to leave her hand and immediately withdraws her quagsire and sends her tentacruel out instead.
Amy has less than half a second to decide to either summon her ivysaur into the trap or refuse to voice the command and forfeit. In truth no time to make a new decision at all, only to continue hers or let indecision decide.
“Go, Tetra!”
The ivysaur materializes, and its ball rockets back toward its owner. As Misty speaks her next command, half the eyes in the stadium follow it. One of the camera crew (probably Kara, whose reaction speed is superb) actually tracks it on a big monitor as everyone waits to see if Amy can return her pokemon fast enough.
“Osu, Ice Beam!”
“Tetra, return!”
The stadium erupts as the wavering white-blue light hits the ivysaur and immediately covers its skin and plants in frost before its pokeball’s red beam connects to withdraw it. The rapid battle resumes with barely a missed beat, but now Misty’s just waiting for the ivysaur to come back out, weakened and ready to be picked off.
“Go, Modius, Psyshock!”
“Ruby, Night Slash!”
“Pepen, Sludge Bomb!”
“Nomo, Mud Slap!”
The ivysaur returns and is hit by the earthy projectile, but this time it’s too hurt to shrug it off and stumbles, patches of frost making its movements stiff.
“Tetra, Mega Drain!”
Oh no you don’t. “
Go, Osu!”
Her tentacruel materializes just as in time for the ivysaur to begin sapping its life… and instead the plant pokemon staggers away, veins filled with a poison even its own can’t combat.
“Tetra, return!”
Three to three now, but the battle is decided. Misty plays conservatively, scoring free hits every time Amy is forced to swap in her raichu by using Nomo to negate its attacks. Little by little Misty’s pokemon catch up in the war of attrition… until Amy takes her own gamble.
“Luxi, Slam!”
The raichu dashes forward and throws its weight into Nomo, who’s already nearing the end of his endurance.
“Nomo, Mud Slap!”
“Luxi, Quick Attack!”
The pokemon duke it out for a few tense seconds, and then Nomo falls and doesn’t get back up.
“Nomo, return! Go, Osu!”
“Luxi, Thunderbolt!
“Osu, Acid!”
Electricity crackles, sending her tentacruel’s many limbs flailing until it lies still, but the raichu squeals in pain as it rolls in the dirt. Amy quickly withdraws it, and sends her skuntank out against Misty’s newly summoned crawdaunt.
“Poison Jab!”
“Crab Hammer!”
“Sludge Bomb!”
“Bubblebeam!”
Down goes the skuntank, and now the stadium is deathly quiet as Amy sends her Psychic pokemon out against Misty’s Water/Dark.
“Ruby, Night Slash!” Her pokemon rushes forward to deliver the final blow, safe in its immunity and trusting its thick shell to take any physical attacks the hypno tries-
“Modius, Focus Blast!”
The stadium explodes with noise and Misty stares in shock as the psychic pokemon drops its pendulum, cups its palms toward the onrushing crawdaunt… and with a sudden tensing of its body, causes her pokemon to collapse.
Trained psychic though she is, Misty couldn’t make out the attack. She knows others who claim the move looks like a blinding sphere of blue light, a bullet of
ki
that blows its opponent’s “energy” all out of balance, but to her it was just a gesture.
Regardless, the results are clear, and Misty quickly withdraws her pokemon. “Congratulations, Challenger!” she says, voice drowning out the crowd over the speakers. “An absolutely masterful surprise attack, kept hidden until the perfect moment! Cerulean Gym hereby recognizes you, Amy Brennan, with the Cascade Badge, for demonstrating adaptability and quick thinking to surprising circumstances. Your journey will place you in many environments, present you with many choices. May what you’ve learned at our gym and our city keep you safe from life’s unexpected tides.”
Misty hops off Nessa as the lapras brings her to the shore at the bottom of the cliffs, then pats her pokemon’s long blue neck and withdraws her. She’s on one of the few patches of sand sloping up to form a beach, and waves crash against the rocks to either side as she walks up the dunes and makes her way to the southern side of the cliffs above her.
After meeting with Amy for some private congratulations and a membership offer to her gym, Misty got a message from her Second asking her to come to the cliffs northwest of Cerulean City. Ariya reported that she found a new cave that wasn’t on any maps, and Misty asked her Second to wait so she could take a quick rest and join her in investigating.
The climb from the beach to the cliffs is rough, but the view from the top is worth it. Mount Moon rises up to the west and Cerulean City stretches out to the southeast. She can just see Nugget Bridge to the east, but the curving path around the cliff quickly obscures it. The wind carries the salt of the ocean up to her as it crashes against the cliffs below.
The walk is a bit longer than Ariya suggested, but the refreshing breeze and gorgeous scenery holds Misty over until the path takes a sharp curve around the cliff face and trails down to a small plateau. Ariya is there with her feraligatr Renekton out, both facing a massive, uneven hole in the rocks.
Misty’s Gym doesn’t have a formal dress code, but if anyone could convince her to institute one, it would be her Second. Today Ariya is dressed in black fishnet leggings, a side slit mini-skirt, and a tank top that bares her midriff. It’s not the immodesty that bothers Misty, who regularly wears swimsuits to challenge matches and some public appearances, but the lack of protective clothing in the field, and the influence it might have on the younger, more impressionable trainers more interested in looking cool than protecting themselves. At least Ariya’s boots are always serviceable.
“Big,” Misty says upon reaching them.
“Told you. I’m thinking a rhydon, tried to bust through and caused the rest to collapse. Problem is, no rubble.”
Misty walks over to the cliff and looks down. “Rocks must have been blown clear, fell into the sea. No blast marks either?”
“Nope. This is how I found it.”
“Have Dorin check for any reports of people hearing explosions anyway.”
Ariya nods and sends a quick text before tucking her phone back away. “Would have to be in the past few days. The last satellite mapped this area a week ago. No hole.”
“Convenient. Ready?”
“After you, fearless Leader.”
Misty sprays herself with a can of repel, then summons Celest and mentally orders the starmie to lift itself into the air as they enter the cavern. With another mental command the red jewel at her center blazes bright and gives Misty and Ariya their first look inside.
The hole was punched through the wall of a wide cavern stretching off to their right and left. The ground slopes down straight ahead into water, with stalactites and stalagmites giving it the appearance of a hungry mouth.
“Cheerful,” Ariya says. “I’ll take the left path.”
“No, we’re sticking together. This is a solutional cave.” Misty walks over to the wall and runs her fingers over it. “Limestone. Acids in the water dissolve it and cause it to drip over time, which forms the stalas.”
“Right, I knew that.”
Misty smiles. “Point is, it’s not some new tunnel dug by pokemon. It took centuries to form. I think we’re in a natural habitat.”
“Ahh, shit. Think there are other exits?”
“If there were before I think we would have found out by now. Better check though. Right first.”
They make their way through the cave slowly, stepping around the rough protrusions in the ground as their pokemon take up the front and rear. Renekton is surprisingly light-footed, scales making the lightest of rasps against the ground as he steps with a lazy reptilian grace. Misty keeps an empty pokeball in one hand. She splits her attention between her footing and using Celest’s massively stronger psychic senses to look out for threats. Pokemon flicker by in her peripheral awareness, most underneath them in the water, some others above them through the ceiling, where apparently the cave extends upward.
The tunnel twists and turns and splits multiple times, giving them glimpses of wider caverns full of water and small islands of rock, boulder filled trenches, and whole tunnels filled with veins of gleaming ore. Misty keeps them moving, turning aside from any sense of pokemon in the distance and taking only the right sides at forks.
Before long however they sense pokemon directly ahead, and without another path to turn to. A nest of golbat and zubat roost above. Most are asleep, but some are merely dozing, curious about the sounds the Leader and her Second make, loud as shouts to their sensitive ears. The repel confuses their sense of smell, but there’s no disguising the warm blood beneath their skin. Though Celest has no way to interpret the sensory input she’s receiving, Misty can almost feel the saliva pool in the golbat’s elastic mouths, and it takes a moment for her to realize she can hear it falling in a steady patter up ahead.
She holds a hand up to pause Ariya, heart pounding. If it wasn’t for Renekton’s looming, dangerous presence, the roost might have attacked by now. Misty and Celest make their way back, past Ariya and Renekton, and begin leading them back to the entrance. After five minutes Ariya whispers, “What was it?”
“Golbat, a lot of them. This place is definitely a habitat, and not a new one.”
They take the path back to the entrance, then try the left hand path for another half hour. When the ground splits, half sloping up and the other sloping down into a pool of water, they stop and follow the twists and turns of the cavern back toward the entrance. As they do Celest picks up a mass of minds from aquatic pokemon below them, goldeen or magikarp. The school of fish is a wash of brief, indistinct thoughts, pinpricks of light that swim in shifting clouds… and then suddenly break apart in panic as something massive charges through the water, full of hunger and rage.
“Hey, you okay? Misty?”
Ariya’s hand is on Misty’s shoulder, and she realizes she and Celest have frozen. “Yeah. There’s a gyarados right under us.”
Her Second’s eyes are wide in the crimson light. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They move quickly after that, trusting the safety of the backtracked path and Celest’s sensory field to alert them of danger. An odd triplet of minds suddenly approaches from one of the side tunnels, and Misty picks up the pace, moving them past its tunnel just as it enters theirs and begins to follow them.
“Magneton behind us,” Misty says.
“Are you shitting me, a magneton? Here?” Ariya snaps her fingers in a quick pattern, and Renekton sidles up closer to them. “Should we take it down?”
“Not worth the risk of attracting others. We’re almost out.” Misty can feel her pokemon tiring from keeping itself levitated for so long, and is happy to see the gleam of sunlight in the distance.
Until the sunlight gets obscured by a humanoid figure emitting a powerful psychic field.
“Focus or split?” Ariya mutters.
“Split,” Misty says, and immediately orders Celest to construct a Light Screen as the alakazam’s mental field meets theirs. It uses brief, sharp jabs of psychic power to probe for weaknesses, and Misty keeps Celest on the defensive as Ariya turns to face the oncoming magneton, prompting Renekton to do the same.
It enters the ruby light of Celest’s glow. As its prongs begin to glow with electric charge, Ariya snaps three fingers. Renekton roars as his muscles flex and swell.
Superpower.
An ability that would allow Renekton to deliver a devastating physical blow, which would hopefully take the magneton down in one hit since it would leave Renekton weaker afterward.
A bolt of electricity fills the cavern with light and the smell of ozone. Renekton roars in pain this time, but when Misty blinks the after-image out of her eyes she sees him still standing, partially protected by Celest’s Light Screen. Renekton charges forward on all fours to attack the magneton, and Misty turns her attention to the alakazam.
She doesn’t waste time trying to beat the devastatingly powerful psychic at its own game, and commands Celest to attack with a Bubblebeam. The tight stream of water jets out at the alakazam, only to crash against its own defenses.
The alakazam has the measure of Celest now, and presses the attack. Celest can hold her own defensively, but alakazam are weak to physical attacks, and that’s not starmie’s forte. Misty considers summoning a second pokemon, but her concentration is already nearing its limit. Another bolt of electricity lights the cavern behind her, but she doesn’t turn, trusting Celest’s Light Screen to help keep Renekton safe as crashing fills the cavern and the feraligatr roars again.
We need to end this now, before more pokemon show up.
What she needs is a more powerful water attack. Starmie don’t hold much inside themselves, but there’s another source nearby.
“Ariya?”
“This fucker is quick, still haven’t hit it!”
“Screen is fading, do I need to refresh it or can you hold out for a second?”
“I’ll bait another one, then you can let it go.” There’s some snapping, and then, “Now!”
Another flash of electricity, and Misty lets the screen fade as she fully merges her mind with Celest’s. She can’t quite make her pokemon understand her, can’t quite imbue it with her intelligence or interpret its instinctual use of its abilities… but she’s spent years guiding Celest and understanding how to influence the starmie’s natural inclinations.
“Going dark!”
Celest zips around the corner and into the pool of water, taking the light with her. The starmie begins to spin and suck in as much water as she can. As she bloats in size, she lifts herself and the water around her, launching out of the pool to crash over the alakazam in a crushing wave.
Misty rushes forward and locks a greatball onto the dazed psychic. It recovers enough to send a telekinetic blast at the exhausted Celest, pinning her to a stalactite before Misty throws her ball and captures it.
The pain in Misty’s chest brings her to her knees, and she forces herself to concentrate as the crimson light around them begins to blink with Celest’s fading life. Her pokemon is in pain and exhausted, and Misty can’t mentally get her to free and heal herself. The ceiling isn’t high though, and Misty summons her blastoise and orders him to stay still on all fours.
Misty quickly climbs onto his back and uncouples their minds before yanking her pokemon off the impaling stalactite, anticipating another blast of electricity and rushing to get the Light Screen back up before it comes. Instead she hears a
thud
and a
crack
as she unclips a Full Restore from her belt and sprays it over her pokemon.
Renekton roars in victory over his fallen foe, and Misty smiles as Celest’s gem regains its full, bright glow. She strokes its spongy limbs and sends it mental thoughts of comfort and pride.
There’s a flash as Ariya captures the magneton, and Misty slides off her blastoise’s shell to withdraw him before collecting the alakazam’s ball. She goes to see if there’s anything she can do to help with Renekton, but Ariya is already spraying him with medicine.
“Nicely done, both of you.”
“Nothing to it. This big lug could use a few more shocks, maybe they’ll speed him up.” She rubs Renekton’s toothy snout, and the feraligatr growls in pleasure.
They leave the cave, relaxing once they’re back outside. Misty withdraws Celest and waits for her nerves to calm as she thinks, eyes closed and face turned toward the sun. “This place is going to need a quarantine,” she says.
“Yeah, no shit. Those pokemon were tough as any I’ve seen in the wild.”
“Fully wild habitats are rare in regions these days. Even the Safari goes through occasional cullings.”
“How long do you think it would take to clean this place out a bit?”
“Months. Or we could just try to close it up again, but in the meantime no one goes in, no matter how many badges they have.”
“You want the Rangers on it, or our people?”
Misty hesitates. “If there are other entrances, we’ll need the Rangers.”
“With pokemon that powerful in there? You said it yourself, if there were, I think we’d have found out about it by now. And hey, think of how much stronger we’ll get with access to monsters like those. I never knew I wanted a magneton, but I’m sure I’ll find some uses for it.”
Ariya’s right, but Misty doesn’t want to make the decision for selfish reasons. Then again, if the Rangers show up then word’s going to get out. People will try to get in, make their own entrance if need be. Better to keep it quiet for now…
“Set up a rotation, only people you know can handle it.” Misty’s phone chirps at her, no doubt updating with messages she was sent while in the cavern sans signal.
“Yes’m. Shouldn’t be a lack of interest, once they know what they have the chance to catch. What should we do if someone else comes by?”
Misty takes her phone out to check her messages. “Unless an Elite or Champion shows up, just let them know it’s off limits, League business.” She blinks at the screen, then curses.
Ariya raises her brow. “What’s up?”
Misty summons her abra and mentally registers their location, then focuses her mind on her gym’s rooftop. “I’ve got to get back to Cerulean. Something happened on Mt. Moon.”
Misty enters the press room at a brisk pace, back and gaze straight. There aren’t many reporters in attendance, but she still sees a face she hoped not to. Zoey is a good journalist, or at least that’s what people tell her, but as Gym Leader Misty just finds the woman a pain in the ass. Her only consolation is that Mayor Tonio would be at the mic a lot longer than her, whenever he arrives.
The cameras are already filming when she mounts the steps to the podium. As she waits for the room to quiet down, she pulls a notecard from her sleeve and places it by the microphone, where the raised edges hide it from view. She can feel the general wash of emotions from everyone, a faint breeze of anticipation and anxiety against her mind. There’s also a sense of hunger that she’s come to recognize, mostly from journalists and Challengers: ambition.
“Hello, and thank you for coming,” she says when the room is silent. “An hour ago I learned that a Tier 1 Emergency was taking place on Mt. Moon. A paras colony began a mass migration that spilled out onto the mountain when pokemon within it broke through the surface as they fled. Unfortunately, the location they emerged was a paleontological dig site on the southern mountain face, which had 37 staff members and 16 security on site at the time of the incident.
“Thanks to the efforts of the scientists and security on site, and the immediate response of nearby trainers and Rangers, the threat was contained, pushed back, and eradicated before it could spread and necessitate a full scale response like that of the Viridian Forest fire. It was a monumental feat of bravery and skill, and all of Cerulean thanks them.”
She can see the reporters readying to ask questions, and heads them off. “Unfortunately, there were a number of casualties. It is with great sorrow that I report the loss of Kazuo Soto, Fareed Newell, Irina Fujita, Dawson Haulover, Agustin Santiago, Mary Ashcroft, and Cerulean’s own Tetsu Akita. Today we honor their memories, and their sacrifice, without which many more lives would surely have been lost.
“There is one more piece of news. Rangers and on site security have confirmed a Renegade branding in the aftermath. The geologist apparently took advantage of the crisis to try and steal the dig’s fossils, nearly killing two of the site’s defenders in the process.”
Cold silence dominates the room as everyone tries to process such an evil act. Misty allows it to linger, her own revulsion lending new steel to her voice and gaze.
“I want to assure everyone in this city that I will be leaving for Mt. Moon shortly so that I can learn of his crimes, ensure they were appropriately Witnessed, and then oversee his execution personally.”
The crowd is quiet for a moment longer, and when it’s clear that she wouldn’t say anything more, begin shouting questions. Misty glances at the door, which she’s hoping the mayor will walk through at any moment. Damn the man, he had more time to prepare than she did.
“One question at a time, please. I’ll be leaving for the mountain soon, but will answer as many as I can. Yes, Mia?” she asks, picking a reporter at random.
“When will the name of the Renegade be made public?”
“The Rangers will release it when they see fit, as usual. They haven’t even told me. Jordan?”
“Will you be calling for an evacuation of the mountain?”
“Right now the Rangers have already placed Mt. Moon on high alert, and every trainer, merchant and Center staff should be aware of the event. The Rangers have increased their patrols of the mountain to search for any hints of an ongoing threat, but so far have reported none. Tyrisha?”
“Are you mobilizing the gym, Leader?”
“Every member is on standby in case the Rangers call for help. Alan?”
“What aid are we sending to the dig site?”
“That’s a question for Mayor Tonio, who should be here soon.”
I’m going to strangle him.
She’s running out of opportunities not to call on Zoey, who sits patiently with her hand raised.
Better get it over with.
Zoey’s known to ask tough questions, and if Misty ends up having to call on her and does so last it would signal reluctance. “Yes, Zoey?”
“Thank you, Leader. The initial alert went out almost three hours ago, now. Why did it take so long for our city to respond?”
Dammit.
She doesn’t want to so much as hint at the existence of the cavern. “Unfortunately I was investigating a report of wild pokemon outside the city during the initial alert, and had no cell reception.” Her heart sinks as she realizes that would almost certainly invite more questions.
I should have prepared an excuse for this.
“Why didn’t your Second mobilize the Gym?”
“One question each, please. Frank?”
“Same question, Leader.”
“Ariya was with me. Peter held the Gym, and reported that he began mobilization at a medium priority. Due to the distance he knew only psychics with a teleporter and trainers with fliers would arrive on time to help, and two members of the Gym did leave for the mountain before the crisis was passed. Yes, Paula?”
“Where were you and Ariya investigating? Was there another incident today?”
“No, thankfully we were able to address the issue.” Misty is grateful that Paula asked two questions so she could ignore the first. Zoey has her hand up again, but luckily so do others. “Sachio?”
“Was anyone injured?”
“No. Mia?”
“What prompted the investigation?”
“A routine patrol brought up a concern.” She’s dodging, and knows it shows. For a Leader and their Second to personally investigate something would make it anything but a “routine” concern.
Zoey’s hand is still in the air, ready to ask where it took place that didn’t have reception, and at that point Misty’s choices will be to either look like she’s making excuses, which makes her weak and potentially suspicious, or to give away details that could expose the cave.
No win, don’t play.
“I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I have-”
The door opens and the mayor walks in. “-so please direct any remaining questions to Mayor Tonio.”
Asshole.
A few seconds earlier and she wouldn’t have had to appear like she was running, but at least he arrived in time for a clean transition.
She slips the card in her sleeve and hands the podium over to the Mayor with a quick smile and nod, then turns on her heel and strides out of the room. “Dial Ariya,” she says after putting her earpiece in. “Report?”
“I’ve got Molly and Ryuso here, they’ve been briefed. What’s up on the mountain?”
“You’ll figure it out as soon as you check the news. I’ll fill you in later with the rest, just head back to the Gym and take over for Peter.”
“Yes’m.”
Misty ends the call as she exits the building and summons her swanna, Nimbus. “Hey boy, ready for a ride?” She straps herself into his harness and puts her goggles on just as the door behind her opens and Zoey walks out, clearly looking for her and just as clearly surprised to see her already leaving. Misty gives an apologetic smile and wave, then takes off toward the distant mountains before the reporter can open her mouth.
The sun is beginning to set as Misty and Nimbus reach Mount Moon and start to climb altitude. The air turns chilly with the fading light and lower pressure, and Misty buttons her coat as a shiver wracks her form.
The dig site is easy to spot from the air, and she hunches down and banks toward it. When they get closer she can see the aftermath of the battle still being cleaned up, and feels a pang of guilt for having missed it. She might not have made it on time even if she hadn’t been in the cavern, but this could clearly have been much worse.
She begins a slow, circling descent until she can land in front of the dig’s largest building. She takes a moment after dismounting to let her legs get used to standing and walking again, then knocks on the door and enters.
The inside is spacious, with a long table and chairs taking up half of the room and the rest left open with counters and cabinets. The building clearly serves as a meeting hall for staff, and Misty spies the site director Dr. Zapata, some of her people, and a ranger at one end of the room while Leader Giovanni and Leader Brock hold their own council at the other. She takes her gloves off and slips them in her coat pockets as she walks to her peers.
“Ah, Misty. Thank you for coming,” Giovanni says.
“Hello Giovanni, Brock. It’s good to see you two again.”
Giovanni inclines his head. “I only wish the circumstances were better.”
“Me too. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It’s no trouble. We were just about to begin. Let’s speak again after.” Giovanni heads toward the table, and the dig site staff take the cue and do the same. Dr. Zapata takes the head seat at one end, and her people sit around her.
“Glad you could make it,” Brock murmurs to Misty as they follow Giovanni.
She smiles. “You know I wouldn’t leave you alone with him if I could avoid it.”
He grins back. When Leaders meet there are almost always important decisions made about their shared territory, and any not present for those discussions tends to lose out. On top of that, though neither would admit it, on their own it’s easy to be intimidated by the Viridian Leader, and go along with whatever he says. When they’re together though, it’s not as hard to challenge or push back against him from time to time. If Giovanni ever resented the younger Leaders that shared his borders banding against him, he never showed it.
When Misty first became a Leader she felt like something of a fraud around the others. It wasn’t so bad with younger ones like Brock, or later Erika when she took over Celadon, but Koga, Blaine, Surge, and even Sabrina were all so serious and intimidating. And then there was Giovanni, for whom becoming Champion was just a footnote in his legend. Now, after leading Cerulean for almost five years, she feels much more comfortable in her position, but is still occasionally humbled by the fact that they share the same title.
Leader Giovanni takes the other head seat, and Brock goes to the one on his left while she sits at the Champion’s right. She wondered if Erika would come, as she’s the fourth Leader to share borders with them, but technically the mountain range doesn’t extend to Celadon, so she must have bowed out.
“Thank you for joining us, Leaders,” Dr. Zapata says. “We’ve all had a harrowing day, as you can imagine, and we appreciate your presence on such short notice.”
“Of course,” Giovanni says. “My sincerest condolences for your losses, and my thanks for your bravery and sacrifices.” Brock and Misty murmur their agreement, and Dr. Zapata bows her head.
“Thank you. As soon as we’ve finished cleaning the site, I’ve announced a week of mourning and rest before work resumes. I hope by then to have a new security plan in place to assure our financiers and ensure another incident like this isn’t repeated, or is better defended against.”
The others with her nod their agreement, all but one, who sits in distracted silence. Misty recognizes him, the ACE trainer in charge of security for the site. Pete? Palmer? Something like that. She doesn’t need her powers to tell he’s not happy about the topic of conversation. Anxiety, pride, and shame radiate off him in a tightly controlled spiral that fluctuates with his breaths.
“Understandable. First, let us review the facts,” Giovanni says. “The parasect colony was migrating through the mountain, resulting in a wave of fleeing pokemon. One of the forefronts of that wave broke through the weakened ceiling under one of the dig sites. Tragically, two personnel were immediately killed then. I think we can all agree, this is where our review must begin.”
Brock leans forward. “Your seismographs. Why didn’t they give warning of the attack?”
One of the site employees speaks up. “They did, but the person tasked with monitoring them claims that he was not with them at the time. He was later branded a Renegade for using the attack as an excuse to try and steal the fossils, but in any case, it was an unforeseeable failure in site security.”
“Unforeseeable,” Brock says, and looks around. “Does anyone disagree?”
“Perhaps it would be better to ask what you plan to do different, moving forward,” Giovanni says.
“Two people assigned to monitor it, and one must be present at all times, of course,” Dr. Zapata says. “We’ve already begun such a system.”
“Allow me to make a suggestion, then. Update your equipment and send its output over local wireless. Install apps to allow remote monitoring at all times, with alerts for signals over a threshold.”
Dr. Zapata looks surprised. “Does equipment and software exist for such small vibrations? We’re hoping to detect things far more subtle than even the lightest earthquakes.”
Giovanni makes a careless gesture with one hand. “I believe one of my people has spoken of something similar. I will check and ensure you have access to it later tonight. If not, I will try and finance its creation. It would no doubt be a widely useful technology in any case.”
“That… would be very helpful, Leader. Thank you.”
“Next, then. The response to the incident was immediate and effective: removal of the hazardous spores. Unfortunately another person was killed by the moving cloud. What happened?”
A woman speaks up next. “I was the one that made the call, Leader. We had moments to recognize the threat and act before it could spread further and make any coordinated response impossible. I recognized the risk and gave warning of our intentions, then cleared the spores when we received only affirmative messages of safety. Mary… wasn’t one of those to respond, either to say she was clear or not. It’s hard to tell from the—her—remains, but I assumed that anyone unable to respond would already be hurt too badly to be saved by waiting any longer.”
“Understandable. Does anyone here disagree with that decision or its reasoning?” No one answered, and Giovanni nodded. “We shall say no more about it then. Next…”
The conversation goes on, examining each point of the attack, their response, and the result. Though ostensibly the meeting is to ensure the future safety and well-being of the site employees and improve their security, Misty can feel the tension and occasional fear of those on the other side of the table. She understands. Even though they’re here to help and not cast blame, it never feels good to have your decisions and actions scrutinized by others, especially those in authority, and especially decisions made in a crisis.
At one point Misty senses a spike of anger and indecision from one of the dig employees, an older man with his arms crossed. She waits for the current speaker to finish before saying, “If I could take a moment, I’d like to say that so far it sounds like everyone here did an admirable job responding to the threat. I want to thank you again for your efforts, and reiterate that this meeting is to help improve preparations in case something similar happens again.” She locks her gaze on that of the older man. “Don’t be afraid to say something if you have a suggestion or comment: you’re among friends.”
He drops his eyes when she finishes speaking, and after the other members of the table murmur their agreement and thanks, looks up. “I…” He hesitates. “I had a thought. Earlier. Didn’t want to accuse anyone of anything. Still don’t. You’re right, everyone did a fine job. Seen a lot of Tier 1s over the years. This was kept local, very local. A fine job.”
He frowns, and seems to be searching for words. The table waits. Finally he says, “Hell, I’ll just spit it out. Some of the trainers, they were using balls to capture pokemon as they fought. Sometimes it’s understandable, ‘course it is, you have a moment to catch something you take it. Sometimes it’s even the best choice strategically. But a lot of trainers were wasting time and energy weakening pokemon rather than killing ’em. Using status effects and baiting attacks on a particularly strong or rare pokemon, while a dozen more walk by, a threat to those around them.
“Like I said, I don’t want to get no one in trouble, or accuse anyone. But I just thought I’d say it, make sure it was out there. Maybe we could tell the Rangers, put up a PSA to remind people. I dunno. Just thought I’d say.” He’s quiet a moment, then nods to himself.
Giovanni steeples his fingers. “Thank you, Misty, and you, Albert, wasn’t it? A good point. As you said, it’s an understandable impulse, but one that bears vigilance against. I’ll personally speak with the mountain’s Director, and see about some coverage for it in an upcoming issue of The Daily Trainer.”
The conversation only goes on another few minutes, and as it wraps up Misty prepares to address the issue she’s concerned about. Giovanni glances at her and lifts a finger from the table, almost imperceptible. He knows what she’ll ask, and apparently wants to address something first. She nods.
“As we conclude, I would like to make one final suggestion,” he says. “When we began this venture, the question of security was broached and, for the time, properly addressed. I want to thank you, Paul, and the rest of your people, for their good work.”
The table murmurs agreement, and the ACE Trainer looks at Giovanni in some surprise, and to Misty’s senses, trepidation. “Thank you, Leader.”
“However. In light of this incident, I’d like to, once again, formally offer Gym services to assist in the security of the site.”
The table is quiet. Paul’s face reddens, but he doesn’t speak. Giovanni’s hands move apart and together, tapping his fingertips. “Let me be clear. I in no way blame Paul or his organization for anything that occurred today. But as some of you may remember, I offered the extra personnel initially, and was voted down by my peers and some of you sitting here. At the time I was eventually convinced that showing such favoritism for a project like this could set an undesired precedent. Now, however, I believe that this incident would clear up any potential misunderstandings by the public, and allow us to ensure the continued safety of the site employees and its assets. I understand that many fossils were almost stolen, and would have been if not for the timely intervention of some assisting trainers. That risk must be minimized as thoroughly as possible.”
Misty and Brock exchange glances. She can read the Pewter Leader’s misgivings, and still shares them herself. “I’m sure that Paul and his people will be extra diligent in watching the fossils,” Misty says slowly. “And I don’t know whether I can commit anyone to such a task.” She thinks of the staff she’ll already be committing to watching the new cavern.
“Nor I,” Brock says. “We’re still assisting in the aftermath of the Viridian Forest fire.”
“I understand,” Giovanni says. “My gym is prepared to staff it ourselves. And I have no doubt as to the efficacy of ACE training. Your people will continue to be employed, Paul, and I will be adding a bonus to their salaries. I was planning to do so regardless. To ensure there is no reduction in perimeter vigilance, however, my people can commit exclusively to guarding the fossils, and allow yours to do their jobs unhindered.”
Paul’s tension slowly leaks away, and while he still feels upset, he eventually says, “Thank you, Leader. That’s very generous of you.”
“I hope that’s agreeable to everyone?” Giovanni spreads his palms. “This endeavor can be the first of many profitable ventures on these mountains, and I merely wish to ensure it has every chance to achieve full success.”
Those around the table begin to nod and voice their agreement, and Misty feels any further objections dying on her lips as even Dr. Zapata capitulates. She feels the wry amusement from Brock and raises her brow at him. Fight, or give in? Brock merely lifts his shoulders in a minute shrug and says, “With all that in mind, I can only agree, of course.”
Misty sighs. “Agreed.” This is often how it is with Giovanni: he can speak eloquently, head off objections, satisfy pride, and, just to add icing on the cake, throw around money wherever necessary to ease people’s resistance and just in general be so gracious that disagreement becomes impossible.
She can even almost believe that it would be a good thing, though she knows the political consequences will come up again and again for years if similar projects come about. The amount of power it grants Viridian Gym is massive. Cerulean and Pewter can gain a share themselves, of course… if they’re able to commit the resources. Which, of course, they can’t.
“Good. Now that’s done with, I believe Misty had one more topic to address?”
“Yes, thank you. I think it’s time at last to speak of the Renegade.” The mood of the room immediately plunges, and Misty throws up some light defenses to keep their emotions from washing over her too much. “I would like to know all the details, if you please.”
The Ranger lifts her head. “I believe I can cover that, Leader.” She explains the situation in concise terms, voice bland as she recounts the Witnessing. Misty is surprised to hear that Blue Oak was one of the trainers to be attacked by and help stop the Renegade. She wasn’t aware Sam’s grandson has begun his journey already.
“Thank you, Ranger. Is there any reason this Yuuta hasn’t been seen by a psychic yet?”
“He was too quick to suggest it himself for me to trust the results, and given his actions I didn’t think it was necessary. You are welcome to examine him if you wish, Leader. Will you be the one to oversee his execution?” She looks between Misty, Brock and Giovanni. “I assumed I would have to transfer him to one of your cities, but with all three of you here…”
“Yes, I can oversee it. I’ll meet with him as soon as we finish here.”
“Understood. Just find me when you’re ready.”
Giovanni looks at her, then to the rest of the table. “Does that cover everything? Any further questions? Well and good. Thank you all again. If anyone needs to speak with me, I will be outside for a while. A good evening to the rest of you.”
People begin speaking as they leave the table, and the three Leaders rise together and head for the door. Night has fully fallen on the mountain, and Misty stares up at the stars, so bright and rich this far from the city lights.
Giovanni follows her gaze. “Beautiful, aren’t they? Seeing them so clearly is always a pleasant benefit to any mountain trip.” He turns to her and Brock. “I hope I didn’t put either of you out too much tonight?”
“It’s your money and your people,” Brock says, and Misty nods. “If you judge it to be the right thing to do, we can only bow to your wisdom.”
“You have my thanks. Do let me know if there’s anything you need help with regarding the Renegade, Misty.”
“Same,” Brock says.
“I think I’ll be alright. I just want to make sure things go smoothly.” Misty buttons her coat back up as the chill night air seeps in. Overseeing Renegade executions was an unpleasant part of being a Leader for the first year or so, but over time it became easier, especially as she began to see the results of their actions more and more. Now she just sees it as an unhappy responsibility of her office, and strives to ensure she gives each case its due consideration to ensure justice is done. “We got lucky that he was stopped. If those two trainers hadn’t been passing by… but of course one of them was an Oak, so I guess it’s to be expected.”
“Indeed,” Giovanni says. “None of that man’s line have ever had normal journeys. Trouble seems to find them, or perhaps they simply stand out in troubling circumstances more than most.”
“That’s the truth of it,” Brock says. “Blue was in the forest during the fire. I met him before speaking with you. He was widening the firebreak and helped take down a whole family of shiftry. Caught one, too, and used it to get my badge.”
“Wait, he already beat you?” Misty says. “I didn’t realize he was on his journey that long.”
“Oh, he just began it. I think it was a month ago?”
Misty whistles. “That fast, yeah, I should have figured. I guess he’s coming for me next? Should be fun.”
“Don’t be so sure. I’m still digging up my main arena after he revealed a strategic flaw in its design.”
Giovanni chuckles, a rare sound. “Yes, that sounds like an Oak. After his sister, we should expect great things from him.”
“His companions aren’t without note either,” Brock says. “One is seeking to become a Professor, the other some sort of journalist or politician.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of them,” Giovanni says. “If they continue to follow the young Oak on his journey, I look forward to meeting them all.” Misty nods as the door behind them opens, and some of the site workers come out. “If you’ll excuse me, Brock, Misty. Until next we speak.” Giovanni walks off to speak with Dr. Zapata.
Misty sees the Ranger come out and turns to Brock. “Call you later? We’ve got some things to discuss.”
The Renegade sits tied to his chair, apparently unconscious. Ranger Sasaki frowns as she finishes opening the door and sees the rest of the room. “Someone was supposed to be stationed here. You do your thing, Leader, I’m going to go speak with whoever had the last-” The ranger stops and stares as Misty walks up to the Renegade, heart pounding. “What’s the matter?”
The man in front of her looks asleep, but even asleep there are flickers. Physical sensations, emotional reactions to dreams, something that she should be able to pick up this close. She puts her fingers under his nose, then presses them to his neck.
“Don’t say it…”
Misty drops her hand away, mind racing. “We’d better go speak to them together, Ranger. He’s already dead.”
As Ryback predicted, the mountainside is rife with wild pokemon as they make their way to the nearest ranger outpost. Thankfully four pokemon are enough to scare off most they come across, and the one geodude foolish enough to throw a rock at them is killed instantly by a blast of water from Ryback’s poliwhirl.
“Was that necessary?” Leaf asks, face pale.
“Seriously, that would have been an easy catch.” Blue frowns at the geodude, whose entire body has turned a cracked, mottled white. He’s clearly wondering if he should try to catch it anyway.
“No distractions,” Ryback says without breaking stride. “The last thing we need is to call attention to ourselves with a prolonged fight.” The paleontologist continues to set a brisk pace, clearly intending to get them to safety before the sun sets.
Red privately agrees, and jogs to keep up with him. He remembers that the nearest ranger outpost isn’t far in absolute distance, but the mountain road twists and turns so much it would take them the rest of the day to get there if they’re lucky. Charmander follows on all fours, looking better for the rest he got earlier, but Red still doesn’t want to tax him any more than is necessary with wild encounters.
Luckily they only encounter a few more, which are ended just as swiftly. A sandslash gets scared off by Maturin and the poliwhirl’s Water Guns, and a pair of zubat swoop down at them only to be chased off by an Ember and a cloud of Sleep Powder from Charmander and Bulbasaur.
About an hour into their travels, Ryback’s and Red’s phones chime. Red checks his and sees an email with an attached form from Ranger Sasaki. They stop for a quick rest, and the two open the forms, which ask for virtual signatures to verify Witnessing the Renegade branding. Red hesitates a moment, then signs it. The document is simply a confirmation of what occurred, not a second chance to Witness or absolve Yuuta. He has no extra information or new arguments anyway, just a sense of lingering unease.
By the time the sun sets, they reach an outpost that’s on high alert. Even with the sensors at its perimeter, four rangers stand guard around the building.
“This is where I leave you,” Ryback says as they withdraw their pokemon. He shakes each of their hands. “Get some well earned rest tonight, and stay safe on your way to Cerulean.”
“You’re not going to spend the night?” Leaf asks. “Maybe have that drink?”
He smiles. “No, I should fly back soon. It’s going to be all hands on deck for a while.”
“Well, thanks for the escort,” Red says. “And the fossils. Especially mine.”
“Don’t mention it. Just be sure to message me if you end up visiting Cinnabar. I’d be curious to know if they can work with them.”
The trio agree, and say goodnight. After Ryback takes off on his pidgeot, they introduce themselves to the Rangers inside, then go to the visitor’s room and put their bags beside their cots before going to the dining room. There are a couple other trainers there, and they exchange polite small talk as they eat. No one seems interested in prolonged conversation, least of all Red, whose eyes are already drooping by the time he finishes his granola bars and apple. After he visits the bathroom and returns to their beds, he’s happy to see that everyone’s preparing for lights out.
While the rest of the visiting trainers take turns washing up, Red sends his mom an email summarizing what happened and assuring her that they’re all okay. He underplays his role in the fighting so as not to worry her, and after a moment decides against telling her about losing his pokemon. He knows it would be more likely to result in a phone call, and he’s not in the mood tonight.
Red takes his journal out and flips back to the questions he wrote the first night of their journey, about trainer’s bonds with their pokemon. He re-examines his observations and questions in light of how he feels now, taking the time to really focus on his pain and sadness.
Observation: I’m feeling remarkably attached to my pokemon after such a short time with them.
Question 2: Does it affect my objectivity when regarding them in other ways?
Red frowns. He can’t really say that it does. He wouldn’t hesitate in the future to use his pokemon in defense of wild attacks, even if it means losing them… though the thought of losing Pichu or Charmander does make him feel a particularly sharp pain.
But more than the pokemon he lost, his thoughts are on the people who died. Who they were, how they died, the people they left behind. He even finds himself thinking that way about Yuuta, Renegade though he is, and still alive, for now. .
Red flips to a new page and taps it with his pencil, then writes at the top,
Is sympathy for renegades normal?
After a moment’s thought he adds under it,
Should I care?
The questions aren’t idle. He doesn’t know what makes someone become a Renegade, but it makes sense that being more sympathetic to them might be a warning sign. He certainly never saw the question addressed in public discourse, which signals to him that it’s a taboo topic. He can’t be the only one to wonder it, but maybe others have already learned that it gets them strange looks and hostile responses if they air their concerns.
He wonders if he should ask Leaf. She seems to care about things like this more than he does, or at least have thought about them at length, unlike Blue. Red writes himself a reminder to ask her privately, then takes his phone out and starts to search online forums for similar questions. For a moment he hesitates with the word Renegade in the search bar, remembering conspiracy theories where people’s search topics are aggregated to catch illegal activity, then decides to press on. All he’s doing is asking questions, and he can always say he’s looking for academic curiosity.
Just as he starts to browse the results page, however, his phone chimes and vibrates in his hands, causing him to jump. He calms his racing heart by reminding himself it’s probably just his mom. He considers ignoring it until tomorrow, then sighs and closes his search page to check.
It’s a message from CoRRNet, a formal one telling him that Leader Misty has reviewed the Witnessing and that the execution was carried out. It goes on to thank him for his service, but Red turns off his phone before finishing it, gaze up at the ceiling.
“You okay?” Leaf asks from the cot to his left. Blue looks over from their other side, still flossing his teeth.
“Yuuta,” Red says, and debates a number of ways to finish the sentence before simply saying, “It’s done.”
The other two are silent, and Red wonders if now, at last, they’d speak about it. Instead the last trainer straggles back in and asks if everyone’s ready for him to turn the lights off. The rest of the room agrees, and people begin exchanging goodnights. Red lies down and pulls the covers over himself with some relief, feeling too tired to get into the topic anyway.
Instead of falling asleep though, his thoughts churn in slow circles, replaying the day’s events and always ending with Yuuta’s Witnessing. Thinking about his potential friends, his family. How they would get the news. How they would feel. How he would, if it were him. How he felt after dad died.
Red tosses and turns as the room around him slowly goes quiet and still, with the occasional rustling and shifting. He can hear Blue snoring before long, though Leaf seems just as restless as him.
Eventually he realizes that if he’s not going to get any rest, at least he should be productive. He slips out of bed and tiptoes between the cots until he can emerge into the brightly lit hallway. Rangers at outposts sleep in shifts, with a third of the staff resting at any given time, but when he passes the sleep quarters, the doors are open and the beds are empty. The outpost would be on high alert until the mountain calms down from the recent influx of rampaging wild pokemon.
Red goes to the dining hall, where a pair of rangers are eating quietly. He nods to them and sits at the table with his phone out, staring down at the screen.
Ever since he finished his spinarak research, he’s felt conflicted and aimless. Finding a journal to publish it would take a lot of time and energy, and he knows he has to do it at some point, but he hasn’t been able to find the motivation between everything that’s been going on. He could blame the distractions and dangers of travelling, but the truth is his heart isn’t in it. After spending so much time and effort getting funding for his project, even the idea of delving back into more paperwork saps his will.
So. First step is admitting the problem: he’s been procrastinating. And the reason is simple. Despite the potential, far off rewards, at the end of the day, what interests him is learning and testing ideas, not getting published. He wants a Researcher license so he can have
more
resources to do science, but it’s hard to motivate himself if it means hours of ancillary work.
Now what’s he going to do about it? There’s no point in wishing for a better work ethic, and trying to force himself to just “buckle down” and do it might not be the most effective way to move forward. What he needs is a compromise.
A new project to focus on. Yes, that would do it. Work that he can feel energized by but won’t take up all his time. That way he can swap between the work that’s less fun and the one that’s more exciting.
“You okay, kid?”
Red looks up to see one of the rangers looking at him. “Huh?”
“You’ve been sitting there zoned out for ten minutes.”
Red smiles. “Sorry, yeah. Just tired.”
“Don’t push yourself so hard. If you’re tired get some sleep.”
“Thanks.” Red looks back at the empty search bar on his screen, still smiling. Sleep? How could he sleep now? His mind is fully awake and burning with ideas for his next research project.
Psychics. He still thinks they hold the key, or at least one of the keys, to understanding pokemon, humans, and reality as a whole. He needs to keep his research focused in that direction, and that means studying psychic pokemon directly. Spinarak aren’t even psychic in the strictest sense, they just have some shared abilities. If he really wants to learn what sets psychics apart, he needs to study full-fledged psychic pokemon.
The problem is, trainers with psychic pokemon are rare. He won’t be able to ask for dozens of volunteers to bring him test subjects. He’s going to need to get a fair amount himself.
And around Cerulean City, that means one thing: he’s going to need a lot of abra, one of the hardest pokemon to catch in all of Kanto.
Red begins to research, not stopping until well into the night.
Thanks to increased ranger and trainer activity, by morning the mountain’s threat level returns to normal, and the next few days of travel go by quickly. Red begins to drink more tea, and even coffee where it’s offered free, though the bitter taste is a chore to “acquire.” Still, it helps him get extra work done at night and stay alert during the day. If Blue or Leaf notice the bags under Red’s eyes, they don’t mention it.
Their thoughts are occupied on other things in any case. Leaf’s follower count doubled after the mayor’s interview, then doubles again by the end of the day as her article gets more and more hits. By the next morning she has almost as many as Blue, despite his own bump of notoriety. Leaf begins to occasionally read comments to her article out loud, and after the three discuss them a bit, write a response. At one point she calls Red’s mom to ask if she should respond to a popular priest’s post, and after tailoring her reply over the course of a day, the subsequent jump after posting it makes her following surpass the youngest Oak’s.
To Blue’s credit he doesn’t begrudge her the increased fame, and only trains that much harder while on the road, determined to be ready to take the Cerulean Gym by storm the way he did Pewter’s. He promises Red and Leaf that he won’t be challenging Misty on his first day there, but will only make it clear that he can if he wants to.
“Is Kemuri your lead, or your trump?” Red asks as he watches Blue run through drills with the shiftry during one of their rest stops.
“If I can sweep with him, I will,” Blue says. “But I know they’re going to throw some bulk at me, and I’ll have to wear that down with Gon and Maturin first. Ion will be the trump; if I don’t reveal an Electric Type right away they might think I don’t have one. Thanks again for him, Leaf.”
“Of course. Just make sure you treat him right.” Leaf tosses nuts for Scamp to catch and bring back to her without eating them, rewarding him each time with a different nut than the one she threw.
“No worries there, I’ve got big plans for this little shinx. I was pretty disappointed about not getting a pikachu in Viridian.” He eyes Red’s pichu as it sits perched on his hat. “He’s still afraid to walk around on his own?”
Red shrugs. “Or he just likes to be on high places.”
“Well, I hope he evolves soon. They’re featherweights until they do.”
“He’ll evolve when he’s ready.” Red reaches a hand up and rubs the electric mouse’s fur.
“They need to feel safe and cared for before they can,” Leaf says. “He’s obviously going to be a challenge in that respect.”
“Well, he had a pretty traumatic capture,” Red says. “And I don’t plan on putting him in real combat until he does evolve, so it might be a while anyway.” After losing his rattata and spearow, Red feels particularly protective of his pichu now. He still hasn’t named any of his pokemon, and part of him is wondering if he’s resisting simply so it isn’t harder if he loses them. It’s a thought he doesn’t have time to contemplate now, so he just writes himself a reminder for later. Flipping through the pages, he’s starting to feel overwhelmed by all the things he needs to take the time to research and think about. For now though, he’s set on focusing on his next research project and getting his last one published.
Red rarely traveled when he was younger: since his dad was so often away from home and his mom wasn’t a trainer, he mostly stayed in Pallet Town unless Professor Oak brought him along on one of their family trips. As such, he’s been to almost as many cities and towns in the past month as in the rest of his life combined, and when they finally catch sight of Cerulean City a few days after leaving the dig site, Red feels a growing sense of excitement to finally visit the famous tourist spot.
As the trio make their way down the slopes of the mountains, Cerulean City stretches out ahead of them like a sprawl of loosely tossed metal and glass. Unlike Viridian or Pewter, with their tightly packed buildings and busy streets, Cerulean is spread out, with four major pockets of high rises and the occasional skyscraper divided by wide green suburban areas. Within a day they’re walking through outlying residential neighborhoods that are similar to other cities, but as soon as they pass into the first urban areas, Cerulean West, the soul of the city becomes clear.
The sidewalks are wide and flanked by shops, restaurants, and stalls that an assortment of people seem constantly on their way in or out of. Double decked busses are a continuous presence on the roads, shuttling people to and from every which way. Through the bottom levels’ windows Red can see people looking bored or engrossed in their phone or a book, while the people on the top are often standing and taking pictures of their surroundings. He knew Cerulean got thousands of visitors a day, but he expected them to be more concentrated in Cerulean North along the coast of the bay.
But as they make their way through the city to find a shopping mall to replenish their supplies, it becomes obvious that the shining beaches aren’t all the city has to offer. They pass an ostentatious theater house on one side advertising two musicals and a play, then a high priced department store with glass walls. Some people have small pokemon with them, hanging off of shoulders, in backpacks, or at the end of leashes, and others are using the streets to ride their pokemon in the reserved lane. As they pass a music store, a famous pop star suddenly appears beside them, singing her heart out. Red stares over his shoulder, amazed at how far localized hologram technology has come.
“Hey Blue, you know we’re rooting for you, right?” Red says. “You go in there, and you get that badge. But, you know, if you don’t…”
“Right away…” Leaf says, face pressed up against the window of a bike store as they walk by.
“If it takes you a try or two…”
“Or three…”
“It’s okay, you know? We’re here for you.” Red puts his hand on Blue’s shoulder, gaze distracted by a street magician who throws a huge velvet cloth over a machoke, then whisks it off to reveal two machop, one standing on another’s shoulders. “You take another month if you need.”
“Or two…”
Blue shrugs Red’s hand off with a grin. “You guys go nuts. If we have to stick around that long, I’m going to Nugget Road and trying for some gold. Or better yet, hunting through the tall grass along the bay. There are some prime catching spots up there.”
“Well, we’re definitely going there before you challenge Misty,” Red says. “I know what my next research subject is going to be: abra.”
Blue laughs. “That might take you more than a couple months.”
Leaf frowns. “I looked them up after seeing the Renegade’s, but they weren’t listed as too rare.”
“Finding one’s not the problem, you can probably see a dozen in a day. Catching them is.”
“Not to worry, my friends, for I,” Red says, “Have a plan.”
“A plan, you say.” Leaf rubs her chin.
“A
clever
plan.”
“Tried and true?”
“Well, no. That’s what makes it so clever. As far as I could tell, no one else has tried it.”
“Sooo, it’s more of an experiment.”
“Yes. A
clever
experiment.”
“Uh oh,” Blue mutters.
“Hey, most of them have been fine. I’ve spent the past few nights researching this, and I really think it’ll work.”
“It’s not going to get us surrounded by pikachu is it?” Leaf asks. “Because that clever plan worked a bit too well.”
“Don’t worry, there aren’t any pikachu around here,” Red says as he steps briefly onto the street to go around a light pole.
Leaf narrows her eyes. “That was a suspiciously narrow defense.”
“Fine, so there’s a non-zero chance that the experiment will have negative consequences. Such is the life of a trainer. Where’s your spirit of adventure?”
“I don’t have one, and neither do you.” Leaf frowns as someone jostles her while walking by.
“Okay, where’s your spirit of intellectual curiosity?”
She smiles. “Well, yeah, I
am
curious.”
Blue raises a hand. “I’m not.”
“Ah, but
you
have a spirit of adventure.”
Blue hesitates, then lowers his hand. “Yeah, alright. If it works, we’d make bank, and I want to buy a bike. So what’s the plan?”
They turn a corner and see the shopping mall on the other side of the street. “I’m glad you asked…”
The problem, Red explains as they restock their toiletries and basic traveling staples, is that there are few attacks that can connect faster than thought. In order to get close enough to even hit an abra with anything that might hold it still, you’d already have to be in range of their psychic senses, and from there they just need the slightest excuse to teleport away. Even sufficiently aggressive thoughts not directed at them have been known to scare them off.
To catch one, you either need to be a Dark trainer with a Dark pokemon who gets lucky enough to sneak up on one without them hearing (“Huge waste of time,” Blue says as they reach the supermarket floor. “Wouldn’t waste a day of training with Kemuri just to maybe catch one.”), or you need a way to stop them from teleporting before they even realize you’re there… without getting close enough for them to detect your thoughts.
“Sound,” Leaf says as they pick out fresh fruit and head over to the boxes of meal bars. “You want to use Wigglytuff to put them to sleep from a long distance.”
“Yeah, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.” Red grabs a couple boxes of peanut-butter covered granola, then decides to try a honey-glazed one too.
“I was going to say, we can’t just walk around with a singing wigglytuff and hope that we find an abra. Besides being a hazard to others, we’d also be mostly defenseless against any wild pokemon that aren’t affected by the singing.”
“Not just that,” Red says as they make their purchases and take a moment to store them in their food Containers. “Others have tried things like it before.”
According to his research, abra can detect incoming threats by the responses of surrounding pokemon. For example, if an abra detects all the pokemon to the west of it losing consciousness one by one in its direction, it’ll teleport away.
If it detects pokemon losing consciousness in every direction around it, it’ll teleport away.
If it detects a stronger mental presence, it’ll teleport away.
If it hears the wind rustle some leaves and drop an apple to the ground, it’ll teleport away… presumably because it thinks it might be a Dark pokemon sneaking up on it.
“It just goes to show how strong a force natural selection can be,” Red says. “When you have such a powerful survival tool against so many deadly predators and threats, the abra that are quickest to use it are the most likely to survive and breed and pass that skittishness down. Especially when there’s virtually no downside.”
“They’re light sleepers too,” Blue says as they take the elevator up to the trainer supply floor. “So what’s the plan?”
“We can’t go running around hoping to find them. We need them to come to us.”
A few years ago, a professor tagged some abra and released them back into the wild to track their movements. It took a while to find something that would be taken along with the teleportation intact, but eventually she was able to monitor the abra as they popped around a field day to day, foraging and breeding and escaping danger.
“But there wasn’t any pattern, right?” Leaf asks as she puts some potions in her shopping basket.
“How’d you know?”
“They wouldn’t still be so hard to catch if there was.”
“Yep, no pattern at all.” Except for one: newly born abra tended to teleport back to fewer places, confirming the idea that abra could only teleport to places they’ve been before. But there was nothing to indicate how they chose, in the moment, where to go.
Blue picks up a small pouch of pokeballs and tosses another to Red and Leaf. “So how does that help us?”
“It doesn’t,” Red says, catching his and putting it in his basket. “It was pretty demoralizing, to be honest. But it did lead me to the core of my idea: if we can’t predict where they’ll teleport, we need to control where they don’t. Picture a field, with a random amount of abra sprinkled through it, teleporting around. What happens if you and a wigglytuff start walking eastward as it sings?”
“They’ll start teleporting away as pokemon begin to lose consciousness near them in that direction,” Leaf says. “But not in a controlled direction, so some might go north or south instead of all east. If we had more than one wigglytuff, couldn’t we try to come from all directions and herd them into a middle area? Assuming we don’t have to worry about other trainers or resistant pokemon attacking us.”
“It could work, but since we only have yours, I have a better idea,” Red says. “Picture the field again-”
“Can you just tell us?” Blue interrupts as he compares the labels on two antidote bottles. “I’m a bit busy. Better yet just draw it.”
Red smiles and takes out his phone to sketch a picture with his finger. Leaf leans forward to watch over his shoulder, which causes Red to mess up a few times, distracted by the feel of her hair brushing his arm.
Once the square field is drawn, Red makes a circle in the middle. “This is us with your wigglytuff in the middle, and the radius of its singing. What if we put speakers here, here, here…” He draws Xs around it, six in total, then draws circles around those. “With each playing the sound of a mightyena, or houndoom. Any abra in that area will teleport away in a random direction, and with so many zones repelling them, we’ll eventually get some that land in the middle with us, where they’ll be put to sleep before they can recognize the danger.” He finishes drawing and shows it to Blue.
“Hmm. Alright, first questi-”
“We’ll put out a localized message to see if any trainers are in the area, and warn them away. Then we’ll sync the speakers to emit their sound at the same time. The two of us will rotate around Leaf’s wigglytuff with our earplugs in searching for any pokemon that come into range of its singing. Leaf will stay with her, so we can message her to stop the singing right away if we’re attacked by a pokemon that’s not affected by it, and to catch any between us.”
Blue frowns through his explanation. “Okay, sixth question. Or seventh. Whatever. Who’s paying for these speakers?”
“I already looked up the price, I can buy them all if you guys don’t want to. Catching just one abra would make up for the cost.”
“I’ll buy two,” Leaf says as they make their way to the checkout counters. “I think this might actually work.”
“Yeah, count me in too. On one condition.” Blue puts his basket on the tray and starts the autoscan, then swipes his card. “You gotta ask gramps what he thinks of it.”
“Waaay ahead of you, buddy.”
“
Wait, you’re not going to try this alone, are you?”
“
Of course not, Professor!”
“
I’m including Blue and Leaf in that ‘alone,’ Red.”
“
I… Yeah. I knew that. Obviously.”
“
Listen to me Red, under no circumstances are you to execute such a wide scale public experiment without oversight. Do you understand?”
“
I’m shocked that you’d think so little of me, Professor. Shocked.”
“
Don’t make me call your mother.”
Blue sighs. “So much for keeping the method a secret, if it works.”
“Wouldn’t be able to do that anyway, if we’re alerting the area,” Leaf says, and turns back to Red. “Sooo, we’re calling the Rangers?”
Red finishes withdrawing his purchases and snaps his Container ball closed. “We’re calling the Rangers!”
“We can’t help you.”
Red’s heart sinks at the ranger’s flat, uncompromising tone. He shifts his phone to the other ear, trying to keep pace with Blue and Leaf as they walk toward the nearby Pokemon Center. “You don’t have to
help
us, I just thought-”
“You want us to spread ourselves out over a radius so wide we wouldn’t even be able to see each other, while you set up an audio hazard zone, purposefully, in the middle of where we’d all be.”
“It’s just a precaution. We wouldn’t be doing it if we actually think something bad will happen.” Red sees Blue and Leaf glance at him, clearly able to guess how the conversation is going. “Isn’t it better to be on-site ahead of time just in case?”
“It’s too big a job for our outpost alone, and we’re not calling in rangers from another one just to watch your experiment. We have to be ready for actual emergencies, not manufactured ones. Just playing the mightyena cries might cause a panic or rampage across the whole field.”
“No, I looked into that, see, none of the pokemon here have mightyena listed as a natural predator except abra, so they won’t-”
“Kid. The answer’s no. Get a bunch of trainers together and coordinate something if you can, but we can’t do the job alone.”
Red feels heat creeping up his neck, and clenches his teeth before he says something stupid. “I understand. Thanks anyway.” He closes the call with a grunt of disgust.
“Told you I should have called,” Blue says. “You didn’t even mention that I have a badge.”
Red sighs. “You know what the worst part of this is?”
“That we just spent sixty bucks each for the speakers we can’t use?”
“No, there are plenty of other uses for them. I was thinking of getting some ever since we used sound to scare the ‘chu off in Viridian.” Red’s down to a hundred fifty bucks after their shopping was done, which isn’t as bad as he was expecting when he thought he’d have to buy them alone. “The worst part is, if I decided to go out into the wild and open a jar of honey to attract hordes of pokemon, no one would bat an eye. I mean, some might advise against it, but it’s an accepted practice for skilled trainers. But experiment with something new that can’t possibly be more dangerous than what’s already an accepted strategy…”
Leaf smiles. “To be fair-”
“I know, I know, I don’t actually know what’ll happen. That’s why it’s an experiment.”
“What now, then? Try to get other trainers to help?”
“Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.” Red watches night drape itself over the city like a reluctant curtain, sad to end another day over the bustling metropolis. Cerulean is more than ready for the dark however, and the streets light up with colorful signs and backlit storefronts. They’re near the local downtown now, where the city is most compact before spreading back out into the suburbs all around it. “Maybe I’ll put a post up in the city forum, see if anyone’s interested by tomorrow or the next day.”
“Well, it’ll take us the morning to get to Cerulean North anyway,” Blue says. “I’m going to hit the gym in the afternoon, so I won’t be free until the next day.”
“And I’ve got a backlog of correspondence to get to when I have access to a real keyboard. I think I’m going to get a laptop tomorrow on our way up.”
“Yeah, alright.” Red’s mood darkens as he thinks of the long night and day he has ahead of him of continuing his attempts to get his research published.
They reach the Center and drop off their pokemon, then head to the nearby Trainer House and file into the crowded lobby to register themselves. After some quick meals in the mess hall, the trio says goodnight at the elevators and head upstairs to drop their spare clothes in the laundry rooms and take some long-awaited showers.
Afterward, Red flops onto his bunk bed and takes out his phone as his hair dries. Blue climbs the ladder to the bed above him to drop off his bag, then climbs back down.
“You’re not going to train, are you?” Red asks. He thought Blue dropped all his pokemon at the Center.
“Nah, Sabrina’s taking a Challenge Match tonight. I’m going to the lobby for the big screens. Wanna come?”
“I’m okay, thanks.” Red watches Blue leave, then stares blankly at his phone’s display of another publishing journal. Eventually he realizes he’s not reading it, mind still on Sabrina, the most powerful human psychic in the region, and possibly the world. He frowns and opens a new page.
Something different, tonight. If he’s going to catch an abra soon, he needs to start training his psychic powers, what little he can without a tutor. He doesn’t know how his “block” will interact with his own psychic pokemon trying to communicate with him, but he needs to be as prepared as possible.
Red starts searching for pages that detail rudimentary psychic powers and how to practice them. He keeps scrolling down lists to try and find something as basic as possible, but finds nothing that he thinks he’s capable of.
Eventually he finds a page titled “How to tell if you’re ‘sensitive,'” and opens that. From what Narud said, Red is a full psychic, just without access to his powers, not a sensitive, someone with powers so weak that they’re mostly nonexistent. Still, maybe for practical purposes he should consider himself one for now, and see if there’s anything here that might help.
He reads through some pages detailing different sensations a person might have, or circumstances they might find themselves in, that could tell them if they’re a sensitive. Red occasionally gets a familiar sensation upon reading some of them, like the feeling of being “connected” with someone, even a stranger, or always feeling like he could tell what their emotional state was.
He’s probably just fooling himself through confirmation bias though. Anyone in the room with Yuuta would have been able to “feel” the man’s desperation, that was just an expression anyway. He can’t consider interactions with his mom relevant, she’s family and he spends more time with her than anyone. And for some refuting evidence, he can think of a dozen times at least when he misread even his closest friend, Blue…
…who’s Dark. Huh.
I guess I haven’t really given that a chance to fully register, after finding out I was psychic.
He puts his phone down and closes his eyes, taking a moment to think back on their friendship and update all the experiences he can remember through the new lens of the two semi-recent discoveries.
If Red’s been operating off of subtle, psychic cues from people his whole life, but not getting any from Blue, then that would account for some of their arguments. Not all, of course, or even most. Maybe even not any: he certainly has no evidence that his impressions of people’s emotions are anything more than his imagination. But it’s still something to keep in mind moving forward.
Red keeps looking through the various sites and pages detailing the difference between sensitives and non-sensitives, and the even bigger gulf between psychics and sensitives, which the sites (often run by psychic groups) always seem to couch in sympathetic tones. “The poor dears,” Red mutters, drawing a glance from a pair of trainers walking by his bed. No matter what they do, the sites don’t quite say, they’ll never be
true
psychics.
Red can see why that might be a common question or hope, but it still comes off as patronizing to him, as someone who finds himself caught in such an odd middle-space. He knows he’d find it irritating if he was just a sensitive. No one likes being looked down on by a group that considers themselves obviously superior. It’s especially problematic since they’re the ones that are shaping the narrative.
In fact… Red changes his search terms, and suddenly finds sites with a very different framing. Most look less “official,” but there are dozens of blogs and pages dedicated to exploring their own theories of sensitives versus psychics. According to many of them, the one isn’t a “weaker” form of the other, but a different one altogether, the way Ghost pokemon attack people’s “emotions” and Psychics attack their “thoughts.”
Red frowns. That divide always seemed strange to him, but if it’s true, then obviously practicing psychic techniques wouldn’t help a sensitive. The problem is, these sites seem full of unsupported claims and mysticism masquerading as science. He can’t find any research backing them, and eventually gives up and returns to the more “reliable” sites.
Red eventually finds one that recommends meditation and awareness exercises to any sensitive interested in exploring their powers, and he decides to attempt them. His therapist suggested meditation when he was younger, but it hadn’t really worked for him then. Now it might be worth a second try.
He looks around at the room, where a dozen other trainers are chatting quietly or preparing for bed, and decides it’s quiet enough. He plugs in his earphones and waits for the soothing voice to begin walking him through it-
-only to have the phone’s message chime directly in his ear.
Red’s eyes fly open and he curses as he pulls the earplugs out. After a moment his scowl fades, and he sits up to read the article Leaf linked him to.
There’s an embedded video of Leader Brock, but Red doesn’t have to play it, as the caption under it reads “Leader Brock urges peace and unity as recent public politics turn violent.” Apparently the Pewter Museum was vandalized a few hours ago, and just this morning the religious leader Leaf wrote the open letter response to called on Pewter’s faithful to reject its lies, and the propaganda of “foreign influences.”
“Well,” Red says as he scrolls down to see the vitriolic comments, some defending Leaf’s article and calling for an investigation, but many more condemning her, the mayor, and the museum. “Shit.”
Leaf wakes up the next morning with a sick feeling in her gut. She went to sleep late last night, engrossed by every new comment that showed up on a half dozen different news and community sites.
People condemned the vandals, or supported them, or made unrelated arguments and accusations, seeming to fit the events into whatever narrative they happened to believe. It was dizzying trying to keep up with it, especially with only token comments from anyone official, who would probably wait until morning before making a more complete statement. Just like Leaf knew she should. Eventually she forced herself to turn off her phone and tossed and turned for an hour before drifting off to troubled sleep.
But things don’t seem any clearer this morning when she grabs her phone and immediately begins browsing the sites again, still rubbing the gum from her eyes. She absorbs all the comments that people left overnight, and it gets harder not to respond, especially when they bring her up directly, misrepresent her arguments, or outright put words in her mouth. She knows that running around trying to put fires out might just feed them, especially when groggy and stressed.
She checks the time to see if it’s too early to message Laura, and frowns to see that it’s only 6:18 AM. She shouldn’t, especially since she already knows what Red’s mom would say: keep your head down, let it blow itself out, make a statement when things are calmer. Her heart aches when she sees the pictures, reposted again and again, of the glass doors and windows of the museum smashed in, spray painted symbols of Pewter’s predominant religion on the wall beside it. She thinks of all the people who worked there who she met, who took time out of their day to speak with her, like Dr. Brenner, and regrets bringing such trouble into their lives.
I’m not responsible for this. The people who did it are, and maybe the ones who egged them on.
Easy to say. Hard to fully accept.
She finally forces herself to close her phone again, and gets out of bed to shower and prepare for the day. She starts thinking of things to say, statements to make. An apology first, for clearly angering so many people. A plea for peaceful discourse. Would that make her sound too weak? Should she care? She wonders how Mayor Kitto feels about her now. Probably wishes she’d never come to Pewter.
She leaves the public bathrooms wanting to just crawl back into bed and draw the covers over her head. But when she gets back to her room and, against her better judgement, checks her phone again, she sees something that makes her smile.
It’s an organized message, from over a dozen Pewter churches. They openly condemn the vandalism, and its perpetrators, and plead that the city discuss its differences without anger. A small group of volunteers have already helped clean the graffiti, and the overall tone of the conversations does seem to have shifted slightly since the message went out.
Leaf feels a hundred pounds lighter as she closes her browser and messages Red and Blue, then puts her phone away and gathers her things. Maybe it’s not quite as bad as she thought.
She meets the boys downstairs for breakfast, then they pay at the front and head to the nearby pokecenter. The sun is still rising, and Cerulean West is rising with it. People in work clothes, often with a cup of coffee in one hand, busily move from place to place before the crowds start congesting the roads. Blue’s on his phone as he walks behind Red and Leaf, who talk about the trip to Cerulean North. It isn’t until they reach the center that Blue stops dead and stares at her. “What the hell happened to your following, Leaf?”
“Oh. Uh. Something happened in Pewter.” She flushes. She hadn’t sent Blue the news article last night, thinking he wouldn’t be as interested.
“The museum was vandalized,” Red explains, then looks at her. “I didn’t want to bring it up, figured you might be upset about it.”
“I am. Just trying to see how things turn out.”
“See how things turn out?!” Blue points his screen at her. “Your following doubled overnight!
Doubled!
How are you not riding this wave? You should be typing until your fingers are sore!”
“Whoa, no,” Red says. “Bad idea. You might cause more drama, it’ll look like you’re making it about you.”
“She can’t just say nothing, it’ll look callous-”
“Guys,” Leaf interrupts. “I was planning on asking Laura, when we’re getting our pokemon. Think she’s awake now, Red?”
“Yeah, she’s an early riser. We’ll let you get your pokemon first so you can call her after.”
“Thanks.” They walk in and go to the line reception hall, a sizeable line already formed as the pokemon trainers prepared for their day. “Or I guess I can do it now. Save my spot?”
They agree, and Leaf wanders over to an empty table to make the call. She breathes deep to settle her nerves as the phone rings, and mostly succeeds by the time Laura picks up. “Good morning, Leaf. Is everything okay?”
“Morning Laura! Yep, everything’s fine. Sorry for the early call.”
“Not a problem, just making some tea. What’s on your mind?”
“Well…” Leaf gives Laura what was intended to be a quick summary, but she keeps thinking of new comments she read or thoughts she had to add to it, until she finally trails off with, “And now I’m thinking it might be best to answer after all, since there was such support-”
“No,” Laura says. “It’s great that there’s been positivity too, but you should still keep out of it. This may be one of the hardest things you learn to do Leaf, so listen carefully. When you’re just a private citizen, you can make all the posts in forums you want. You can have dozens of conversations a day about everything you think of or are interested in. But once you step into the limelight, once you’re in any way a public figure, your whole perspective has to change. And from what I’m seeing right now with your following, you’re definitely a public figure. A minor one, mostly just in one city, but still.”
Leaf listens and tries to really absorb her words. “Okay, yeah. I knew that, I guess I just had to hear you say it too. So not even an apology, right?”
“No, not even that. You did nothing wrong. You just wrote an article, and nothing in it was inaccurate or misrepresented anyone. No offense Leaf, but it shouldn’t even have grown as big as it did. It likely wouldn’t have without the mayor shining a spotlight on it.”
“I know. I bet he’s wishing he didn’t, now.”
Laura makes a sound that Leaf can’t quite interpret. “Regardless, the best thing you can do right now, with things as they are, is ignore it… and get to work on your next article.”
Leaf blinks. “What?
Oh.
Not on the museum, on something else, right? Keep the momentum going.”
“Exactly. If you’re going to be a journalist, even part time, you have to always be moving on to the next thing. Your job isn’t to pick a hill and fight on it until the bitter end. If you ever want to go into politics, that’s the time to make ideological stands. As a journalist, your job is to investigate and report.”
Leaf is silent for a moment. Does she want to be a journalist, really? She set out to just write something that might make a difference about something she cared about. That’s basically what journalists do, but… after all that happened, is it something she’s willing to keep going through over and over? Or is it just going to be like her other interests, a short lived passion that drives her to try something new, learn new skills, then get bored and move on? She thinks about the book she was planning on writing about local myths in Kanto, and how she has little interest in that anymore.
On the other hand, Leaf’s mind is already racing through ideas for what she could write another article about. It’s an exciting feeling, and she enjoys the idea that she might have made a difference, even if it had some negative consequences. If this is going to be another short lived passion, she’ll at least ride it until it peters out, not bow out early because a few windows got broken. “Okay, so I’ll start looking for a new thing to write about. What if someone asks me about it, though? No comment?”
“If you’re ever in front of a camera or in an interview with someone, you can comment on it. But you have to be
careful.
Again, public figure versus private are two very different things. Now that you have a following, you can’t just think about what you say… you also have to think about what people will hear.”
“Like that preacher.”
Laura’s tone darkens. “Exactly like him. Thankfully he’s getting some backlash over it, from the other priests even. We’ll see what he does in response. But regardless, stay out of it. I’m saying that in my official capacity as your mentor.”
Leaf smiles. “Don’t worry, I’m convinced.”
“Good. I’ve got some friends in Cerulean, maybe someone has extra leads they don’t have time to investigate. One of them might be a good start for a story, if you don’t find something else that interests you.”
“That would be great. Thanks, Laura.”
“Of course, hon. Give Red and Blue my love, and enjoy Cerulean!”
“I will. Bye!”
Leaf closes the call and flips the phone around and around in her hands for a moment, thinking. She feels better about things now, like she doesn’t have to hurry up and respond to the situation. She can just take her time and-
The phone rings and vibrates in her hand, startling her into almost tossing it up. She looks around to make sure no one saw, then checks the caller ID. Hm. Unrecognized.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Leaf, how are you?”
Leaf blinks. “Mayor Kitto, hi. I’m… fine, thanks, and yourself?”
“Good, thanks for asking.” The mayor sounds busy, and Leaf imagines him at his desk of paperwork, talking with her via headset while he types with one hand and flips through a folder with the other. “Listen, I know you’re probably busy with your travels. I just wanted to let you know there’s been an incident-”
“Oh gods, another one?” Leaf’s stomach is cold.
“What? Oh, you know about the museum then? Sorry, that’s what I meant.”
“Oh! Yeah, I saw the report last night.”
He chuckles. “Still keeping an eye on our fair city? I’m happy to hear it. Well, that makes this conversation much shorter. I was wondering when you plan to respond? I have a press release in a couple hours, and was hoping to-”
“Respond? To who?”
“To… the situation. In general. You were going to make a statement of some kind, right?”
Leaf is suddenly very, very glad she called Laura when she did. If she’d had this conversation first, she’d feel compelled to assure the mayor that she would, despite having no idea what to say. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Wouldn’t I just make things worse somehow?”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s going to be anything more from this, some folks just got carried away. There’s been a great coming together this morning, and I’m sure you could help with that.”
Leaf frowns. She is glad for the show of solidarity, and if she makes a clear statement of appreciation for that, it could push back a bit against the idea that she’s trying to stir up the city, which is something she saw a number of times from her detractors . Maybe he’s right… “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? No, everything’s fine. Why?”
Mayor Kitto doesn’t sound busy any more, voice thoughtful. “I’m sorry, I guess I just assumed this would be something you’re interested in. Was I wrong to involve you in all this, Leaf? I hope I didn’t misread your intentions.”
Leaf rubs her brow with one hand. She wishes she had a moment to think, things feel like they’re speeding up again. “No, I’m g-glad that you mentioned my article.” She almost said
grateful,
which she was, but… it suddenly didn’t feel prudent to say. “I just want to make sure I’m not doing more harm than good.”
Kitto is quiet for a moment, then says, “I understand. You’re a smart woman. Trust your instincts, and I’m sure you’ll do the right thing. Thanks for your time, Leaf.”
“And you, Mayor.” She ends the call with relief, and begins to spin her phone around and around in her hands again. After a moment she puts it on the table and stares at it distrustfully from there.
Damn it all. She was ready to move on after talking with Laura, but now she’s not quite as sure of herself. She rests her elbows on the table and puts her face between her hands, gaze distant. If she distrusts the mayor’s motives, she shouldn’t do something he wants her to without knowing them. She knows that Laura, at least, has her best interests at heart. So why is she still torn on this?
Because it’s hard to leave it behind,
she realizes. That’s what Laura meant. The limelight could be an addictive thing, especially for someone that will rely on attention for their work.
She wouldn’t be doing it for attention, though, if she does it at all. She’d be doing it to help…
Leaf abruptly stands up and pockets her phone. She needs to focus on something else. The sooner she finds a new topic to catch her interest, the sooner she can put the temptation to stay involved in Pewter behind her.
As she heads back toward the guys, she wonders what engaging stories Cerulean City might be hiding.
Cerulean North is much wider than West, stretching all along the coast of the bay. Blue watches it approach from his seat on the roof of the bus, breathing in deep as he catches a glimpse of the coast through the high rises. He imagines he can smell salt on the air, and knows it’s just his imagination. He just misses the beach in Pallet.
Red and Leaf are standing with their hands on the railing, watching the city slowly grow around them as the bus weaves its way toward the heart of Cerulean North, where Blue will find its Gym.
Blue’s fingers trace the lids of his pokeballs for Kemuri, Gon, Maturin and Ion. A shiftry, a shroomish, a squirtle and a shinx… to beat one of the most powerful Water Type trainers in the world, and a powerful psychic at that. Blue doesn’t think he’s ready yet: his loss in Pewter still weighs heavily on his mind. But the only way to regain his momentum is to take Misty out in their first fight, to defeat her utterly if he can, with pokemon to spare.
He doesn’t know if that’ll be possible with his current lineup. Gym Leaders select the strength of their pokemon and the complexity of their strategy based on the number of badges their challengers have, but the jump in difficulty between getting one’s first and second badges is much higher than any other. Ideally that wouldn’t be the case, but Leaders would always pull the most punches against someone untested, and showing that you’re capable of beating one of them is enough for the rest to scale back the majority of their safety precautions.
Blue is going to need stronger pokemon before he faces Misty. No, not new ones that would take awhile to train and become familiar with… he’ll need
his
pokemon to be stronger.
He’ll need some of them to evolve.
“Not interested in seeing the view, Blue?” His attention snaps up to see Leaf smiling at him from the balcony.
“Been here a couple times before with gramps and Daisy.” And apparently once with his parents when he was very young, though he doesn’t remember it as well as Daisy does.
Red drops back into the chair beside him, arms over his head to grip the back of it as he stares up at a highrise they pass. “Did you ever meet Misty?”
“Sort of. We had dinner with her once just after she became Leader. I was pretty young though, don’t think I spoke much.”
“Do you know what her virtue is?” Leaf asks.
“No, like most Leaders, she doesn’t talk about it. But speculation online is that she favors adaptability. Being able to change to sudden circumstances. That or clever use of the environment.”
Red frowns. “Is this an actual thing? You’d think it would be pretty easy to find out about.”
Blue shrugs a shoulder. “To be honest it’s more of a tradition than a rule. Some Leaders probably don’t care as much about it. And it can only give you a path to take for victory. It’s not the only one.”
“Brock trained you in Bide because you demonstrated his, right? Might be worth figuring out, in case she gives you something too.”
“I’ll see what I can learn from her gym members.” The bus enters the city’s main street, stopping to let some people leave and others board. Blue sits up in his seat, watching for the road that will lead to the gym. “The battles themselves might give me some idea.”
A couple stops later, Red and Leaf get off when the bus reaches Cerulean North’s Trainer House. They wish Blue good luck, and agree to meet him for dinner. Blue nods along to whatever suggestions they make, forgetting them a moment later when the bus pulls away. As the gym approaches, all Blue can think about are the upcoming battles.
Pokemon evolve over time as they grow older, but their growth is accelerated when they’re in combat. If he wants to evolve his pokemon, putting them into combat is the best way to do it, but in the wild there’s always the risk of danger. A gym is the best place to get lots of fighting experience safely.
The problem is, that would require Blue switching his pokemon constantly, regardless of efficiency. Not only will it make combat harder, but it would make him appear less skilled than he is, which might make it harder for him to climb the ranks quickly and challenge Misty.
The buildings abruptly fall away to either side as the bus turns a corner, and the coast of Cerulean Bay fills the horizon. Blue stands, hands gripping the seat in front of him, as the gym comes into sight. Unlike Pewter, with its solid walls of imposing grey, Cerulean Gym looks like one giant stadium from the front, round and expanding outward with each floor, metal and glass gleaming in the sunlight.
The sight makes Blue’s heart feel like it’s expanding in his chest, and he smiles as the gym grows to fill his vision. It’s only been a couple weeks since he beat Brock, but an eventful couple weeks, and he feels like it was forever ago. Finally, he’s back where he belongs.
The bus pulls up to the front of the parking lot, and Blue slings his bag over his shoulder and goes down the stairs with the other trainers and tourists. The reception hall is large and ostentatious, with signs pointing to different stadiums and training rooms. At the center is a large aquarium filled with water pokemon, and Blue can’t help but wonder how safe it is, which is of course the point. There are few better ways to showcase how well the gym can train their pokemon than to put a bunch of them on display in a public area and trust that all will be well.
Blue steps up to the aquarium, where an eight or nine year old kid has their face pressed up to the glass. A school of goldeen part around a seadra going in the opposite direction, while on the other side a tentacruel floats serenely by, any pokemon around it giving a wide berth to its many trailing limbs. Defensive pokemon like tentacruel would be the main struggle for him, its Poison typing able to counter Gon’s Grass. If Blue’s forced to use Ion too soon, the shinx wouldn’t be able to take a less defensive pokemon by surprise for a quick knockout.
“Hey!” Blue turns in surprise to find the kid staring at him. “You’re Blue Oak!”
Blue blinks. He hadn’t expected his first fan encounter to be with someone so young. Was he following trainers at that age? He grins. Of course he was. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Wooow, I saw your fight with Brock online! That last attack was so cool, I was scared your squirtle got crushed! Did you know it would be okay the whole time? When did you get to Cerulean? Are you here to challenge Misty?”
Blue finds himself striking a pose without meaning to, shoulders straight and chin up, legs slightly apart. “I’m here to
beat
Misty. Can I count on your support?”
“Yeah, for sure! Oh man, when are you going to challenge her? I want to be there!”
Blue fights the sudden urge to say something stupid, like
Tomorrow.
“Well, we’ll see how long it takes me to get through her gym members. Are you going to be in town long?”
“Oh, yeah, I live in Cerulean East. I come here all the time.”
Blue looks around. “You’re not here on a field trip, are you? Why aren’t you at school?”
The kid suddenly hesitates. “I’m here with my… mom. She’s… in the bathroom.”
“Mmhm.” Should he reprimand him? He’s got to set a good example if kids this young are already following him, but hell, who didn’t skip classes now and then? “Don’t worry, I used to do the same all the time.” Blue winks at the sudden look of relief on the kid’s face. “I’ll be sure to post the date of my challenge, so if you keep following me you’ll definitely see it.”
“Alright! I hope you get to her soon!”
“Me too, kid. What’s your name?”
“Dennis!”
“Alright, Dennis. I’m going to start my battles soon. Why don’t you head back to school and pretend you got out of bed late? That way you’re less likely to get in trouble before my match.”
“Yeah, alright! Good luck Blue!”
Blue gives a two finger salute, then heads toward the registration desk feeling lighter than air.
What was it Lance once said? “The path to strength is a path of hardship. To fear failure is to fear becoming strong.” So what if it’s a greater risk? He’s got a bag full of medicine to keep his pokemon fighting, and all day to beat Misty’s subordinates. If he can’t win with a handicap, he can’t prepare for the true challenges ahead.
He knows it’s stupid to feel any more confident just because he met some starstruck fan, but by the time he reaches the counter and slaps his trainer ID down on it, he’s still grinning.
Half an hour later, he’s standing in the first stadium, a basic training room with small arena floating in a pool of water that fills its floor, one pokeball spinning in each hand as he waits for the other door to open.
He already let Maturin test the depth of the brackish water and soak up as much as she could. He used the Pewter gym’s water rooms to train her in aquatic combat as much as he could, but its facilities were much more limited than Cerulean’s. He plans on putting them to good use while he’s here.
The other door opens, and a trainer walks in. Blue stops spinning the balls and stares. “Amy!”
The older teen winks. “Heya Blue. How’s it going?”
“I… what are you doing here?”
“Ouch, right in the ego.” She’s grinning as she mounts her platform and stands opposite him. “I’ve been here for almost a week now. Does that mean you’re not following me?” Amy starts taking out some aquatic training equipment and placing them beside the standard ones hanging on the edge of the railing.
“I am, yeah, I just… I’ve been busy.” And he’d been following her brother Donovan much more closely, only checking in on her a couple times since they left Viridian.
“I know, it was all over the news, same day I beat Misty. Do we need to start coordinating our plans, or can you just agree to not hog all the press with heroics next time I win a badge?”
Blue grins. “We can try, but it wasn’t really something I planned. No promises.”
“Figures. So, let’s do this thing, yeah? I’m sure you’re in a rush to make your mark here too.”
Blue clips and unclips balls around his belt, shoulders tensing. “Ready when you are. What are the rules?”
“Beat me. Go, poliwhirl!” The blue amphibian materializes on the stadium, skin glistening. Its clear stomach shows the swirling pattern of its internal organs before it falls onto all fours, black eyes blinking around. “This is my only decent water pokemon so far,” she explains. “I decided to join the Gym to improve my training of him and my others.”
Blue hesitates, hands hovering over each ball. “So I just have to beat this one?” From what he saw of Amy, she’s a crafty battler. He doesn’t want to underestimate her just because she’s using a single pokemon.
“Yep.”
“And I can use as many pokemon as I want?”
“Standard six. Now quit stalling and summon.”
He smiles. “Right.” That decides it. He reclips Gon’s ball and unclips Zephyr’s. “Go, Zephyr!”
His pidgey comes out standing on the platform, and as Blue catches its ball he sees the look of confusion on Amy’s face. “A flying type? Really?”
“Really.” He takes his whistle out and blows on it, causing his pokemon to take off and begin circling the arena, feeling his attention narrowing to the battlefield. The next time he breathes out, he feels his body calming, heartbeat slow and steady, every nerve ready to react.
Amy frowns, then shrugs and snaps her fingers. Her poliwhirl immediately dives into the water around them, disappearing from sight as Amy expands a metal stick and puts one end in the water, fingers poised over the buttons on the handle. “Good luck hitting him from up there. Ready, set, go!” She presses a button.
Blue whistles the command to dodge, and Zephyr flips into a sideways roll as the poliwhirl bobs up and spits a stream of water at him. Before Blue can make another command the pokemon is gone, and Zephyr continues to circle the arena. Amy keeps clicking buttons, and soon the poliwhirl appears again at the other end of the arena. Zephyr dodges another Water Gun, diving to return the attack only to find the spot of water empty and placid.
Blue whistles again to warn his pokemon away, causing him to climb altitude just as the poliwhirl appears again and shoots. The next few seconds are a rapid series of attacks and dodges, Zephyr skimming the water with his talons just as the poliwhirl ducks under again, only to come up a few meters away to fire back at the spot Zephyr was a moment before.
Blue keeps blowing on the whistle,
dodge, attack, climb, left, attack, dodge, circle,
trying to catch the poliwhirl with a lucky strike. Amy is focused on the match, but she doesn’t have to do as much, and he can tell from her occasional looks at him that she’s wondering what he’s doing. Her pokemon isn’t going to run out of water any time soon, and it’s faster than pidgey is.
Once Zephyr starts to tire, the shots of water begin to get closer and closer, until one clips his wing and knocks him out of the air. Zephyr recovers quickly, but Blue catches his pokemon with a return beam and quickly sends out Joey. His rattata seems confused, never having been in a stadium or training room before, but as soon as the poliwhirl leaps up from the water for its next attack, Joey dodges to the side without Blue even needing to prompt him.
“What are you doing, Blue?” Amy suddenly asks, drawing his attention to her. One hand is on her hip as she stares at him, brow furrowed. “I know you have two Grass pokemon.”
“You think I’m going to tell you my strategy just like that?” He grins.
She narrows her eyes. “So you do have a strategy? Because from here it looks like you’re not taking me seriously.”
“Nope, totally part of my plan. Promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that. It better be good.” She returns to commanding her poliwhirl, a slight frown still on her face.
Blue has less of a chance to counter her attacks from on land, but a rattata’s reaction speed is better than pidgey’s, and he manages to cleanly dodge each of the poliwhirl’s attacks, which continue to be simple Water Guns. This goes on for for a solid two minutes before Amy speaks again.
“If you think you’re going to lure me onto land, we’ll be here all day. I thought you’d be in a rush to reach Misty, after how quickly you Challenged Brock.”
“Maybe I learned some humility from losing to him,” he says, which makes her snort and command another Water Gun.
Blue is happy to keep dodging as long as he can, but as another minute drags by, he fights the urge to grow complacent. A drop of sweat rolls down his neck as he keeps his eyes on the battlefield, preserving his voice by only giving a few oral commands when needed. There’s no safe spot on the arena to hide, and since Amy’s pokemon can go to either side of the arena in moments, the closer his rattata is to the middle the more time it has to dodge attacks where even a fraction of a second makes a difference.
When Joey’s next dodge brings him closer to the side the poliwhirl is however, Amy presses something different, and her poliwhirl rises out of the water in a small wave.
No time to dodge.
“Quick Attack!”
His pokemon lashes out and strikes the poliwhirl just before the water crashes down around him, but Amy’s pokemon is too distracted by the strike to follow up properly. As soon as Joey rolls to a stop and shakes himself off, Blue orders another Quick Attack just as Amy sends her poliwhirl back into the water. It turns and shoots a water Gun that Joey just barely has time to dodge.
“Close,” Blue says once Joey is back in the center, ready and waiting. His heart pounds in his throat as he watches his pokemon for any sign of injury.
“Yep. Think your rattata is smart enough to stay away from the edge now?”
“Guess we’ll see.”
Amy grins and sends another volley of attacks at Joey, who does indeed keep more to the middle with his leaps. Blue keeps an eye on the water just in case there’s any obvious amounts of blood from the wound he inflicted, but the wound must have been a shallow one. He wouldn’t win this on a light tap.
Surely her pokemon is getting tired by now? He can’t tell if it’s attacking any slower, but Joey is finally starting to feel the past few minutes of constant movement. Blue watches the shots of water hit closer and closer, and debates trying an attack before Joey gets too slow…
No. Now is the time for patience, not decisive action. He’ll stick to his plan.
It happens a few Water Guns later: the poliwhirl bobs up and spurts a jet that nails Joey square in the face. The rattata’s light body goes tumbling back, and Blue withdraws him immediately.
Good job.
He reclips the ball, and chooses another.
“If you send out another pokemon that’s just going to dodge over and over, I’m going to just leave and declare you the loser,” Amy says, voice flat.
Blue grins. “No you won’t. You already said all I have to do is beat your poliwhirl. You didn’t give a time limit, and you’re not going to go back on that now.” He hopes. “Go, Zubat!”
“
This is ridiculous!”
Amy glares at him as his pokemon materializes and begins fluttering around the room. “What can you possibly mean to do with that?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”
She scoffs. “Fine, have it your way.” And with that the fight is on again, the poliwhirl bobbing out of the water to spit a stream at his zubat.
Thankfully it’s as hard to hit as Zephyr was, and has its own projectile of sorts. “Zubat, Supersonic!”
His pokemon hovers in place and sends a tight beam of sound, inaudible to Blue or Amy, at the poliwhirl just as it ducks beneath the water. Blue can’t tell if it was affected or not, the move is unreliable even in the best of circumstances, but now at least he has a chance to fight back.
As the battle continues, Amy becomes visibly more cautious. Her gaze never leaves his pokemon as she presses buttons again and again, directing her poliwhirl around the arena to shoot and duck and circle around again. Blue tries to time the gap between each shot, but she keeps things unpredictable, sometimes coming up just a few seconds later on the same side of the arena, another time staying under for almost a minute before appearing at the corner nearest Blue.
Time is on her side, and she knows it. Her pokemon is in its element, barely using any energy to swim from place to place, more or less at its leisure. Meanwhile, his zubat is fluttering madly about, no stalactites or other objects on the ceilings or walls to rest on, even if that wouldn’t make it a sitting target. Blue begins to wonder if Amy’s also spacing out some of the attacks to let any confusion that might linger from a Supersonic fade. If he’s being optimistic, he can interpret her occasional button pushes that don’t result in anything as her pokemon being too disoriented to follow orders, but she’s also probably just moving it from place to place, or even trying to mislead Blue. He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the buttons on the handle didn’t do anything.
Some would call that paranoid. If there’s one thing Blue has learned from watching a thousand competitive trainers battle, it’s never to underestimate the depths they’ll go to hide their methods and mislead opponents.
He’d like to think he learned the lesson well.
“Zubat, Supersonic!”
Zubat sends another beam of sound down, but instead of dodging away as Blue expected, Amy’s poliwhirl just shoots another Water Gun, then another and another. His zubat is hit by the second and fourth, and Blue quickly withdraws it before looking at Amy’s poliwhirl.
This time its confusion is clear, the pokemon swimming left and right, then turning over to kick its webbed feet into the air for an ineffective dive. Amy keeps pressing the same button over and over, waiting for her pokemon to snap out of it.
This is his chance. But is it time yet? He could send Kemuri out now, get a quick Razor Leaf in…
“Go, Ekans!”
His pokemon appears on the stadium and uncoils. Its tongue flicks out as it gets its bearings, then turns to the poliwhirl still floating in the water. “Acid!”
Amy presses a button, and her pokemon ducks beneath the water. “Seriously?” She asks, hand on a hip. “You’re using your fourth slot for an ekans?”
Blue shrugs. It won’t leave room for Maturin, Gon and Kemuri, but if Blue’s right, he won’t need both of his Grass types. “I’m the one that should be indignant,” he says. “You were faking that confusion, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she asks, pressing a button, and Blue quickly yells for his pokemon to dodge as the poliwhirl attacks again.
Blue smiles. She’s attacking so soon again to prove that she didn’t get lucky with her poliwhirl diving at just the right moment. He’ll likely never know whether her poliwhirl was ever really confused or not, but it wouldn’t have changed his plans if he did.
The battle continues more evenly matched than ever, with Amy’s poliwhirl having to dodge the sprays of acid his ekans shot out of its mouth every time it was attacked. His pokemon isn’t as good at dodging as the others, but he’s able to do some damage before he takes a couple hits and Blue withdraws him. Amy’s poliwhirl has visible burns on its skin from small splashes of acid.
“Two left,” Amy says. “It’s now or never.”
Blue nods. It’s time. “Go, Kemuri!”
Amy presses a button as soon as Blue’s pokemon appears, and when the poliwhirl bobs to the surface, it grips the sides of the arena and stares at the plant pokemon in unwavering concentration.
“Kemuri, dod-”
A beam of white light flash-freezes the ground as it traces a path upward toward Kemuri. Blue’s pokemon reacts too slowly to completely avoid it, and ice covers one of its leafy arms.
Ha.
Blue knew she had an ice move just waiting for him to bring out a Grass Type. Now he knows better than to use Gon for his sixth pokemon. The shroomish wouldn’t have stood a chance, with his stubby legs.
As it stands, even Kemuri wouldn’t be able to keep up… but Amy’s poliwhirl is hurt, and must be at least a bit tired by now.
The poliwhirl dives out of sight, then reappears on the other end of the arena, preparing to shoot another beam. This time Kemuri dodges it, and the match becomes a game of whack-a-diglett as Blue’s shiftry leaps from place to place, avoiding Ice Beams and swiping at the poliwhirl with his unfrozen arm. His Leaf Tornado would be practically worthless while it thawed, and Blue is tempted to focus on dodging until it does. But if he gets taken out without doing any damage, Blue would be in a tight spot. He needs to either finish things now, or weaken the poliwhirl enough for Maturin to finish it off.
For now though they appear to be at a stalemate. Each time the poliwhirl tries to fire off another beam, Kemuri reaches it before it can and swipes, forcing it to dive back under. Poliwhirl aren’t naturally capable of ice attacks, which means Amy used a TM to teach it… and while it’s useful to have the wider coverage, especially against Grass types, it would never be as efficient or effective with the attack as an Ice pokemon.
Blue’s pulse jumps as the poliwhirl suddenly shoots out a Bubblebeam on its next surface. A rapid
popopopopop
fills the stadium as the stream of exploding bubbles strikes Kemuri and slows it down. “Kemuri, d-”
“Poliwhirl, Ice-”
“-odge!”
“-Beam!”
His pokemon abandons its forward momentum and throws itself to the side as the poliwhirl stops its attack and concentrates on another beam of freezing white light. It catches his pokemon in the side, and Blue knows it’s now or never. “Razor Leaf!”
Shivering and half covered in frost, Blue’s pokemon spreads the leaves of one hand and
swings
it, sending the sharp tips of each flying out like spinning shuriken. Amy’s poliwhirl is just ending its attack when they strike it, and the pokemon immediately ducks under the water, which darkens with its blood.
Blue quickly withdraws his pokemon and waits while Amy taps a button on her controller, pokeball in her other hand. They wait in tense silence for a few moments, and then her poliwhirl jumps out of the water and lands on the stadium, glistening skin retaining most of the water so that barely any drips onto the floor.
Amy hops onto the stadium floor and inspects her pokemon’s wounds. Blue can see the bleeding gashes along its arm and to the side of one bulbous eye. They appear to be superficial wounds, not enough to take it down if this was a real fight in the wild, but…
Amy turns to him. “What have you got left?”
“I was going to use my squirtle,” he says, and wonders if he should mention his shinx. It would make quick work of her pokemon, maybe would have even beat it while it was fresh, but he’d rather not reveal it until he faces Misty, just in case…
Amy deliberates a moment, then nods. “Okay, you win. But I want to know why it took you so long to bring your shiftry out,” she says as she takes out a potion and sprays her poliwhirl’s injuries. She murmurs something to it as she feeds it a poffin, then withdraws her pokemon and leans against the wall of her platform, arms crossed. “Spill.”
Blue feels himself relax as soon as she admits defeat, and leans against his platform railing as his battle calm slowly leaks away, replaced with a giddy relief. “I was partly trying to draw out the match,” he admits. “It was a great chance to give my pokemon some combat experience.” Part of him is a little disappointed he didn’t get a chance to send Maturin out. “But there was more to it than that. I watched your fight with Misty, and I knew I had to test for a range of attacks. I didn’t want you surprising me with a reverse coverage move the way you did her.”
The corner of her mouth twitches upward. “I thought you said you weren’t following me?”
He grins. “Those were your words, I just said I’ve been busy. But not too busy to watch Misty’s most recent battles, considering my plans to challenge her and all. I didn’t know you stayed after, that was an actual surprise, but I was happy to let you assume it also meant I didn’t see your battle.”
“Hmph. Well, as irritating as it was, you definitely earned the victory.” She cocks her head a bit, considering him. “You’ve got what it takes to go far, Blue. I look forward to seeing your Challenge.”
Her calculating look strongly reminds him of his sister. The two of them would probably get along, now that he thinks of it. Daisy tends to treat him like a kid more often than not, but once he shows his competence in an area, she respects him as an equal, more or less. It’s something he appreciates. “Thanks. For the match, too.”
“No problem. You going to hit the pokemon center?”
“No, I’ll be ready for the next battle in a minute.”
She raises a brow, but doesn’t comment. “Alright, I’ll go let them know. Good luck.”
Blue sits down and opens his bag, taking potion and ether bottles out so he can start healing his pokemon up for their next opponent.
Red sits cross-legged on his bed at the Trainer House, eyes closed and earphones on. The soothing sound of the ocean rushing against the shore fills his ears, and he can almost feel the hot sand and sunlight, almost smell the salt as he imagines himself on the beach…
Wait, no, he’s supposed to be focusing on his breathing. He banishes all thoughts of the beach and just focuses on drawing air in slowly through his nose… but now memories of going to the beach crowd in, playing in the sand with the Oaks or walking between his mom and dad along the beach, his small hands in theirs… His mom’s face, so happy, and his dad, looking at him with love-
Red’s eyes snap open. He sighs, and he reaches out to stop the sound loop playing on his phone before searching for a new one. Again.
It’s been two hours since he checked into the Trainer House with Leaf and came up to claim a bed. She said she was going to buy a laptop, then go around town talking to the locals. Red was curious what she was up to, but just agreed to talk to her later. He was eager to try meditating again, this time without distractions. Unfortunately, after doing some basic practice with an audio guide’s voice, he was failing at doing it on his own, which the websites for practicing sensitives insisted was necessary.
He already went through various online suggestions: acoustic music, which he found too distracting, the sound of rain and far-off thunder, which made him sleepy, and the crackle of a fireplace, which brought back more memories of camping with his dad.
Meditation never worked for Red before. He couldn’t stop the racing thoughts that ran through his head long enough to relax or clear his mind… despite his therapist telling Red he wasn’t actually supposed to clear his mind, that that was impossible. How did she put it?
“
Imagine a river,” his therapist said, sitting in lotus position across from him. “It is your mind. In it, your consciousness, the thing that you call Red,” she extended a finger and touches it between Red’s eyes, “is the fish that swims surrounded by its water, your thoughts. You swim sometimes left or right, up or down… but you follow the river’s flow, barely aware of it. Only when you try and resist the current and swim upstream are you fully conscious of the effect the river has on your behavior.”
“
So, meditation is going to help me control the current?”
“
No, that is impossible. The river is you, but its current is shaped by things that are not you. The riverbank, the rocks in the earth, the rains. You cannot control the world around you. You can only react. While our eyes are closed, and we focus on our breathing, you will think random thoughts. You will hear things that draw your attention. A door closing in another office, or a phone ringing. They will distract you, return you to the river’s flow. Your job is to stay above the current. To sit on a rock in its waters, letting them flow around you, through you, wet without being submerged. When a thought flows by, pick it up, examine it… then let it go. Return to your breathing, your awareness of your body, and you will be at peace, no matter how the river rages.”
Red drums his fingers on his knee, then decides to give it a shot. He queues up a looping river soundtrack, and soon his ears are filled with the babbling of a brook, and the soft sigh of the wind through leaves above. When no memories immediately intrude, Red closes his eyes and tries to focus on his breathing again.
Breathe in…
He draws the cool air into his lungs, slowly, counting to three.
Breathe out…
He feels it exit his nose in a steady trickle, over the course of another three seconds.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
This is dumb.
The thought comes unbidden, despite his desire to focus on the meditation. Red finds it frustrating that even without intrusive memories, his mind is still offering up distractions.
Breathe in…
I should be working on getting published.
Breathe out…
Or just training with one of my po-no, focus!
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Red is suddenly aware that his left foot is a bit uncomfortable, tucked under his right knee the way it is. He adjusts it slightly, then tries to go back to the breathing.
Focus on the feeling of air moving through your nose and lungs. Nothing else. Just feel that.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
The sound of the river is calming. He can almost picture himself there, and decides to do exactly that. First just the river, its banks green and surrounded by forest. Then he places a big, mostly flat rock in the middle of the river, just large enough for a boy to sit on it. He watches the water split around it, lapping occasionally at the edges. Finally he places himself on the boulder, sitting as he imagines he looks now.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Without audio or visual distraction, he’s able to focus entirely on his thoughts and sensations. The feeling of his shirt on his skin, the pressure on his lower legs, the soft pillow against his back. His mind keeps wandering to Blue and Leaf and his mom and Professor Oak and Daisy and his dad, but in a way that gets more and more diffuse, easy for him to ignore and refocus on his breathing.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Eventually he feels like he’s as focused as he’s going to get, and starts ramping up his awareness. First he focuses on the crown of his head, and, imagining a ring of light, slowly traces it down to his neck, heightening his awareness of each part it passes. When it reaches his mouth he feels his tongue stuck to the roof of it, and relaxes his jaw to let it fall. It feels strange though, and after a moment he realizes he stopped moving the ring down, too distracted by the odd sensation of forcing his tongue to find a comfortable position so he can’t constantly feel it.
He sighs and opens his eyes again. There are a couple others in the room with him, one lying on their bed and reading, the other talking on their phone. Red considers taking an earplug out to hear what they’re saying, then banishes the impulse as sheer nosiness born from akrasia.
He forces himself to close his eyes and try again, picturing the river, the rock, himself, returning to his slow, steady breaths. This time when the ring reaches his mouth, he just lets it fall open a little, leaving his tongue in a comfortable and unobtrusive position.
Unfortunately now he keeps thinking of how he looks to anyone passing by, who would probably think he fell asleep. He almost closes his mouth, then decides against it. What should he care what strangers think?
…But now he’s busy thinking that just thinking about how he shouldn’t be distracted by what other people are thinking is distracting hi-
Breathing, focus on the breathing.
In… out… in… out…
He finally moves the ring of light farther down, past his chin and neck, over his chest. He becomes aware of his heart beating, and even more aware of the expansion of his lungs, before his stomach starts to distract him. It’s been a few hours since breakfast, and he’s getting a bit hungry…
Red tries to move past the sensation, but now his mind keeps wondering what he’ll have for lunch, and whether he should ask Leaf to join him, and if he should try again when he’s full. After five minutes he decides to start all over, returning to his breathing, then imagining the river, then starting the ring of light at his head and moving it down his ne-
Bing!
Red’s eyes snap open as the river sound is interrupted by the received message alert. He sighs and checks it, surprised for a moment to see that over an hour has passed since he began meditating.
His irritation vanishes when he realizes the email is from a publishing journal interested in his study.
Trainer Red,
We found your paper on the research boards looking for peer review and publication. We find your hypothesis and results fascinating, and would like to volunteer our services. If you find this agreeable, please contact us at your earliest convenience.
Yours Truly,
Advanced Research Publications
Red grins as he starts composing a response. He cautions himself not to be too optimistic, but still, it’s hard to be less excited at the prospect that today he might get his Researcher’s license. Well, not
today,
but from a chain of events that start today.
Once he sends his response, Red grabs a snack bar from his bag and starts munching on it as he paces, thoughts of lunch with Leaf forgotten. He notices the odd looks from the others in the room and goes out into the hallway to pace instead, checking his phone every so often even though he knows it will alert him when one arrives.
He’s looking at his screen when it does, and his grin slowly fades as he reads it. He stares for a moment, thumbs hesitating over the response keyboard. He starts typing a few times, only to delete what he wrote a few words in, until he finally just calls the number in the email signature.
“Hello, Advanced Research Publications, how may I direct your call?”
“Hi. Uh. I got an email about interest in publishing my paper, and had a few quest-”
“Please hold.”
Red listens to the waiting music with a slight frown, and continues pacing the hall. After a moment he realizes he’s still holding his snack bar and tucks it in his pocket. Of course it was all too good to be true. But still, he has to know for sure…
“Hello, this is Donald, how can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m Red Verres, I received an email about publishing my paper… I had some questions, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Okay Red, give me one moment…” Red hears typing, and stops pacing so he can lean against the wall as he waits. “Yeees, I see. Well, what did you want to know, Red?”
“The email, it asked for… money. A lot. I just wanted to clarify, is this a submission fee, or a publication fee?”
Please say publication…
“Submission, but I can assure you that we only send such offers to those we have great confidence in reaching our standards.”
“Are the offers made post peer review?” What an odd order of operation…
“No, technically that will still need to be done. But if you’re worried, we offer a very dynamic review process. And if the submission fee is a bit too high, we offer reductions if you have volunteer reviewers that will work with us.”
Red blinks. “I’m sorry, I don’t know if I heard that right. Did you just say volunteer reviewers? I pick them? To review my own paper?”
“Absolutely. We at ARP believe in an open access scientific community.”
“So I can just have my two friends submit their reviews?”
“As long as they have a Researcher’s license, we welcome their expertise.”
“Oh, well, that makes everything better.” Red clenches his teeth and takes a calming breath. It does help, but not by much. He holds out hope that maybe this isn’t as bad as he thought. “So is this submission fee in lieu of a publishing fee?”
“There is a minor publishing fee too, as we’re not subscription based. Our papers are offered free for all on our website, to ensure that your research has the highest chance of being read and cited.”
Red relaxes a little. That’s a bit more reasonable, then… and he does want people to read it, after all. “Well, how much is the publishing fee?”
“Eight hundred. But you can pay it in installments, and if you agree to review papers for our journal, we can reduce it for each paper you review, down to three hundred.”
Red’s hand rises to cover his eyes. “Because once I get published, I’ll have my Researcher license, and can review others to get their papers published too.”
“Exactly! If you’d like to submit your paper with reviewers, I can go ahead and email you the proper forms. If you have trouble finding reviewers, we can put you in contact with some who-”
“Yeah, sure, just email me whatever. Thanks.” Red hangs up and sighs.
Thanks for not getting my hopes up, Past Red.
Anytime, Future Red.
Red feels like complaining to someone, and squashes the impulse to call his mom or Professor Oak. Leaf might be more acceptable, but he doesn’t want to distract her from her work. Instead he simply goes back to his room and finishes his snack bar as he lies on his bed and renews his search for journals to submit to. Journals that aren’t pyramid schemes churning out unvetted papers.
After Red submits to a few more places, he considers trying meditation again, and instead decides to scroll through recent research discoveries. There are some neat findings on different metal compositions in “Steel” Type pokemon that keep him engrossed for an hour, which leads him to some of the latest papers on interregional pokemon diversity. Red thinks back to his conversation with Professor Oak about there being no psychic rattata, and his recent readings about sensitives versus psychics.
Of course, it’s possible for there to be rather large differences in pokemon from different regions. Over millennia, natural selection is a powerful force for change. There may be no rattata that are Psychic Types, but in the Alolan islands there are Dark ones. Not just that, their raichu are Psychic, their exeggutor aren’t, their meowth are Dark, and their marowak have powers normally associated with Ghost Type pokemon. The regional differences there prove that whatever trait causes pokemon to become a type like Psychic or Dark can be introduced into a genetic pool, or manifest after enough mutation.
Red thinks of pokemon like noctowl and spinarak, who have some limited psychic powers, but aren’t considered Psychic Types. Maybe someday, somewhere in the world they’ll have developed what rudimentary powers they have, and be considered full Psychic Types.
If so, Red hopes whoever discovers them has the sense to call them something new. He wonders if researchers like Darwin debated what to call them when they discovered such variations in their travels. Red’s not sure why the alternate evolutions from Alola are still called “raichu,” “exeggutor,” “marowak” and “meowth,” rather than given their own names like others, such as gallade and froslass.
Semantic confusion aside, discovering his own variation would make for an amazing discovery. Journals would pay
him
to publish that paper.
Red takes out his notebook and makes a reminder to read more into pokemon breeding. If he can identify the strongest psychics in spinarak populations, maybe he can breed the first ever Bug/Psychic spinarak.
He could start reading about it now, but he has enough on his plate. With reluctance, he puts such thoughts aside and gets back to work on his abra plan. He starts drafting proposals to put on the city’s message boards to attract other trainers.
What really irks him is that he’s going to have to share the method with others. It would get out eventually, he knew, and it should, if it would lead to more people being able to catch and study abra. But it would have been nice to get some exclusive benefit out of the idea first, instead of sharing it with a dozen others, aside from Leaf and Blue.
But then, is that really necessary? Surely they don’t need a dozen. Red abandons his current draft and decides to work out exactly how many people it would take to safely enact.
He quickly realizes that while stronger trainers would require less of them, they would still need a lot of them in any case just to cover the full area necessary. What he needs is to find a place that doesn’t need so much caution, so that more trainers aren’t necessary. Or even a place near a Ranger Outpost around Cerulean Bay, where the abra are found…
Something tugs at Red’s memory. Blue. Something Blue said, recently. About abra? No, about the area. Land around Cerulean Bay is incredibly expensive to own, and a lot of it to the west is untamed, while the north…
The north.
Red sits up and calls Professor Oak.
“Hello Red! I was just going to have lunch, do you mind if I call you back?”
“No problem Professor, but I just have a quick question.”
“Yes?”
“I need to talk to Bill.”
“Thank you!” Leaf waves at the taxi as it makes a u-turn, driving off back down the singular road that goes all along Cerulean Bay. Beside her, Red looks around at the verdant fields on one side of them and the shocking blue of the water on the other. He can just make out the mountains from here, those around Moon to the west and the smaller range to the north.
“This place is so pretty,” Leaf says as the wind whips her hair back. She raises a hand to shove her hat down more securely, and slowly turns to take it all in. “I’m surprised more people don’t live here.”
“I guess that’s one of the perks to being able to afford all this land.” Red steps off the road and onto the small path through the long grass. In the distance, he can just make out a building that looks far too wide to be a single person’s house. “Lack of neighbors, if you don’t want them.”
“Makes you wonder why he invited you.” Leaf sprays herself with some repellant, then offers it to Red, who does the same. “I mean I’m happy to come along, but couldn’t you guys just talk on the phone?”
“Once he knew what I wanted, he insisted.” Red shrugs. “I’m just happy to get to meet him.”
They make their way toward the house, which slowly resolves itself into several distinct shapes. Technically the house can be referred to as a cottage, relatively small and quaint looking, but it’s connected to so many wider, more modern buildings around it that the whole thing can easily be referred to as complex. Red spots a proximity sensor stuck in the ground to their left as they get within a kilometer of it, and wonders what Bill does if there’s a real threat in the area. From what he understands, the tech-genius has never distinguished himself as a particularly powerful trainer.
They just reach the clearing around the buildings when Leaf suddenly grabs Red’s arm and pulls him to a stop. “Red,
look!
”
Red follows her finger, and feels his heart jump into his throat. In the distance, right near the front door of one of the side buildings, there’s the unmistakable pink and fluffy form of a clefairy. The squat bipedal pokemon is just standing there, and Red quickly grabs a pokeball out of his pocket.
“Should we summon something?” he whispers.
“Might scare it off,” she says, holding her own pair of pokeballs now. “You go left.”
He nods, and the two split off to either side, moving slowly and quietly. Red can hear his heartbeat as he takes step after careful step forward, the wind threatening to blow his cap off as he stays carefully upwind of the pokemon.
Won’t matter, their hearing is much stronger than their smell, maybe Leaf should summon her Wigglytuff after all…
But the clefairy continues to just stand there as they approach, and Red gets close enough to see it’s looking right at him. He freezes, waiting for Leaf to approach it from the other side, when suddenly-
“About time. What took you guys so long?”
Red stares.
Leaf stares.
The wind blows Red’s hat off, and he doesn’t move.
The clefairy is still looking directly at him, voice surprisingly loud considering the distance between them, and all too human.
“Come on in, I need your help with something.” It turns and starts walking toward the front door.
Red stares after it, then turns slowly to Leaf, whose face is as blankly shocked as he imagines his is. It feels like his brain is broken. His mouth moves silently for a moment, then can only emit a flat, calm, “What.”
Red watches the clefairy walk away, mind stuttering and restarting between thoughts.
I notice…
No seriously what-
IT’S A TALKING CLEFAIRY
…that I…
-is that a talking pokemon I didn’t see its mouth move-
CATCH IT NO WAIT BRAIN DAMAGE(?!)
-but the sound definitely came from it or maybe the house behind it-
…am confused.
“The fuck,” Leaf finishes in a deadpan voice
And then the clefairy reaches the front door and vanishes.
Red’s brain finally lurches back into gear as it processes this final bit of information, and everything snaps into place.
Red glances at Leaf, whose expression of sudden understanding mixed with both relief and disappointment makes him suddenly begin to giggle.
Leaf looks at him, then begins to giggle too, until they’re both laughing full out. Red falls to one knee and Leaf stumbles over to the wall to lean against it, face turning red as she struggles to stay standing.
“Your… face…” she eventually says between bouts of smothered giggles. “It was like… your brain was melting!” And then she’s laughing again.
Red picks his hat up and wipes a tear away, still giggling. “You weren’t much better,” Red gasps, trying to catch his breath. “I think that’s the first time… I heard you curse.”
Leaf shakes her head, still giggling. “Nope. You didn’t hear anything.”
“Fair enough. And I definitely didn’t almost think I saw a talking pokemon. In fact, as far as anyone else will ever know, we both comported ourselves like the intelligent, level headed trainers we are.”
“Agreed.” She takes a deep breath, then pushes away from the wall, testing her balance for a moment before being satisfied. She turns to the front door, still smiling. “Why does he even have a clefairy hologram outside his house in the first place?”
They both jump as an arbok suddenly appears in front of them, swaying from side to side with its hood flared. “Would you have preferred something like this?” the voice says. “The point was to bring you this way without making you feel threatened.”
“W-why wouldn’t you just use the speakers instead?” Red asks, pulse once again dashing frantically at the sudden appearance of the arbok. Red can definitely tell the voice is coming from the direction of the door now.
“The answer will be obvious once you step inside. Which you still haven’t done. Now hurry up.” The arbok vanishes.
Red and Leaf exchange a look.
“Think whatever he’s using to watch us has a recording of us losing it?” Leaf asks, face straight.
“Almost certainly,” Red sighs. “Ah well. So much for secrecy.”
Leaf nods sagely. “Fuck it.”
And the two begin giggling again as they step toward the door, which automatically opens to reveal a straight, bare hallway.
The temperature inside is cool, the lights dim but steady. At the end of the hallway the clefairy waits for them, and in the dimmer light it’s easier to see the latticework of thin colored beams coming down from dots on the ceiling to make the image. As they approach, it takes the left hand path, leading them through a living room. There’s an attached kitchen, and the clefairy stops outside it.
Red and Leaf stare at it a moment, and then Bill’s voice makes them both jump. It’s loud, coming from all around them. “Grab me a soda, would you? Feel free to help yourselves too.” He sounds distracted, and Red hears the hum of an open mic for a moment before it cuts.
The two exchange glances, then Leaf slowly steps forward and opens the fridge. “Um. Preference?”
“Uh, anything’s fine.” Red takes the can and looks around. He spies a bathroom through an open door, and a bedroom in yet another. All of the rooms are barely furnished with bare walls. “Should we wait here?”
“This way.”
The clefairy walks toward a stairway in the corner, and disappears. Red wonders if it would reappear at the bottom, but when he and Leaf descend, they find themselves facing a door made of some strange, opaque glass. A red beam quickly scans them from head to toe, causing both to recoil and wince, and then the door begins to make pneumatic noises as it unlocks, shifts in place a bit, then slides open.
The first thing that Red notices is the music, a light and quick instrumental song, mostly composed of the violin and piano. It’s loud enough that Red is surprised he didn’t hear even a bit of it before the door opened.
Red and Leaf stare at the laboratory beyond the doorway. Rows and rows of work tables, stocked with every kind of biochemical equipment known to man… and quite a few that look completely alien to Red.
The rows of different microscopes are easy to identify, but next to them is something that looks like a cross between a fridge, an incubator and a thermocycler. Meanwhile, the actual thermocyclers are on their own table next to some vortexers.
The most extraordinary sight, however, is the sheer movement of the lab.
Centrifuges are spinning, racks of stoppered vials shift up or down, contents plucked by robotic arms and placed in temperature controlled containers or other equipment.
The music cuts off, and Bill’s voice fills the room. “Well? Come in.”
The two step over the threshold together, and the door closes behind them in a way that Red can’t help but find ominous. All the strangeness is starting to worry him. How much does anyone really know about Bill, anyway? The guy is notorious for being secretive, yet he invites two strangers into his lab without apparent reason?
Professor Oak wouldn’t send us here if Bill was some crazy hermit…
Unless Bill went crazy recently.
“Uh. Hi, Mr. Sonezaki,” he says. “Are you here?”
The clefairy appears ahead of them, floating over a round indentation in the floor and ceiling. It doesn’t move, but merely points an arm. Apparently the hologram network isn’t as extensive here. Red studies the indent in the floor as they pass it, but can’t see anything that explains its purpose.
They pass rows of freezers and other chemical storage containers, all labeled with a dizzying amount of materials. Electrophoresis boxes, fume hoods… is that a hazchem suit draped over the back of that chair?
“Just one person works here?” Leaf asks as they pass some NMR and chromatography work tables, with enough spectrophotometers to take up their own wide table.
Red stops moving for a moment to study a series of 3D printers set against one wall. “I don’t think even Pallet Labs has this much equipment.” He keeps walking, then has to resist the urge to stop again and study what look like automated DNA extractors. “I knew he was rich, but the amount of money he could make renting this place out…”
“I think I have a new definition of the word,” Leaf murmurs as they pass from one section of the lab to another. Another holopad appears every so often, with floating clefairy pointing them first one way, then another as the lab continues to expand in different directions. One finally points them to a man, sitting in front of over a dozen glass boxes.
“Give me a minute,” the man says, back to them. “You can pour the soda in here.” He tilts his head to the side to indicate an empty cup with a straw in it.
Leaf and Red approach to look over Bill’s shoulders at his work station. Screens show each box containing a large petri dish with small, thin teal vines, all roughly the same size. As they watch, a drop of purple liquid falls onto each from small droppers suspended over them. Another drop falls, then another, then another, every few seconds.
“What are you doing?” Leaf whispers, both cans of soda still in her hand.
“Testing…”
Drip.
“The regenerative power…”
Drip.
“Of tangela cells.”
Drip.
Red leans closer. “What’s in the-oh.” Red watches on one of the screens as a drop of the liquid hits a vine and makes a part of it wither, the vibrant teal turning brown… for a moment at least, until it suddenly fills out and regains its color again. Red watches the liquid etch a scar down either side of the vine to collect in the edges of what he originally took to be a petri dish: instead it’s a plastic lid over some kind of drain.
“Roserade acid,” he says, typing with one hand and reaching for his cup with the other. “They look like they’re fully recovering, but they weren’t always this small. Biomass decrease has been mostly linear. We should be near the end soon… Hey, the soda?”
“Oh!” Leaf says. “Right.” She opens a can and pours it into the cup, slowing as the foam builds up.
“Thanks.” He immediately turns his head a bit and begins drinking from the straw.
Red watches him, feeling a bit surreal. Whenever he imagined someday meeting Bill Sonezaki, it was never like this. Up close, the legendary inventor appears older than in videos and pictures. Though still in his mid thirties, there are already silver streaks in his hair, and deep lines around his eyes. He has a few days worth of scruff on his cheeks, and there’s an odd device around one of his ears, attached to a small screen in front of his right eye. It looks familiar to Red, and after a moment he realized it reminds him of an anime where people had devices that would “scan” a pokemon’s “power level.” He can see data on the lens, though he can’t read it, and watches Bill’s eyes as they alternate between watching the camera feeds on the monitors and going out of focus to read the smaller, closer screen.
“So, uh. You said you needed help with something? Is it this?” Red leans down to get a closer look at the thin vine.
Bill sucks the last of the soda from the cup, and straightens. “Ahhh. Nope, just wanted a soda. Thanks.” He belches. “‘Scuse me.”
Red stares. “A soda.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to leave in the middle of the trial.”
“But… Professor Oak called me over an hour ago,” Red says, speaking slowly. “You’ve been sitting here that long?”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Ah, then what-”
“I’ve been here about… how long is it now, Eva?”
A woman’s voice speaks all around them, causing Leaf and Red to jump. “Three hours, seventeen minutes and thirty seven seconds.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. This latest sample blew past my expectations, or I would have brought more to drink.”
Drip… drip… drip…
“Looks like they need a refill.” He gets up and goes to each container, refilling their drippers with wide vials of bright purple acid.
I thought Bill lived here alone?
Red’s about to ask about it, when Leaf speaks up. “Um. Mr. Sonez-”
“Just Bill is fine.”
“Bill, okay. So, um, why did you invite us here?”
“Hmm.” Bill continues to drip the acid with one hand as the other changes the magnification. “You know, I can’t remember. There was something I wanted you to do for me, but I was a bit preoccupied with this when Oak called. And thirsty.”
“Was it about the abra?” Red asks. “I want to use your land, to catch some. I have an idea to-”
“No,” Bill says, frowning. “I don’t think that was it.”
Red’s stomach turns to lead, and he exchanges a look with Leaf, who gives a helpless shrug. “Are you sure? The Professor said-”
“Right, right,” Bill says, gaze still on the screens.
Red blinks, waiting for more. He wonders for a moment if Bill is carrying on two conversations at once, through his earpiece. “So… was that a yes? On the abra thing?”
“Acoustic displacement, right? Herding them into a hazard zone? Yeah, sounds fun.”
Relief floods through Red, and he sees Leaf hesitate before saying, “Sooo… the thing you asked us here to do for you… Could it have just been to bring you a soda, then?”
“No, no.” Bill slowly refills the acid in one of the drippers, one hand leaving the beaker for a moment to scratch his hair. “Maybe.”
They stare at him.
“A bit. I’m sure there was something else too though.” Bill checks the amount in the dripper feed, then moves on to the next box. “Eva, did I set a memo?”
“No, sir,” the voice says.
“Damn. Memo, Eva: ‘Make more memos. Especially after phone calls.’ Maybe if I listen to a recording of the call I’ll remember.” He continues his work silently for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nope, didn’t help.”
“I can start naming things?” Red asks. “Free association?”
“Go for it.”
“Something to do with pokemon. Something to do with catching them. Catching abra. Psychics Types. Something to do with us. Leaf Juniper? Red Verres? Um.”
“People, places, things,” Leaf says. “Pallet Town, Pewter City? Maybe about what happened with us at Mt. Moon?”
Bill stops shaking his head, brow raised as he lifts the acid container and looks at them. “Wait, what happened at Mt. Moon?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“I don’t really follow the news. And by really I mean pretty much ever.”
“Um. Well it probably wasn’t that then.”
“Was it an activity you wanted to do?” Red asks. “Talk to us about something? Our journey? The new pokedexes?”
“You know, I’m starting to think it might have been the soda,” Bill says, voice thoughtful as he finishes with the last container.
“You didn’t invite us all the way out here just to give you a soda,” Red says. He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Bill or himself. “Inviting strangers into your house, just for that? Aren’t you a really private person?”
“Ha. The media just say that because I won’t let them step foot on my property. Or grant interviews.” He returns to his desk and types something out that brings up a bunch of graphs, displays of the weight of each sample over time. “Also might be because I don’t go anywhere. People tend to irritate me. Well, I’ll figure it out. You guys are welcome to hang around while I finish this.”
“Is this… something you do often?” Leaf asks as she circles a container, then kneels a bit to look under the dish. Red wonders how she feels about watching a piece of a pokemon get experimented on. Maybe it’s not so bad since it’s just a vine, and tangela lose bits of them all the time… though Red has to wonder how big this one was when it started.
“Yes, but normally it doesn’t take so long. This new strain is definitely going to shift priorities around. Hopefully I can get this all fully automated by the end of the week, so I can start the next trials soon.”
Red blinks. “New strain? You
made
this vine?”
“Tweaked it. Tangela cells are pretty efficient at regeneration, and occasionally you’ll find one in the wild that heals at ridiculous rates. I just had to find out which genetic markers were different between them and the others, and see if I could improve it further.”
“That’s amazing,” Leaf says as she watches a vine regenerate over and over again. “Are you trying to design a better potion formula?”
“Nah, I’ll leave that to Devon. I’d rather just give people these abilities instead.”
The lab is silent but for the movement of machinery, and Bill’s fingers moving over his keyboard. Red and Leaf both stare at him, then look at each other. “Is that… possible?” Red asks at last.
“Possible? Sure, why not. Probable? Dunno. But regenerating cells is something our body knows how to do already, and if we can make them better at it, the payoff would be huge. Rapid healing, disease resistance, limb regeneration, and if we’re lucky, even stop the effects of aging. Maybe eliminate them altogether.”
Red tries to wrap his mind around humans having such powers. It would be… amazing. Just one of those would make people so much safer, reduce so much suffering. But all of them, together? It’s like something out of science fiction. He can’t help but be skeptical, but if
Bill Sonezaki
thinks it can be done, is committing his time and energy to doing it…
“And pokemon?” Leaf asks. “Are you trying to give them these abilities too?”
“Naturally.” Bill frowns at a screen, then brings up a code editing window and examines it. “I’ve spent half my life writing TMs to give pokemon new abilities. Mostly for combat, because that’s what the market wanted. But this has combat value too. The next steps are to try and spread this regeneration to other plant pokemon, then non-plant pokemon, particularly mamm-Ooh, yes, that’s it.” He sits forward, eyes on a new window that popped up on his screen.
Leaf raises her head from the box she was examining. “What-”
“Shut up, I need to concentrate.”
Leaf’s mouth drops open, eyes wide. “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Shhh, shshshsh…”
Red feels anger boiling up in his chest.
Don’t upset him, we’re guests, he might kick us out, the abra-
“Hey! There’s no reason to be so rude after she came all this way to bring you a soda!”
Leaf rapidly shakes her head at him while Bill frowns, gaze still on the screen. “Okay, sure.
Please
shut up, would you? Go explore the lab for a bit. Don’t touch anything.”
Leaf is already moving toward Red before Bill finishes speaking. She takes his arm and drags him away before he can say anything else. “It’s okay, really,” she whispers. “I don’t think he means to be rude.”
“That’s not really an excuse,” Red whispers back as they leave Bill behind. “Who goes from a normal conversation to telling people to shut up without warning?”
“Someone without people skills. Maybe something important came up. Come on, let’s look around.”
He and Leaf make their way back through the lab, and before long the music comes back on through the speakers all around them. They drink their soda and find some more automated equipment to study, watching on monitors as data is gathered and recorded throughout dozens of trials. The sheer scope of the research Bill is getting done here makes Red envious.
“And this is just one building,” Leaf says. “We haven’t crossed over into one of the others underground, have we?”
“No, I think they’re all something different.” Red looks at some transfer slots, silver container balls resting in their docks. He can imagine Bill ordering the equipment he needs into them for easy distribution around the lab. “All this stuff has been just for biochem.”
It takes almost half an hour for Bill to join them, and they still don’t manage to see everything in the lab. He walks toward them with a purposeful stride, then passes right by. “Walk with me. There were other things I planned to do today before that took up my whole morning. Luckily none of it is time sensitive.”
They follow him through the lab as he checks on equipment and the results of certain trials, occasionally muttering to himself. Red realizes he’s probably talking to the woman, Eva, whoever that is. During one of the silent stretches, Red summons the courage to ask, “So, is it okay if we speak now?”
“Speak about what?”
“I mean ask questions. Talk.”
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”
Red sighs. When he imagined meeting Bill, he always expected someone a bit more like Professor Oak than Blue. “So, that clefairy hologram. Why, exactly?”
“The external holograms are useful in general for scaring off pokemon that get too close to the buildings. The clefairy is just the least threatening one I have, so I use it to interact with people without having to go up.”
“Right, but why not use yourself instead of a clefairy?” Leaf asks.
“They’re modeled after the pokemon that have been rendered for sims. I never bothered to digitize myself.”
They reach a door like the one they entered. Red’s pretty sure it’s not where they came in, and sure enough when it opens they face a completely different type of lab from the first one.
Instead of chemistry equipment, this area seems to be full of computers and robotics. There’s a lot less movement of ongoing experiments, but a lot more visibly identifiable projects. One desk is cluttered with parts for what looks like a new pokedex prototype, while another has a dissected pokenav. Each table has mechanical arms situated around them, most of them motionless.
As they enter, the music around them changes, this time to some electronic song with an industrial sound and heavy beats. After a moment Bill mutters something, and its volume drops to a background whisper.
“Is this where you work on storage?” Red asks. Bill’s development of the interregional storage system is what he’s most famous for, but Red doesn’t see anything that looks like it would be related.
“No, storage and transmutation tech is in the physics lab. This is where I study machine learning, particularly improving narrow AI and solving alignment problems.”
“Narrow AI?”
“Weak. Focused. Able to hold a conversation or perform tasks about just a few specific things, no matter how deep that thing is.”
“Opposed to being able to learn everything?”
“Yeah. Like your pokedex. It’ll tell you all you want to know about pokemon, but ask it how to cook your breakfast and you’re out of luck.”
“Oh. Isn’t that pretty easy to program in though?”
“Sure, you could program it for any number of tasks, hardware permitting. But it’ll never learn new ones on its own. You don’t know all this? What are they even teaching in schools these days, just how to throw a pokeball?”
Red flushes. “That, and how to stay alive.”
“You’re one of Oak’s though, aren’t you? I figured you’d know more than that.”
Red catches Leaf’s glance, and takes a breath to calm himself. “I never really studied computers much. Mostly psychology, physics, chemistry, and pokemon biology.”
Bill tsks. “All that’s not going to matter much if AI keeps improving at its current rate. Should’ve studied computers.”
“I did, a bit,” Leaf says before Red responds.
“Juniper, right? I helped design your granddad’s species tracking algorithms.” Bill leads them past more machinery and electronics, then stops at a holopad and pulls on some gloves that go to his elbows. “Fun guy to work with. Even funner to drink with.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“So tell me, spawn of Cedric, what you think you know about AI, and how you think you know it.”
Red blinks. He’s only ever read that phrase in Giovanni’s writings, and those that read him. He wonders if Bill does too.
“Well,” Leaf says as Bill mutters something, and the hologram suddenly comes to life, showing some complex shape Red can’t make heads or tails of. It looks like three series of spheres spaced out with lines drawn between them in three dimensions. “I guess the first thing I think I know is that general AI is hard. And the reason I think I know that is that if it wasn’t, we would have figured it out by now.”
“Go on,” Bill says as he studies the hologram a moment. Spheres and lines shift as they watch, and eventually Bill extends a hand and casually waves it along the side of the projection, shifting the whole image to view it from “below.”
“General AI would be… well, like a person. It would be able to think for itself, or at least think so broadly it might as well be considered conscious. But it would be smarter than us, be able to think thousands of times faster. All the speed of a computer with all the flexibility of a human mind.”
“And what would this AI do?” Bill asks.
“Well, whatever we ask it to. It could run tests faster than us, solve coordination problems, collate all the data in the world and examine it objectively to make connections we wouldn’t.”
“Mhm.” Bill turns the hologram again, then reaches in and manipulate some of the lines and orbs around, faster than Red could follow before pulling back out to look at it again, and watch how it changes in response. “So you’d just use it as an Oracle?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh boy. Okay, let’s keep this basic. There are a few ways to classify AI. Some popular ones are Oracle, Genie, and Sovereign. Oracles are basically question boxes. They can’t act in the world other than to transmit information. You give the AI a set of data, ask it a question, and have it tell you the answer. Basically like the pokedex, but more broadly intelligent. Able to figure out answers you didn’t explicitly program it with.
“Genie aren’t contained. Hook a Genie up to a robot, give it a blueprint, and tell it to build you a house according to the blueprint using the materials you put in front of it, and if it’s made well, it’ll do that, then stop and wait for further orders. Or, to use an example of what’s coming soon to roads near you, put the Genies in cars that will drive you around anywhere you tell them to. A narrow Genie might choose from a set of predetermined routes to preset locations, but a more general intelligence auto could figure out its own route to custom locations. Tell it to drive you to a lake in the forest, and it’ll do it.
“And Sovereigns are the least tightly bound AI. They can take more complex orders, and carry them out in novel ways, without waiting for human approval at every step. Instead of giving the Sovereign the materials to use, you’d ask it to build you a house with whatever it could find. And if you’re not blisteringly stupid, you would put limitations on it to ensure those materials aren’t people, or pokemon, or from other houses.”
Red frowns as he watches Bill change the color of two of the spheres, which drastically alters the arrangement of the lines before he changes them back. “Are there any machines like that yet? Sovereigns?”
“Sure, in the narrow sense. Any machine that works independently on loose goals is a Sovereign. Computers trying to maximize returns in the stock market, for example. They have a goal and that’s about it.”
“Seems like a fine line between a Genie and a Sovereign,” Leaf says.
Red turns to her. “I think it’s about level of control, not intelligence. Sometimes they’re tangible, like, an Oracle like the pokedex can’t open doors or move anything, so it’s obviously constrained that way. But a Genie like an automatic car might have to ask you for permission and show its route before taking it, so you can stop it from driving you through a river. Whereas a Sovereign wouldn’t have to ask permission, it would just… do things?” He turns to Bill questioningly. “Why would anyone make a Sovereign, anyway?”
“Because sometimes you don’t know how to get to your goal at all. Remember, if AGI is being used, it’s being used to do something humans can’t. If you ask it to figure out a way to stop humans from aging, it might do it by manipulating our genetic code, or it might do it by synthesizing some wonder drug. You don’t actually know what you want it to do, you just know what you want done. It’s up to the machine to figure out what your actual desire is, your coherent extrapolated volition.” Bill frowns at his holograph, tweaks one more thing, then makes a gesture with his arm that shuts off the display. “Eva, prepare some food for us above the computer lab. Twenty minutes.” He strips the gloves off and sticks them in his pocket as he starts walking again.
“Certainly, sir. Preference?”
“Steak.”
“We have tauros and bouffalant in stock.”
“Tauros. What do you guys want?”
“Uh, anything’s fine,” Red says in surprise.
“Come on, kid, pick something.”
“Um. Come back to me.”
“No pokemon for me, please, Eva,” Leaf says, voice raised.
“Understood. I can prepare a salad of mixed greens with tangerine slices, walnuts and feta cheese to ensure a balanced nutritional meal. Is that acceptable?”
“Very acceptable, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Well?” Bill asks as he pauses to watch a mechanical arm disassemble and reassemble a series of small, complex metal pieces. It keeps trying new permutations, and Red is distracted by the blur of movement for a moment before he realizes Bill is talking to him.
“Oh, uh, pidgey burger? Please?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you, Eva,” Red says, looking around for a camera or microphone to direct his attention to.
“You’re welcome.”
“So is Eva a Genie, then?” Leaf asks, and Red suddenly feels very stupid. “Since she—it—can’t act independently, and just follows your direct orders?”
“Yep, though she has a number of autonomous routines, as you’ve seen,” Bill says as he types something into the console beside the robotic arm, causing it to stop moving and reset back to a resting state. He then leads on, walking deeper into the lab. “As far as I’m aware she’s one of the four strongest AI in the world, but that just makes her less narrow than the others. She’s still a long way from true general intelligence.”
“So you’re trying to make her smarter?” Red asks. “Win the race for AGI?”
Bill barks laughter. “Fuck no, and I’ve had to sabotage a number of projects trying to win that race. Haven’t you been listening?”
“I think so? Wouldn’t strong AI help you out a lot? I mean, you’re not, uh, ‘blisteringly stupid,’ right? Eva’s not going to turn us into hamburgers just because she, I mean it, runs out of pidgey meat.”
Bill sighs. “Ok, let’s see how smart you are, Mr. Verres. What do you want? What’s your goal in life?”
Red pauses a moment to consider how this might be a trap, then says, “To learn. Specifically, I’m most curious about the origin of pokemon species. Study how they arise, where they come from.”
“That’s it?”
Red blinks. He’s not used to people dismissing his aspiration as too
low
. “It’s one of the greatest mysteries in the world. And… there are so many hypotheses and beliefs out there, none with any real evidence to support one theory over another. Learning the truth about reality is important to me.”
“One of Oak’s, alright. But try to dream a bit bigger. What do you really
want
, if you could have anything, even supposedly impossible things?”
I want my dad back.
It takes Red a moment to shove that thought away, after the pain of it echoes through his chest, again and again and again, reverberating with his heartbeats. He puts on a thoughtful face until it passes, breaths suddenly shallow.
He knows Bill said “impossible,” but the impossible has a quality to it that the merely improbable lacks. Even if a computer could reverse engineer his dad’s genetic code from his and his mom’s, then flash grow a clone, at best the new Tom’s experiences would be made up of imperfect and disjointed memories from those that knew him. It could reassemble Tom Verres atom by atom, but where would it get an image for the brain? Short of time travel or some evidence of an afterlife, Red’s father is dead, and no scientific breakthrough, no matter how miraculous, is going to change that.
Once the ache fades, Red says, “I guess ending death would be the most important thing. Not just aging and disease, but also pacifying all wild pokemon. Make the world a truly safe place to live.”
“Fine, great, you’re an enlightened humanist. Now, what are your challenges, if you use AGI?”
“Um. Can I have a minute to think about it?”
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t take at least five.”
Red ponders this as they continue to walk around the lab. Leaf asks some questions about the future of human interface virtual reality while Red tries to think it through. He takes out his notepad and starts writing down ideas.
“Isn’t that kind of important though?” Leaf asks. “People could use that to train their pokemon so much more safely-”
“Yeah, but it’s kind of boring.”
Leaf’s eyes widen. “Boring?”
“It bores me.” Bill watches a group of small robots navigate a maze for a moment, then pulls up the past trial data from the screen beside it. “So I don’t do it.”
“But… it could solve so many problems! Help so many people!”
Bill shrugs, eyes on the screen. “So let someone else figure it out. I’ve got more important things to deal with.”
Leaf frowns. “So is it because it’s boring, or because it’s not important?”
“Both. Have you noticed that people have a hundred new problems and crises every year? They never stop finding new limits that they need someone else to help them overcome. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with it all.”
Leaf watches a robot stop moving as Bill types something on the keyboard, then start its maze over by trying a completely different route. “You talk like you’re not one of them.”
“I try not to be, when I can help it. I moved out here to get away from all their pointless needs.”
Leaf frowns. “Why bother with any of the things you do, then?”
“Because the problems I’m trying to solve
matter.
And before you ask, yes, I’m qualified to determine that. Especially since it’s my time and money I’m spending.”
“I didn’t mean to-”
“Yes you did, but it’s fine,” Bill says as he closes the program and starts walking again. “You’re still young. And that’s not an ageism thing, it’s just an objective metric of life experience.”
Red is only half listening to their conversation as he finishes sketching out his thoughts, but he catches the look from Leaf and smiles at her. “People skills,” he mouths, and her expression clears as she smiles back. “I think I’m ready,” he says.
“Alright, walk me through it.”
“Ok, so I’m not using a Sovereign at all. If I just say ‘Figure out a way to stop people from dying,’ it might just start capturing everyone in pokeballs. If I explicitly rule that out, it might make a nanobot army and go around knocking people out to put them in suspension pods that keep them alive indefinitely. If I add qualifiers like ‘make sure nothing else about them changes,’ it might find a way to stop people from dying that keeps aging. If I explicitly include a stop to aging in the requirement, it might make us stop being able to change at all, because I said ‘nothing else about them changes,’ and technically that could be interpreted as literally, everything else has to stay the same. There are just too many ways it might go wrong.”
Bill nods. “Basic, but you get the point. There are way worse things it could do.”
“Like what?”
“Remember that it’s a machine, not magic. It has to have the resources to accomplish whatever it sets out to do. It has to prioritize. Should it go for the big win that stops everyone from dying, or go for faster, smaller wins? Maybe it cures diseases first to save those people, then changes human genes to cure wounds in seconds to stop those deaths, then tries to stop aging to save the older people from dropping off.”
“None of that sounds bad,” Leaf says. “It might not be the most efficient, but it’s still saving people. Actually, it might be the most efficient after all. It’s smarter than us, isn’t it? Maybe its method of deciding would be better.”
“Better by what values? Is the life of a great grandmother with advanced dementia as valuable as the life of their great granddaughter? Even if we all agree that’s the case, and we input different weight to every category imaginable, ever see an AI play Chess, or Go?”
“Right,” Leaf says, speaking slowly. “It’ll start making decisions that don’t make sense to us.”
“It might even seem like it’s malfunctioning,” Red says. “How would we know? It might decide the main priority to save humans from dying is to stop the sun from eventually expanding, and waste all its time and the planet’s resources pursuing a path to stopping that. To us it would just look like it’s crazy and we’d pull the plug.”
Bill nods. “All this, of course, changes the more human-like the machine is in its intelligence. And it’s why it’s absolutely essential that it can communicate its intentions and actions clearly. We need to be able to understand what it’s doing and why, at all times. But that leads us to the question of autonomy. Who, ultimately, is it explaining its actions to? Who’s giving it orders? Its creator? Lot of power to put into one person’s hands. A committee? Just kill me now.”
“What about itself?” Leaf says quietly. “If it’s truly sapient, anything else would be slavery.”
“Give the girl a star!” Bill is getting more and more animated as the conversation goes on, and paying less attention to the various tasks he stops to do around the lab. Red wonders how often he has visitors, and if he misses company to talk with, even if they’re not his peers. “If we’re talking about a truly sapient machine, that’s a whole different mess. Me, I’m not bothered by the moral question as much as I am the security risk it poses. Anything with sapience and even the slightest bit of self-preservation is going to pose enormous existential risk, even if it’s just a box with a text screen.”
“But even without sapience, a strong enough AI could end humanity by accident,” Red says, thoughts spinning. “Why haven’t I heard about all this, anyway? An existential threat this big…”
“It’s
too
big,” Leaf says. “People can’t grasp it. It’s like worrying about a meteor strike.”
“But we
know
this meteor strike is coming, and soon,” Bill says. “Sure, ‘soon’ may be twenty years, or it may be fifty, or it may be a hundred. But it’s not an if, it’s a when. So, knowing all that, Mr. Verres, you still haven’t finished your explanation.”
“Right. Well. Sovereign is out, like I said. But so is Genie. Even if it’s one task at a time, that’s all it takes sometimes, especially if I’m not the only one with access to the AI. The more people it might take orders from, the higher the chances that it does something wrong, or does something the wrong way. I’m sticking with an Oracle. I teach it everything we know about biology, and ask it to tell me the instructions for designing a retrovirus that will end mammal aging. When it does, we study the design, and if it seems okay, create a batch and test it on pokemon. If it seems to work, test it on human volunteers.”
“And that’s how you would word it? ‘End mammal aging?'”
“Yeah. Even if it decides that killing something ‘ends aging,’ we’ll know from the pokemon trials before we try it on humans.” Leaf makes a face, but Red just shrugs. “Whatever the problem is, just keep re-iterating until we get it right.”
“And what if it’s communicable? You said ‘end mammal aging.’ Sounds to me like you want to end all mammal aging on the planet.”
“We’d test it in sterile chambers,” Red says. “Obviously.”
“Obviously. So, you’ve maybe got a beginning of an idea of one of the problems we face with advancing AI technology. And you started with Sovereign and worked your way down, which is the ideal way to think about AI safety.”
“There’s more to it than that though, right?” Red asks as he thinks through all the complications in designing a system that can think and act on its own “What about incentives? If it’s sapient, how do you get your machine to
want
to do things for you? Once you program its values, how do you program its incentives? There are so many ways it could go wrong!”
“Now you’re getting it.” Bill smiles. “I’m glad inviting you here wasn’t a waste of time.”
“I’m still stuck on the whole ‘slavery’ thing,” Leaf says. “There’s no way to actually stop an AI from becoming sapient accidentally, is there?”
“Not unless neuroscientists isolate what exactly consciousness is, and the brain structure responsible for it,” Bill says as he leads them to another door. Red wonders if they’re about to enter another lab or go upstairs to eat. “Until then, for all we know it might just be an emergent property of sufficiently broad intelligence, and could arise on its own if we make a computer that’s smart and flexible enough.”
The door opens to reveals a flight of stairs, leading them into a living room that looks exactly like the one they first entered to go into the biochem lab.
Bill walks into the kitchen, where three plates of food sit waiting, with a can of soda sitting beside each… the same flavors that they took earlier from the other fridge. “Help yourselves,” Bill says as he takes his plate over to the table, and Red and Leaf follow to do the same. Now that he has a moment to study it, Red notices there’s barely any room in the kitchen for someone to cook or move around: most of it is filled with a series of machines that Eva uses to prepare meals. Red looks up and sees motionless mechanical arms attached to rails on the ceiling.
“What do you guys want to look at while we eat?” Bill asks once they sit down. “Beach?” The walls suddenly have yellow sand, rolling blue waves, and piercing blue skies projected onto them in every direction, as if the three sit on a tiny island. “Forests?” The oceans are replaced with endless brown and green, and the slow roar of crashing waves is replaced with birdsong and wind rushing through countless leaves. “Cafe?” Now the walls show bustling sidewalks in Cerulean city, the forest sounds replaced by ambient chatter and traffic.
Red stares, mouth open mid-bite at the changing environment around them. “Is this… live footage?” he asks, watching a woman in a long coat with an eevee perched on her shoulder walk by on the wall to his left. If he pays attention, he can just make out the fuzziness of the image as it’s projected onto the blank walls.
“Nah, goes for about thirty minutes before it loops.”
“It’s awesome,” Leaf says. “This one’s fine with me.”
Red nods, finally biting into his burger. It’s delicious. “I think this is the coolest house I’ve ever been in,” he says, mouth full. “And the coolest labs. Thanks for inviting us here, Bill, even if it was just so you could get a soda.”
“I
know
there was something else,” Bill says as he starts to cut his steak. “It’ll come to me. In the meantime, let’s talk about your plan to catch abra.”
Red pulls his gaze away from watching someone ride by the street next to them on a tauros. “Sure. So, we’ve got some speakers, and I figured we’d use them to set up a field-”
“I know the basics. What I wanted to see for myself is what kind of person you are. Oak doesn’t give licenses out to just anyone, but it’s always good to be sure.”
“And… what kind of person am I?” Red asks.
“The kind who
probably
won’t get himself killed on my property and make me have to deal with the media. So when do you want to do it?”
“Oh. Well I figured we’d wait for Blue to finish at the gym for today, unless he gets out late. In which case, tomorrow?”
“No.” Bill shakes his head. “If you’re doing this on my land, you’ll wait till next week.”
Red blinks. “Um. Sure, if you insist. Why next week?”
“Because you’re going to spend the time between then and now preparing. You’ll find the best spot to do it, set up mock trials, and practice drills. Once you’ve got an idea of what to expect and how to respond, then you can try for real.”
“Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. Are you going to determine if we’re ready or not?”
“Ha. Like I have time for that. No, I’m not going to babysit. You’ve got the land and the time you need to figure it out. The rest is on you.”
Red nods. “I appreciate it. More than I can say. Is there anything you want out of all this? Some of the abra, maybe?”
Bill waves his knife to the side dismissively. “Let’s just say you’ll owe me a favor. Nothing particularly dangerous, and nothing illegal. It’ll probably be whatever that thing is that I can’t remember wanting to ask you to do. Sound fair?”
“Yeah, more than fair! Thanks again.”
“Don’t mention it. Oak said you’re doing this for research, right? Not just to get rich quick? Because it’s a great idea for that.”
Red swallows his mouthful and washes it down. “Yeah.” He explains his ideas, and is surprised to see Bill’s attention sharpen away from his meal.
“No luck with the research journals so far, huh?” Bill asks, tipping his soda can back as he takes a swig.
Red shakes his head, suppressing a sigh. “I probably should have taken Professor Oak up on his offer.”
“Don’t let it get you down. The whole system’s broken, believe me: I’m self funded, sitting on top of a dozen new breakthroughs a year, have an AI to make writing research papers a breeze, and I
still
get frustrated by how broken the world of science publishing is.”
Red stares at him. “Uh. How is that supposed to not let it get me down, again?”
Bill purses his lips, then shrugs. “Alright, so it should probably get you down. If it helps, it’s just another problem I’m hoping will be solved soon.”
“How?”
“Something called Raikoth that should turn the scientific publishing world on its head.”
“Is it a research Oracle?”
“In a different sense. Think of a system of linked prediction markets. Kind of complex to get into right now, and probably a few years away from ready. But in the meantime, if you ever manage to find something solid in your research, let me know. A better understanding of psychic phenomenon might be enough for me to build a whole new lab.” Bill rubs his chin. “I’ve thought about diving into it before, just didn’t think it was worth it.”
“Well, if you want to fund some exploratory research…” Red grins.
Bill chuckles, shaking his head. “You can use my land, but without some solid justification that your idea has merit, even a few hundred dollars is money I have better priorities for. No offense.”
“No, I get it,” Red says, feeling only a little disappointed. It was a long shot, but now that he knows what Bill spends his time working on, Red can’t begrudge him higher priorities.
“Are you interested in psychic research to help with AI value alignment?” Leaf asks as she spears a tangerine slice with her fork.
“That and I’d like to be psychic, if I can. How’d you know?”
She smiles. “Seems like the best way to make sure it understands what you really want.”
Bill nods. “Find out how psychic communication works biologically, and we may be able to get it to work mechanically. Not only could we control machines telepathically, we could ensure that our actual CEV is more likely to be followed.”
“CEV?”
“Coherent extrapolated volition.”
“You mentioned that before,” Red recalls. “I understand the words individually, but as a phrase I’m not sure I get it. It’s just what you want? Making sense of your will?”
“It’s Yudkowsky’s term for the ‘end game,’ so to speak. Remember when we were talking about oversight? Who’s the computer listening to? Eventually we should probably make sure that one person can’t use the machine for evil, which means programming it with the ability to make all the best decisions for everyone, itself.”
“I can’t imagine people being happy with that,” Leaf says. “They’re barely content with other humans that they elected deciding things for them.”
“Again, end-game. You wouldn’t design your first AI to do this, it’s at the end of the hierarchy of getting it to do what you
mean,
and not just what you
say
, to the point where you may not even have to say anything anymore.”
“That would mean getting every part before it right,” Red says. “Not just what you value, but also what you
will
value, which means… knowing how you think? How you will think, in any given situation?”
Bill shakes his head. “More than that, even.”
“What can be more than that?” Leaf asks.
“Okay, so first you want to make sure the machine knows what you consider important, so it can avoid altering those in the wrong way, or let you know if something you ask it to do will require it to. So if you ask it to find a way to clean pollutants out of the air, and it knows that you care about there being a certain amount of oxygen in the air for humans to breathe, then it won’t use a solution that alters that.
“Second, you want the machine to be able to model and understand what you believe, so it can tell you if something you believe is wrong. If you ask an AI to find a way to undo the effects of a human entering a pokeball, the AI should be able to understand that you’re under the assumption that they’ll be restored back to their former self. If a treatment the AI comes up with would restore a human’s intelligence but wipe out their memories and personality, it should know to let you know that.
“Third, you want the machine to be able to model your desire in asking them to accomplish something. This is the classic idea of a wish being granted in a literal fashion rather than in the way the wisher intended, and of course, it’s incredibly complex and difficult. Like before, this is the machine knowing that when you ask it to end aging, you meant that you want to end the negative effects of aging on your mind and body.
“And finally, coherent extrapolated volition. Not just what you want, given the knowledge and beliefs you have, but what you
would
want, if you had all the knowledge the AI does, and could better consider arguments for and against your beliefs, and could better judge and understand yourself and your desires.”
“That… sounds incredibly hard. And dangerous,” Red says. He stopped eating while he listened, and brings the burger halfway up to his mouth before lowering it again, still deep in thought. “You’d need to teach the machine ethics that everyone can agree on.”
“Meta ethics,” Leaf says. “The very idea of how we know what right and wrong even are…”
“Bill, who else is working on this?” Red asks. “Not just you, right?”
“No, I mostly just fund research and do some consulting work once in awhile. Bostrom, Müller, Amodei, Taylor, Russell, and many others are doing the heavy lifting. As you saw, I’ve got too many other projects to work on.”
“How much more important can they be?” Red asks.
“Well, first off, I want to live long enough to see the singularity,” Bill says as he inspects a slice of the meat and mutters something to himself, or probably Eva. “Which means I need to help make sure society doesn’t come crashing down from a series of catastrophic pokemon attacks. Improving trainer tech makes for a fun hobby, and is economical to boot, which means more money I can donate to fund other worthy causes. Then there’s solving the actual dying problem itself, whether from some antibiotic resistant pandemic, a degenerative disease, or just old age.”
Leaf twirls her fork around on her plate, looking pensive. “I have a question.”
“What’s up?” Bill asks as he uses a piece of bread to start sopping up the juices on his plate.
“When AI is built, it’ll have a body, right? Even if it’s just a box, there’s a physical location that is, in essence,
it.
”
“Yeah, and it might actually be pretty big too, depending on how powerful it needs to be. Might be a literal box, like the old computer towers that sat beside people’s desks.”
Red sees where Leaf is going. “Oh, shit. What happens if that physical object becomes a pokemon, like beldum?”
Professor Oak told him about that: the interregional panic during his school days, when a library in Hoenn was destroyed overnight from within by a swarm of the new pokemon. Investigations showed that the computers in their lab were all gone without a trace, and endless steps were taken worldwide to try and find out what happened, either to replicate it, or avoid having the same thing happen elsewhere. Efforts on both sides met with limited success.
Bill nods, face serious as he toys with the last of his food, gaze down. “It’s been talked about, believe me. Best case scenario is we get something like a super metagross, smarter than most. Worst case, well…”
“It might be sapient,” Red says, feeling a chill.
“With the way inanimate objects gain sentience when they become pokemon, it’s distinctly possible. AGI is frightening enough when it’s just limited to what computers and machinery can do. A pokemon that’s smarter than a human, and has Electric or Steel or Psychic powers? Arceus help us all… and I don’t even believe in that thousand-armed horse.”
A week, Bill said, before Red could try his abra catching experiment.
Sometimes a week feels like a lifetime. This one, Red knows, would be the blink of an eye.
As he and Leaf ride back to the Trainer House from Bill’s, his thoughts are still on all they learned from the inventor. There’s a sense of emptiness in his stomach that his burger is doing nothing to combat.
“You okay?” Leaf asks as they cross Nugget Bridge. “You’ve been quiet since we left.”
“Just thinking.”
“Your notebook isn’t out.”
Red looks at her. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It bothers you, huh?”
He snorts. “What, the part where everyone’s going to probably die in a generation or two?”
“Or the part where stopping that from happening will probably involve enslaving a newly created, intelligent being?”
“Or the part where the vast majority of people don’t care enough to do anything about it?”
Her smile is more genuine now. “Or the part where if you do anything else with your life, it might all just be meaningless?”
He chuckles. “Or the part where all our other problems are ‘boring’ and unimportant?”
“Are they, though?” she asks, turning serious. “Is he right?”
Red stretches his arms over his head and leans back. “I don’t know. Maybe he is. If so, I should probably just abandon what I’m working on now and start studying computers.”
“What if you’re not good at computer stuff?”
Red smiles. “I guess I’m just not that important then. What about you, you said you liked it well enough. Are you going to change your goals, now?”
“Ha! No way.” She shakes her head, tossing her hair over her shoulders as her eyes gleam in the passing street lights. “The weeks I spent in Pewter, learning about people, how to change their minds, write in a way that speaks to them… None of the things I’ve tried before have felt as right.”
“Or as important?”
“Yeah. I want to be influential enough to make a difference in how people think about pokemon, and maybe get more people to treat them like I do. Stop people from eating them, or glorifying battles for sport. And I’m still going to do that, if I can. But why stop there? If I can convince people to stop eating pokemon, why not also convince people to take existential threats more seriously? I’m still going to make a difference, and I’m going to do it my way.”
Red watches her, chest warm with admiration. “You’re pretty awesome, you know that?”
Her cheeks color as her eyes widen. “Um. Thanks.”
Red looks away. “Sorry. I was just… I was having trouble with it. But hearing that helped.”
“Well. Uh. Good. I’m glad.”
They ride in silence again, and after a few moments Leaf pulls her phone out and begins typing on it. Red stops trying to look casual and at ease, and eventually his awkwardness fades as he considers what Leaf said. There’s no reason to give up what he’s good at, what he’s passionate about, if it means he can make a difference in his own way. He’s not going to stop trying to learn about where pokemon come from, and the best path to figuring that out for now is still in trying to understand what psychic phenomena are. Bill even said that would be useful for potential value alignment in AI.
But what Bill talked about still makes him feel small. Helpless.
Red feels his fingernails cutting into his palms, and looks to see them clenched into fists.
…for the clever mind does naught with thought but lights a shuttered room…
He slowly forces them open.
…with these hands
—
speak ‘break!’
—
and split the world in two…
Red takes his phone out and sends a message to his mom. A few seconds later she responds:
Hey Red, how are you?
Good. Just checking in
.
Thank you hon. Are you enjoying Cerulean City?
Yeah. I met Bill! His house was nuts… he has like five of them, all connected to labs.
Exciting! What’s he like?
Red smiles.
Unique. He had a hologram outside his house of a clefairy, and when he spoke through the external speakers Leaf and I thought it was talking at first!
Ha ha! That must have been fun for you 🙂
Almost had a heart attack xP But also it reminded me, you said you found a good price for a clefairy, right?
Yep, still watching it for you. No one bought it. Want it now?
Yes please. Send it to Cerulean North’s Trainer House.
Will do. After vetting it should be available by tomorrow.
Thanks mom. Love you lots.
You too dear, say hi to the others for me *kiss kiss*
Red exits the messenger and immediately opens the pokemon market app. He checks the clefairy entries, and refreshes until he sees the one his mom mentioned disappear.
Nine hundred dollars. He told his mom he wouldn’t sell it unless he caught one at Mt. Moon… which he hadn’t.
But that was before he and Leaf nearly died in the forest fire. Before his first research project was so inconclusive. Before he found out how expensive psychic training was. Before he lost his rattata and spearow. Before Blue and Leaf almost got killed by a Renegade.
Before he met Bill, and learned just how small his ambitions and goals might actually be.
He can’t afford self-imposed disadvantages like this. He really wouldn’t mind having a clefairy of his own, but that $900 investment would easily fetch three times the price once Daisy reveals her new routine at the next Coordinator event, which will be at the end of the month, if Red remembers right.
He’ll need every resource, every scrap of luck or talent he can leverage, if he wants to make a difference in the world of today, and the future that’s coming.
Sorry, mom.
He tucks his phone away, staring outside the window as the cab navigates the lively nighttime streets of the city. He rests his forehead against the cool glass and closes his eyes.
I warned you I wouldn’t live up to your expectations.
Blue looks exhausted when Red and Leaf find him at the Trainer House in Cerulean North, but he still exudes a self-satisfied pride, even sprawled on a couch.
“You did it, then?” Leaf asks as she and Red sit in the nearby chairs. “Finished the screening matches?”
“Hit the top. Misty’s Second wasn’t in town, still gotta schedule a match with her, but then I can go for the badge. I think I’ll be ready in a couple weeks.”
“Congrats!”
“Tougher than Pewter, huh?” Red asks.
“Yeah. A lot of that was just testing me to make sure I wasn’t some scrub with a pidgey wasting everyone’s time. These people went hard. Very first match was against Amy.”
Red smiles. “Our Amy? From Viridian? Cool, how’s she doing?”
“Good. She got her badge already, staying on at the Gym for a bit. Sends her regards.” His eyelids are drooping down.
“You should head to bed,” Leaf says as Red checks the time. Only nine, but they’re still on a traveling sleep cycle, getting up and bedding down with the sun. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“No, I want to hear what you guys did first. What did Bill want?”
Red and Leaf exchange a look. “Uh. A soda, basically.”
Blue stares.
“Also maybe something else,” Leaf says. “He forgot. But he showed us around a couple of the labs and we talked about a bunch of stuff.”
“But he approved the plan,” Red says. “Said we have a week to practice before we try for real. There’s something else I want to talk to you guys about, though…” He leans toward Blue. “You know how your sister is competing in the Pokemon Coordinator Contest next week?”
August 1st
It takes most of the morning for Red to search the local advertisements and find a psychic who matches his budget. With the coming windfall, he can afford to spend some now if it’ll give him a leg up. As he waits for a response, he tries meditating again. His ability to focus isn’t much better than the first time, but he keeps practicing throughout the day, determined to make some measurable progress from one day to the next.
He also looks over the map of Bill’s property the inventor sent him. After calculating how far the sound of the wigglytuff’s singing will travel, he scrolls through the map from one corner to the next, trying to find a location with the ideal conditions: the right amount of empty space surrounded by naturally obstructing hills or trees, but with more open space beyond that for the ring of sound. He wants to do it as close to the Ranger Outpost or Bill’s house as he can, and quickly narrows his options down to three possibilities.
He takes a quick break for lunch, where he meets Blue and Leaf at a nearby cafe to show them his notes and hear about their respective days training at the gym and reading the local news. They also check the clefairy markets together, carefully marking the ones they want to buy and timing who will buy which of them when, spacing out the purchases. Afterward it’s right back to the Trainer House for more meditation practice. He picks his clefairy up from the transfer PC in the lobby, putting it immediately into storage. Much as he’d like to meet his new pokemon, he reminds himself not to get attached.
That night he finds a private workroom in the Trainer House and stares at his phone, working up his courage. This will be painful, and manipulative. But he has to tell her sooner or later, and this is when he can make the most good come of it.
Red takes his hat off and runs his hands through his hair, gripping it for a moment between his fingers. Then he drops his arms, picks up his phone, and dials his mom.
The pleasantries go by quickly, and soon he finds himself stumbling over his words.
“What is it, hon? Spit it out.”
Red takes a deep breath, and explains what he learned from Narud, including how the “psychic partition” that might be keeping him from fully getting over his dad’s death.
“Oh, Red… hon, I’m so sorry… I know you must be thrilled that you’re a psychic. After you were so excited from learning grandma was one… I remember how disappointed you were. But…” He can hear the tearful breath she takes, and feels a stab of guilt. “This thing with your father…”
“I know. It’s… a lot to take in. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but there’s definitely
something
stopping my powers from manifesting, and the feeling of that Night Shade… I’m scared, mom. I don’t want to face something like that again, or worse… have the partition break down like Narud said, and… relive losing dad again…” Red wipes a tear away, voice hoarse as pain and loneliness wells up inside him. In a way, it’s a relief to know that he’s not lying to her. He shoves the feelings down, waiting until he has control of himself again before he continues. “I really think I need to get a handle on this now.”
“Of course, sweetheart. Of course. What can I do?”
“I need lessons. I need to start learning how to use my powers. It’s expensive, though.”
“How much is each lesson? I can pay for them-”
“No! Thank you, but… I just need access to my account.”
“Oh no, Red, not your savings. I’ll be okay hon, I have some extra saved up. Let me help you with this. Just tell me how much you need and I’ll send it to you.”
Dammit.
If she pays for the lessons directly, he can’t get the clefairy. He was hoping to get another two before the contest, but it would totally empty his account, and take a bit of borrowing from Blue or Leaf: he has almost exactly $1,800 to his name. Not enough for two clefairy
and
psychic lessons… It would be better to wait on the lessons until after he sells the clefairy. But he can’t empty his account without showing a bill to his mom, and he did want to start the lessons as soon as possible.
Well, buying one extra clefairy is better than none. “
I’m still looking for the best deal, and some of them give bulk rates if I schedule more than one session at a time. Other lessons may be cheaper if I buy them on short notice, when they have a sudden opening from a cancellation. I did a lot of negotiating with psychics in Pewter for my paper, and I have to be careful to make every dollar count to get as many lessons as I can.”
“I still want to help, Red. I can’t let you pay it all yourself, you might need that money for your travels!”
Red sighs. “Okay, how about we go a half and half then? Let me use my savings while I’m in Cerulean, and I’ll send you the bill afterward, so you can put half back in my account whenever you have a chance.”
“You’re such a sweetheart. Alright, if that makes you happy. I love you, Red.”
Red runs his fingers through his hair as he rests his forehead on his palm, eyes closed. “Thanks, mom. I love you too.”
He spends the rest of the night reading local CoRRNet reports to brush up on wild pokemon in the area, and falls asleep with herd movement patterns floating behind closed eyelids.
August 2nd
Psychic Ayane is dressed very casually compared to Narud or Ranna. Her purple hair is cut short around her ears, her navy top is a simple shirt that bares a bit of her midriff, and her matching navy pants end just below her knees. She looks ready to go for a jog or have a pokemon battle rather than sit cross-legged and meditate, and yet that’s exactly what she does once Red signs the consent form.
“Our first lesson will involve Reception,” she says once they’re both seated across from each other in lotus position. Red finds it less uncomfortable than he did the first time, and wriggles his toes as he lets the tenseness out of them, hands facing upward briefly before he flips them over to mirror Ayane’s. “I don’t know how your ‘block’ operates, but it shouldn’t interfere at all with this aspect, if you were able to feel a psychic mind touch yours before.”
“I did, but it… wasn’t a pleasant experience,” Red says, taking measured breaths to prepare himself and slow his racing heart.
“I’ll attempt to be as gentle as possible,” she assures him, and closes her eyes. He does the same. “Are you ready?”
“Uh… give me a second.”
Inhale… two… three… four… exhale… two… three… four… inhale…
“Ready…”
“First, I want you to understand what I’m doing. My mind is aware of others who pass nearby me, but that awareness is not connection. It’s the difference between seeing someone in your peripheral vision and locking eyes with them. By focusing on one of the minds I sense, I can project toward it. Beginning… now.”
Even braced for it, Red feels his skin break out in bumps as the “second mind” appears next to his own, almost entangled with it. He tries to focus on his breathing past the vertigo. After a few seconds pass, the sensation isn’t any better, but it stops growing worse. He feels like he’s balancing on a tightrope with one foot in the air.
“Are you able to continue, Mr. Verres?”
“Yes,” Red says between breaths. He keeps his voice quiet, his eyes closed. Sweat lines his brow and drips down the back of his neck. Every thought he has feels like it echoes, rebounding off the second mind beside his own, transferred along gossamer strands that connect them. “Is this… normal…?”
“No. Whoever told you about your partition was correct. Virtually all of your powers are being used to simply maintain it, and drawing them away to other tasks, even automatic ones like forming a connection, is taxing you beyond your endurance.”
“Should… we stop…?” Red asks, breath hitching between the words as a his stomach cramps. He expects a flashback to the spinarak’s attack to come at any moment, but it seems like the aftereffect really has faded. Maybe he should start training it now and make sure.
“Not unless you want to.”
“No.”
“Alright. I’m going to send across a feeling. I want you to tell me what it is.”
Red tries to prepare himself as he continues to focus on his breathing. He’s proud of himself for not quitting despite the strain. This isn’t so bad, actually, and now that he has the hang of it and knows what to expect, he’s sure he can handle more. In fact, this whole ‘partition’ thing probably isn’t a big deal either, with a few weeks of training he’ll be able to get rid of it and-
Oh.
“Optimism,” Red says, breathing out, then in again. “Confidence?”
“Hope,” Ayane says. “Good. Next.”
Red breathes out, wondering if he’ll notice his thoughts changing as they’re not influenced anymore. He’s vaguely worried about the notion that his emotions are being manipulated by an outside force: as if having biases isn’t bad enough, his unrealistic expectations of fixing his mental block in just weeks seem silly in retrospect, Narud implied it would be much harder… wait, is she projecting the opposite of hope now? Despair? Or is he just returning to his baseline? It’s so
frustrating
not knowing if his emotions are his own, if he could just
think
clearly for a moment he’d be able to-
His breathing is too fast, he’s not focusing on it anymore. He can’t slow it down though, a hot flush going up his neck. “Frustration?”
“Anger. Very good. Next.” Her words are clipped, and he opens his eyes to see her expression is cold. As he watches her however, her face relaxes into a more calm expression. He closes his eyes again so he doesn’t cheat by observing her.
He’ll have to write about all this, a journal, to keep the experience of cycling through emotions from outside influence fresh. It would be amazingly useful for awareness therapy and techniques, he’s surprised more psychics don’t go into therapy, though if they’re a standard subsample of the population there’s no reason to think any more of them would be interested or qualified for the job than non-psychics, proportionally. Still, it’s got to be easier for them, right? He wonders if a psychic therapist would have helped him more when he was young. He liked his therapist, but he would have discovered he was a psychic much earlier if one had tried something like this with him…
Breathing slowly in and out isn’t so difficult now. His shirt is sticking to his back with sweat and his stomach is still fluttering with nerves, but Red barely notices as he thinks about various applications of psychic powers in exploring the mind. Eventually he remembers he’s supposed to be trying to think of what emotion he is experiencing, but honestly he doesn’t feel anything unusual. He wonders if this is a “control” test, if she’s not projecting anything to see how he reacts. Should he peek? How long would she wait before he doesn’t get it? Maybe he just has to admit it himself.
“Don’t feel anything,” Red says between breaths. “Supposed to?”
“Yes.”
Red frowns, trying to focus harder. What is it? What’s he missing? He should list his emotions.
I’m uncomfortable, physically. I’m nervous and anxious, but that’s the partition thing, I don’t think it’s changed. I’m a little frustrated, but not a lot, yet. Am I less frustrated than I would otherwise be? Is she projecting calm? Is calm even an emotion? It’s just the absence of other emotions, isn’t it? Can you project null-emotions?
His thoughts run along those lines for another dozen breaths, and he finally shakes his head. “I give up.”
“Curiosity.”
Red opens his eyes to see her smiling slightly. “Curiosity is… an emotion? Nevermind… ‘course it is. I feel silly… but in my… defense…” He takes a deep breath to get the next part out all at once. “I’m pretty naturally curious all the… time,” he gasps, one trembling hand rising to wipe sweat from his forehead before he returns it to his knee.
“I sensed that, yes. That’s why I tried it. Remember, projections are stronger, more naturally communicated, if you build upon what is already there.”
“Noted.” The feeling of balancing on a high wire becomes more pronounced as he feels his mind wobbling, trying to shy away from the second consciousness. It’s so strange having the
feeling
of two minds without actually getting input from the second one at all… just echoes and undetectable projections. “So… next?”
“Are you able to continue?” He gives a jerky nod. “Alright then.”
They run through another few emotions before Red feels his whole body start to shiver uncontrollably, at which point Ayane withdraws her mind and he sags, breathing hard. His muscles feel loose and watery, his mind like it’s in a soft shelled egg.
“Well done,” his instructor says. “I didn’t expect the lesson to be so taxing on you, but you were still able to recognize most of them. Improving awareness is the first step: when you’re training your abra, being able to recognize when the emotions you feel are your own and when they’re your pokemon’s is vital.”
“Is the connection necessary?” Red asks as he slowly regains his composure. “If my partition is stopping me from passively sensing other minds around me, does that also stop me from receiving emotions from my pokemon?”
“No. Your pokemon will attempt to merge its mind with you regardless. It’s instinctual, a part of how they communicate and interact with others. Now at least you will know what to expect.”
Red grimaces and lifts one hand to his collar to peel his shirt away from his sweaty back. “If it feels like this, I’m not going to be able to train my abra at all. It was hard enough just sitting still. Are my powers like undeveloped muscles? Can I overcome this with practice?”
Ayane’s fingers drum on one knee. “Your ‘psychic muscles’ are not weak. They are constantly contracted, like a fist that has been closed around a ball for years. It has become stuck in position, any movement painful. In time it will become easier.”
“But too much relaxation and I’ll drop the ball?”
“Yes. You must learn to either juggle, or put the ball down.” She purses her lips. “That analogy doesn’t quite work anymore.”
Red smiles. “Yeah, it’s coming apart a bit. I think I get it though. The ball is fragile. Dropping it is bad, putting it down is safer. Any idea how to do it?”
“The simplest way is to learn how to manipulate your own memories, and simply clean out whatever is behind the partition. But that can take years to learn well. You can pay someone else to do it for you, if you trust them and are not averse to side effects. I would advise against this option unless your need is desperate. The safest route is to relax it little by little, adapt, repeat.”
“And how long would that…?”
Ayane spreads her hands. “As long as it takes.”
Red nods wearily. “Well, better get started then.” He straightens and puts his hands back on his knees, taking a deep breath. “Ready when you are.”
August 3rd
“Time!”
Blue presses the button on his aquascope, signalling Maturin to swim back to the surface. His squirtle rockets back up with a powerful kick of her legs and swish of her tail. Blue raises his eyes from the goggles in the scope, losing sight of her beneath the water just in time to see her round blue head breaking the surface of the pool. She opens her mouth wide, panting for breath.
“One minute rest, then back down. Set your own mark.”
Blue sets the timer on the aquascope, then tosses his pokemon a berry, which she quickly snaps out of the air. As she rests, Blue looks around to see how the others are doing.
The training room is filled with a series of isolated pools, each with a trainer standing beside them, aquascope in hand. Their pokemon bob at the surface of their pools, catching their breath from being submerged during their underwater exercises. Among the numerous classes designed for teaching them how to train their pokemon underwater, this one is particularly for amphibian pokemon, who also need practice staying under for extended periods of time.
Blue was having trouble getting Maturin to stay underwater for long enough to be a reasonable threat to water-breathing pokemon. This class is supposed to help him ease the squirtle into staying down longer and longer, but he finds the pace frustrating. He used a simulation program to try and train Maturin to stay underwater longer, but it only helped a little.
When the timer hits 0, Blue sends his pokemon back down along with the other trainers. He gives Maturin various commands to practice while she’s submerged, and keeps his eye on the timer that’s counting up now, waiting for the five minute mark. Squirtle can stay underwater for much longer if they don’t move much, but to fight down there, she needs to be able to stay submerged for as long as possible.
Blue presses his eyes to the scope to see Maturin swimming through the series of hoops spread out in the narrow, but deep, pool. He uses various buttons on the handle to send clicks through the water, directing his pokemon down one hoop, then up through another two.
“Time!”
Blue pulls his head up in irritation to check the timer.
Only five minutes.
He’s sure Maturin can stay down longer.
As the other pokemon begin appearing on the surface however, he can see the instructor looking at him, and presses the button to recall Maturin back up. His pokemon takes deep breaths and snatches more berries out of the air, then lies on its back and gurgles as it swims in lazy circles.
“Another one minute break!” The instructor yells out to the room, then walks toward Blue. He’s an older man, trimmed beard going grey. Only one arm comes out of his shirt sleeves, the other sleeve folded and pinned around a stump. “Trainer Blue, was it?” he asks when he gets close enough, voice low so as not to carry to the closer trainers.
“That’s me.”
“You didn’t bring your pokemon back up right away. First time here, right?”
“Yeah. She seemed fine.”
“Seemed fine, sure. Pokemon worth a damn follow orders, even if it’s painful or dangerous. What do you want, your squirtle to come up without you telling it to? Not going to get it to learn that way. Worse, it might stay down. Get itself hurt trying to please you.”
Blue frowns at Maturin, who ducks her head into the water and kicks her legs to do a quick dive before coming back up. “She’s smart enough not to do that.”
“Hey, it’s your pokemon. I guess you’d know.” The instructor’s voice doesn’t change tone, and Blue fights down his defensiveness.
“When do we do practice matches?” he asks.
“Aquatic combat is lesson seven. In this gym we do things in the right order. Relax, you’ll be there by the end of the week.” He claps Blue on the shoulder and heads up the aisle to inspect and speak with the others.
Blue looks at Maturin again to make sure she’s okay, and snorts as she spits a harmless spray of mist up at him. He chucks her another berry and tries to fight down his impatience as the timer hits 0 and he tells her to go down again.
He’s committed to putting in the time at this gym and training his pokemon right: a first time win against Misty is the only way to make up for his loss against Brock. The new narrative he would shape about learning from his mistakes wouldn’t work if he commits too early and loses against Misty again.
But he can’t afford to spend too much time taking the safe route that he loses momentum either.
In Pewter he learned a bit from the lessons, but the most progress was made by finding good training partners. Blue examines his neighbors. One is a guy about his age, a serious look on his face as he trains a seel. The other is an older girl with a totodile that looks nearly as bored as he does. He waits till after the lesson is finished, then withdraws Maturin and approaches her.
“Hey. I’m Blue.”
She turns to him in surprise. “Hi. Mary.”
“This is my first time at one of these. Do you know if the pace picks up eventually? I think my pokemon can handle more.”
“No, this is my first one too,” she says as she withdraws her pokemon. “I know how you feel though, this is a lot more basic than I thought it would be.”
“I guess they have to make sure everyone has the fundamentals first,” Blue says. “I like learning from battles, personally.”
She hesitates. “I’ve never done a water battle before. But I guess neither have you, if you’re here?”
“Yeah, we’ll both be rookies, so it should be okay.” He gives her a moment to think about it, but she still seems reluctant. Blue smiles. “Nah, you’re right. Maybe later.” He turns away, looking for someone else to approach.
“Hey, wait.” He looks to see her smiling back. “You’re on.”
August 4th, Morning
Leaf throws the ball at her pokemon as hard as she can. “Bulbasaur, catch!”
Bulbasaur wraps a vine around the ball mid-air as it sails overhead, slinging it back and around to reduce its momentum without letting it go. Leaf opens her left palm wide, leather glove stretching the mesh between her fingers, and raises her bare right hand. She snaps her fingers, then points at her glove. “Throw!”
Her pokemon whips the ball at her hard enough to make her palms sting through the protective leather, and she grins. “Good boy!” She laughs as her pokemon gambols around a bit, rear feet kicking at the air. She waits until he calms down, then throws the ball back with another “Catch!”
The sky is bright and blue above the park, acres of grass and trees acting as an island of nature in the heart of the city. The past few days of reading made Leaf a bit stir-crazy, and she decided to take the day off to stretch her muscles and train her pokemon.
Of course, the best training is more like playing.
After another half hour of catch, she goes for a jog with Scamp running at her heels and Crimson looping around overhead as she tosses berries to each. Her phone occasionally buzzes, and she checks her messages to see if anyone important enough has messaged her.
Her current problem is simple. She wants to write another article, something with enough depth and importance to shift attention away from the ongoing situation in Pewter. But she has no leads beyond what she can pick up from news stories that are already published. The obvious solution is to get some from the local reporters, but they’d expect something in return.
Luckily, she happens to have something to trade. She just needs a good offer first.
By noon she’s hungry and exhausted. She brings all her pokemon out to rest for a bit, then heads back to the Trainer House. Her mind is on the shower waiting for her upstairs when a woman stands up from one of the couches in the entrance hall and approaches her.
“Hello Miss Juniper. My name is Zoey P-”
“Palmer, yeah, I know who you are,” Leaf says, smiling. It seems today might be her lucky day. “I’ve been reading your articles since I got to town. It’s good to meet you.”
The reporter raises an eyebrow. “I’m flattered. Assuming you liked them?”
“Yeah, they were great.” Leaf expected an email or phone call like all the other reporters used, but clearly Miss Palmer prefers the more personal touch. “Were you waiting for me?”
“I was. Do you have a minute to talk? Maybe have coffee or lunch? My treat.”
“I’d love to. I’m sorry, I don’t know how long you’ve been waiting, but could you give me another twenty minutes? I was just on my way up to shower and change my clothes.”
The reporter checks her phone, then says, “Of course. If you don’t mind, I’ll send you the address of a nearby cafe, and you can meet me there when you’re ready.”
“Sure. See you there.”
Leaf gets the address and rushes through showering and drying off, sitting on her bed in her towel and looking through her notes. She’s been hoping for something like this to happen all week, and wants to make sure she doesn’t mess it up. She was planning on going over the maps Red sent her for the abra hunting, but she’d have to do it after the meeting.
Ten minutes later she finds the reporter sitting outside the cafe. Leaf sits across from her, reminded of the immersive hologram at Bill’s house. “Hi. Sorry for the wait.”
“No problem. I ordered us some tea.”
“Thank you.” Leaf takes a sip from the mug in front of her, happy to discover that it’s chilled. She takes a moment to study the older woman. Miss Palmer wears thin and stylish sunglasses, and is dressed in a grey blazer that makes her look very professional and casual at the same time as she leans back in her chair, tea cradled in both hands on her lap. Leaf tries to mimic her casual posture, and wonders if she’s sitting too straight. She ends up staying mostly the way she is rather than fidget too much.
“I’ll let you find something to order, and then we can talk. I’m sure you’re curious to know why I asked you here.”
“I think I have an idea, actually. And I’m ready to order whenever the waiter arrives.” Leaf gives the menu a perfunctory look through, then puts it aside. She’s glad she can get a good salad fairly easily in most places in the city, but today she’s in the mood for something else. Especially since the reporter offered to pay.
Miss Palmer smiles. “I see. Were you expecting me?”
“Not you specifically, though I hoped for someone of your caliber. I have a friend, kind of a mentor, and your name was one of the names she suggested.”
“Why didn’t you reach out to me directly, then?”
“I figured it’s better not to be the one to ask.”
“You figured right.” She sips her tea, then returns it to her lap. “Well, this does put a different spin on things. When I realized that no one managed to get an interview out of you yet I figured you were just oblivious, but you were filtering, weren’t you? And the Oak kid not giving interviews either, is that related?”
“We have an agreement,” Leaf says. “Besides, he’s been busy.”
“Of course. Well, I guess I’ll cut to the chase then. What are your conditions?”
“I want leads.”
“Ah. That’s not a small thing to ask of a reporter, as I’m sure you know.”
Leaf remains silent, tasting her drink, then adds some sugar and puts the rest away. The waiter arrives, and Leaf orders some avocado and cucumber rolls.
After Miss Palmer orders and the waiter leaves, the reporter pours herself some more tea, taking her time. Leaf doesn’t rush her, and finally, after putting the kettle back, she speaks. “First, tell me something. Are you here to stir up trouble in my city, too?”
Leaf remembers what Laura said about getting a feel for a journalist by their work. What kind of person is Zoey Palmer? Leaf thinks back over what she read, the articles and interviews, the
passion
in some of Zoey’s work that’s not there for most of it
. It’s like she
thinks the only story worth putting real effort into
is the kind that pisses someone in power off.
“If trouble needs to be stirred,” Leaf says at last.
Miss Palmer smiles and takes her sunglasses off, folding them and placing them on the table so that her piercing blue eyes meet Leaf’s. “Good answer.”
August 4th, Evening
The House common room is packed on Saturday night, with trainers of all ages gathering around the wide TV screens as the Pokemon Coordinator Contest gets underway. Some of them cheer on their favorites, while others exchange bets or just watch and chat. The trio managed to arrive early, and claimed seats in the middle of a couch directly in front of a screen. As more and more people crowd in around them, Red and Blue keep the encroaching bodies on either side from further squishing them together as Leaf sits between them with a bowl of popcorn in her lap.
Red enjoys the opportunity to relax with his friends, but even as he applauds and cheers for the various performances along with everyone else, a part of him is impatient to see how well their investment is going to pay off. He takes popcorn with his right hand as his left keeps his phone out, watching as the prices of various pokemon fluctuate after each performance. Most only get a mild bump: the highest so far was a 7% bump for ninetales after a trainer sent hers jumping through self-made spinning wheels of fire mid-air, and about a 10% jump for magneton, electabuzz, and raichu after a trainer used his to put on a laser-light show with eerily accurate electric bolts to pre-arranged equipment around the stage, accompanied by music and coordinated with a conductor’s baton.
By the time Daisy and Moonlight are next, the crowd is eager to see what could top that. Contest workers completely clear the stage to open up as much room as possible, then unpack some containers and assemble six large, colorful pinwheels in a circle around the middle.
Red and Blue clap along with the audience as his sister takes the stage, and the conversations of the girls around them suddenly shift to Daisy’s dress: a slim but complex, layered gown in various shades of pink that makes her look like a fairy princess. “Ooo, she looks
gorgeous!
” Leaf says, leaning forward. Red is similarly entranced. She’s done something with her hair, looping it back behind her head in the outline of wings. Red feels a warm glow in his chest as the remaining spark of his crush briefly rekindles.
The judges introduce her, then signal for her to begin. She releases Moonlight with a flourish, sending the ball straight up into the air so precisely that it smacks back into her open palm a moment later, arm staying straight up until her clefairy flutters to the stage from mid-air with its small wings.
The crowd is absolutely silent as trainer and pokemon turn to face each other. The camera focuses on Daisy’s face as she closes her eyes, tilts her head back, and begins to sing.
There’s no amplification in the exhibition center. Instead her microphone transmits directly to the earpieces of the thousands of viewers in the contest hall, and directly to the live feed. For Daisy and Moonlight, there’s just the strength of her own voice, and shortly after, Moonlight’s, her own microphone attached around her neck.
Red tunes out the occasional murmurs of everyone around them as he lets himself get drawn into the trainer and pokemon’s haunting song and perfectly choreographed (if silly looking) dance. It quickly becomes clear as she and Moonlight hop around in a circle that Daisy’s dress, frilly though it is, has been tailored to avoid impeding her movement at all.
“Met-ro-nome,” Daisy says, and points, and a moment later a gust of wind from Moonlight sets one of the pinwheels spinning. As it does, gleaming sparkles of every color are flung out into the air, falling slowly in a rainbow haze.
“Met-ro-nome,” Daisy says again a few moments later, in the exact same pitch and tone, and a second pinwheel is blasted with wind.
Red feels his excitement and awe growing as a third gust is sent out, then a fourth. If the metronome ability is dictated by the way the word is said, then Red expected a few mess ups along the way, like his mom reported from seeing Daisy practice. Six pinwheels, for six gusts of wind… but in a row? Yes, there’s the fourth…. Then the fifth…
Murmurs of surprise and disbelief are growing around the room as the trainers all watch Daisy instruct her pokemon to use the notoriously random and unpredictable Metronome ability with consistent, pre-planned results. Red grins wide as the sixth pinwheel is hit, sending its own shimmering lights into the air. The first pinwheel is still spinning, though it’s slowing down, and there’s a period of about ten seconds where the trainer and pokemon dance and sing in the middle of a dazzling cloud of multi-colored sparkles.
As the pinwheels slow to a stop one by one, Daisy and Moonlight’s song quiets before finally reaching an end, and there’s a moment of silence and stillness as the last of the glimmering sparkles fade away.
Then the Trainer House and contest hall explode in applause and cheers at the same time. Blue sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles, and a buzz of conversation quickly breaks out as people discuss what they just saw. The panning cameras in the contest hall show faces that aren’t just dazzled but shocked, and Red can hear the wonder in the voices around him.
“-six times, can’t believe-”
“-trick maybe? New TM?”
“-obviously chose a safe move to demonstrate, but what else can she-”
“-can’t wait to try it-”
Red grins at his phone’s screen as the prices of clefairy quickly jump beyond the small increase they got just from Daisy’s reveal of what pokemon she was using. He tracks the cheapest offers and watches the prices going up as some of the lowest ones get quickly bought out and others are taken down and relisted. $983… $1,022… $1,127… $1,232…
Leaf leans over to watch, still applauding. “How’re we doi-woah.”
“Yeah,” Red says as he puts his phone away and finally relaxes, a giddy feeling in his stomach as he grabs some popcorn. “That’ll do.”
The last price he saw at the bottom of the listings was $1,312, and the highest were over $3,000. Blue bought four clefairy, Leaf three, and Red used his savings and borrowed whatever leftover cash the other two had to get himself two, giving him a total of three. Three clefairy that he could sell for at least $4,000.
“That’ll do just fine.”
August 5th
“You’ve been practicing,” Psychic Ayane says as soon as he opens the door to let her in.
Red smiles, breath trembling slightly as he exhales. As far as greetings go, it’s gratifying that she noticed right away. “Wasn’t easy.”
“No, I don’t imagine so.” She follows him into the room and sits, folding her legs beneath her. Red does the same, carefully. His body isn’t weaker when he’s like this, but it’s harder to control appropriately, as if the signals from his brain are being occasionally scrambled on the way. “I commend your progress, but is it wise to tire yourself just before our lesson?”
Red shakes his head. “I didn’t just start. I’ve been like this all morning.” He breathes in deep as he settles into place.
Her eyes widen. “Explain. And calm yourself before you do, please.”
Red grins and does so, breath coming out in a
whoosh
as his mind and body relax. “It was simple enough, once I put the hours in,” he says.
When her mind was entangling itself with his to project onto him, it weakened his partition automatically as it drew his psychic ability away. After their second session, when she taught him about how the
state
of one’s mind could be influenced by the
perception
or
memory
it experienced, he saw the connection with his experience of his spinarak’s attack, and how just thinking about the effects made a weaker form of them trigger.
“You called it an ‘impression,’ but I felt like that wasn’t giving it enough credit,” Red says. “When we think of something sour, like biting into a lemon, our jaw doesn’t ache because of a memory. We’re actually re-experiencing it. There’s a physical response from a physical change in our brains. So I figured that if thinking about the Night Shade was enough to mimic the feeling, it must also have mimicked the mental state of whatever it did to my psyche. Why not apply the same thing here and imagine entangling our minds, even while you were gone?”
“That shouldn’t work,” Ayane says, brow furrowed. “It’s not enough to simply imagine yourself doing something with your powers, or a psychic’s life would be far easier.”
“Well, a couple things. First, maybe this was easier than other things would be because, like you said, I’m not actually using my powers, I’m just relaxing them. Second, I didn’t just ‘imagine’ it. It took me the better part of the past two days, hours of concentrating, to really immerse myself in each individual feeling I had, all of which I could vividly remember.”
“I… see. I suppose it is not so unusual compared to the other feats I have seen those with the Gift accomplish. My surprise is mostly to see it from a novice who is new to even basic meditation.”
Red shrugs a shoulder. “I actually found it a lot easier than meditating, honestly, because I had a clear goal. I know theoretically what the end state of meditation is supposed to be like, but I can’t just force myself to think that way because I haven’t before. This, on the other hand, I have, so it wasn’t hard to alter my perspective.”
“Is altering your mental state something you do often, in other contexts?”
“I guess you could say that. Modelling different thoughts and feelings is an important part of being a rationalist.” Red smiles. “And I’ve always had a good imagination.”
Ayane’s lips quirk. “Perhaps it is a ‘gift’ of your own, then, that you bring separately into the wider expression of your Gift. In any case, it is good to see such progress. Have you noticed any improved stamina for maintaining the relaxation?”
Red’s smile fades. “Not really? It’s hard to tell. I got used to maintaining it for longer, but the effects feel about the same, and I have to take breaks when it gets bad.”
“Ah. Is it possible then that rather than manually weakening your partition, you simply trained yourself to mimic the physical symptoms?”
Ice floods Red’s stomach. “I… didn’t think of that. I don’t
think
that’s the case though, it really does feel like…” He realizes how silly he sounds. “Can you check?”
“Certainly. Enter the state again, and I’ll begin.”
Red nods and closes his eyes. He focuses on his breathing, then begins to shift his consciousness into what he’s been calling “balancing on a tightwire.” He goes down the mental checklist that he wrote out in his notebook after his first lesson and memorized after his second when Ayane told him about impressions and he decided to try inducing it himself.
First the sensation of the second mind approaching his, taking up residence in his own, separate and alien. A thrill of nerves goes up his spine as he imagines it there, in his head, watching, waiting…
Then the feeling of it echoing him, muted reflections of what he thinks and feels over threads like fiberglass wires…
Red’s breath stutters in his throat as he finally feels his mind
tilt
and his skin horripilate. He focuses on his breathing and waits until he feels stable, then says, “Ready.”
The pseudo-mind he imagined is almost immediately replaced by a real one, twisting in his thoughts as he lets out a shuddering breath.
So, I can still tell when a real psychic mind is connecting to mine. Good.
“Is there any additional strain?”
“No, it’s fine,” Red says between breaths as he opens his eyes. “Same as usual.”
“Excellent. And your thoughts do not seem as distracted or unstable.”
“Really?”
“Haven’t you noticed that your speech isn’t as impaired?”
He blinks. “I haven’t really been talking while trying it before. Huh. I guess it really has been helping. This is great!”
She nods. “It’s quite encouraging. Now, let us continue our lesson… oh? You have something else in mind?”
Red feels chagrin at the reminder that she can sense the surface of his thoughts. “If you don’t mind… now that I know I’ve successfully mimicked a brain state, would you mind if I try some others to see if I can do the same for them?” He takes out his notepad and pencil. “I want to try and collect as many as I can to practice them between lessons.”
“Hmm. These ‘brain states’ are the result of your mind exercising its powers in a different way. I would have to draw them into another configuration for you to experience a new one.”
“Is that bad?”
“There are very few positive ones I could invoke in you, and even fewer I could teach without you first mastering your own powers. Of those remaining, all are much more taxing, and would likely result in your partition breaking.”
“Well, why not just teach me enough reception to project your own mind in another state, so I can copy that?”
Psychic Ayane’s fingers tap her knees. “I believe there are one or two, yes. But improving your active reception enough to receive thoughts in more fidelity is an advanced technique, and might also require your powers to be taxed too heavily. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather continue learning to strengthen your passive reception awareness first? It’s a vital foundation for any psychic’s ability to interact with their pokemon, or other psychics.”
Red hesitates, then nods. “Okay, I guess you’d know best. But maybe at the end of the lesson we could try one?”
Ayane smiles. “As you wish. I believe I can think of one that might be interesting to you.”
August 6th
“Go, Maturin!”
Blue’s squirtle materializes next to the pool and burbles in excitement upon seeing it.
“Looks like we had the same thought,” Mary asks with a smile from the other side of the training room. She takes out a dive ball and summons her totodile from it.
Blue reclips his new dive ball to his belt. “Yeah. I was planning to upgrade her ball to one eventually anyway, and I’m coming into some money soon, so this was a good excuse to do it.”
“Did you just pick it up? I thought you’d be here earlier.”
“Sorry about that, I was running an errand for a friend.” Red had him and Leaf doing drills in preparation for the abra catching. Three trainers running around Cerulean Park with earplugs in as they made hand signs at each other and their pokemon had certainly drawn a lot of stares. “Ready?”
“Yep. Third hit again?”
“What do you say we make it first blood?”
She glances at him in surprise as she puts her bag on the ground and kicks off her sandals. “Trying a new attack?”
“No, just want to get her used to more dangerous fights.”
“Sure, I guess.”
Blue smiles. The two of them have jumped leagues ahead of the other newbies at the Gym, even with some mistakes early on. He empties his pockets and shucks off his shirt and sandals too, then puts his goggles on and bites down on the mouthpiece of his oxygen tube. After giving her a thumbs up, he jumps into the water feet first.
The water is cool without being cold. Blue breathes out through his nose, bubbles rising to the surface as he sinks lower. He looks up and sees Mary adjust her own oxygen mask, then dive in across from him and kick down to the floor. Once she’s there, she flashes him a thumbs up.
Blue returns it, then lifts the clicker from his necklace where it sits next to his flute. Their pokemon swim about on the surface until he brings Maturin down with a few quick clicks. Mary uses a copper tube that rattles when she shakes it. Over the past few days he’s seen her become more and more adept with it, spinning it through her fingers like a baton to send particular commands.
Once both pokemon are in battle positions in front of them, Blue presses a button on his mask and starts the timer for Maturin, then presses another one for his own. He flashes Mary another thumbs up, and when she returns it, the battle begins.
Three quick clicks, and Maturin thrusts forward headfirst. Mary swipes her tube to the left, and her totodile dodges to the left as Maturin sails by. A quick forward shake of the tube and he goes after her, mouth wide.
Blue nudges the button on his clicker to change its pitch and presses it down, prompting Maturin to duck into her shell. Blue swims forward and up to get a better look as the totodile tries to snap at Maturin’s underbelly. With a click from Blue, Maturin swipes a leg out to nudge her out of harm’s way.
Blue’s pulse is steady as he breathes in through his mask and out through his nose, watching, waiting. They’re approaching a wall of the pool, and Blue knows he can’t let it limit Maturin’s mobility. He waits through another two bites, looking for the perfect opportunity…
There.
Maturin’s head has rotated toward the totodile just as he goes in for another bite, and Blue clicks to direct her into a tackle.
Mary is ready with a shake, and her totodile shoots straight up and over Maturin. His bite is a bit too slow to catch the squirtle’s tail, but he immediately follows her, and Blue is forced into another Withdraw. At least he got away from the wall.
The timers continue to count up past the two minute mark, an eventual cap on the duration of the match: if either pokemon has to go up for air, they lose… but ending it before it gets to that point is the safest way to ensure neither trainer feels pressured into keeping their pokemon down for too long.
Blue continues to avoid and defend, playing to his pokemon’s strength to counteract the more offensive totodile’s. If he felt sure of his pokemon’s lung capacity, he’d have the advantage… but he’s not, and in their last match he was forced to send Maturin up before Mary sent her totodile.
The next snap of the totodile’s jaws almost catches Maturin’s foot as it kicks out to spin her away from him, and Blue realizes he’s still playing as if it’s a contact match. He needs to risk a hit to get first blood, but he can’t do it on Mary’s terms.
Blue’s next clicks send Maturin into a dive, barely dodging the totodile as it snaps forward. Blue changes the pitch and clicks twice, and Maturin’s mouth opens wide to expel a cloud of bubbles that slowly rise.
Mary swipes her rod to the right. Her pokemon tries to abort his dive by swerving to the right as well, but two of the bubbles pop as they catch him on the foot and thigh. The force of them sends him tumbling off course in a spin, and Blue quickly clicks to send Maturin after him.
The totodile twists around and snaps at Maturin, catching her on the shell over her foreleg, while Maturin bites his arm. The two get into a quick and vicious tussle that sends air bubbles up as Blue and Mary immediately signal their pokemon to disengage. Instead the two continue to struggle against each other, and a trickle of red begins to diffuse into the water around them. After they ignore a few more orders, Blue tells Maturin to Withdraw, and the squirtle immediately pops her head and limbs back into her shell. Mary’s totodile disengages after that, and swims back to her, trailing blood from its arm. Mary quickly returns her pokemon to its ball, then heads for the surface.
Blue examines Maturin to make sure she’s not hurt, then lets his breath out all the way and starts swimming up, signalling Maturin to follow.
After he pulls himself up the ladder, he takes out his mask and lifts his goggles, wiping his wet hair away from his eyes. “Good girl,” he tells Maturin, and snaps for her to come out of the water. She leaps out onto all fours, and he feeds her a berry before withdrawing her. “He okay?” Blue asks as he turns to Mary, and his eyes widen as he sees her glaring at him.
“What’s wrong with your pokemon?” she asks, crouched beside her totodile as she sprays potion on his arm.
“Hey, woah, what are you talking about? It wasn’t her fault!”
“His arm’s broken! We said first blood!”
“Yeah, and I told her to come back, same as you did with him. Their blood was up, it happens.”
“You had to get her to Withdraw before she would listen. He had no trouble pulling away once his arm wasn’t trapped in her beak.”
Blue feels confusion turn to anger, almost baring his teeth as the heat sears through his chest, hands balling into fists. He almost hears an arcanine’s growl, and for a moment thinks he might have actually made the sound.
Calm down. Don’t make an enemy here.
Mary’s been a good training partner up until now, and he doesn’t want to spoil that. More, he doesn’t want her to leave thinking he can’t control his pokemon, maybe even telling others not to train with him. He takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a searing wave. “Look… I’m sorry. It’s the first time something like that happened. Let’s get him to a pokemon center, okay?”
Mary looks away from him and finishes examining his wound. The mark of Maturin’s beak on his arm is still visible, but it’s mostly healed, and continues to fade as they watch. The totodile still holds its arm out awkwardly however, and Mary kisses its snout before standing and returning it to its ball. “You don’t have to come,” she says, voice curt as she gathers her things.
You agreed to first blood, you shouldn’t have if you weren’t ready for your pokemon to get hurt.
“I want to.”
Waste of time…
He takes another deep breath. “Please.”
Mary glances at him as she slings her bag over her shoulder. “Fine,” she mutters, and heads for the door, sandals squeaking on the wet tiles.
Blue quickly grabs his things, breathing out again as the prowling arcanine in his chest lies back down. His lip twitches as he follows her out.
At least we won.
August 7th, Morning
Leaf sits across from Zoey at another restaurant, inside at a booth this time, reading the article the reporter wrote about Leaf’s account of the Renegade incident. Leaf’s pulse speeds up as she reaches the narrow miss of the graveler’s explosion, and feels again her dread and helplessness as she waited for help to arrive while the Renegade was asleep, constantly looking over her shoulder. The recount of the witnessing event brings back the sickness in her gut and claustrophobia, and she has to force her shoulders to relax as she finally passes the tablet back to the reporter.
“It’s good,” Leaf says.
“I know that.” Zoey spreads butter on her toast. “Is it acceptable?”
“Yes, I meant that in both senses,” Leaf says.
“Fantastic. Then on to my part of the bargain.” Despite her general brusqueness, Zoey turned out to be a warm interviewer, guiding Leaf through the events at her own pace, asking for detail on points that she felt were too detached even when she ended up cutting down to the basics where Leaf meandered a bit. Leaf learned a lot from being on the other side of the notepad this time… though she did have her own out too, which the reporter had smiled at but not commented on.
Leaf eats from her fruit bowl as she considers the questions on her mind. Their agreement had included more oversight from Leaf over the final article than Zoey had wanted, and in return she was allowed only two leads, and not even exclusive rights to them.
It wasn’t greed, Zoey insisted, that kept reporters and journalists from sharing details of stories they’re working on. Or not entirely greed, anyway. There’s obvious rivalry and desire to get rewarded and recognized for one’s hard work, but there’s also professional integrity: when she works on stories that matter, Zoey said, she wants them done
right,
not botched by someone looking to make a quick headline with some sparks rather than taking the time to ensure it starts a blaze.
So if Leaf wants to get solid leads with lots of info on them, she’ll have to prove that she’s not going to just grab a scrap of info and run with it. And doing her own research in preparation for what sorts of questions she’d ask is part of that.
“So there are four stories that I think are important and potentially worth digging into,” Leaf says, taking a folder out of her bag and placing it on the table. “I have their notes in here. If we talk about a story and you mention something that’s already in here, I’m not going to count it toward my two.”
Zoey bites into her toast, hard to read behind her sunglasses. She took them off during the interview, but apparently prefers them even while indoors. “Sounds like you’re ready to fish for info at no cost.”
Leaf smiles. “I just want to make sure I get something I can use. You’re welcome to check them over to make sure I’m not over reaching.” Zoey offers her palm, and Leaf tips the folder back up. “
After
you’ve told me something about one of the stories.”
Zoey smiles back. “Deal. What’s the first story you want to hear about?”
Leaf considers her options a moment. “What’s the deal with the Silph and Cerulean General merger that so many people are concerned about? From what I read it seems like there’s some corruption going on behind the scenes, but I didn’t dive into the legalese. I don’t want to commit more time to it unless I know something important is going on.”
“That one’s a bit dense, yes. Silph’s market share is already growing dangerously close to monopoly status, and even if it brings lower prices in the short term, people are concerned at how easy they seem to find it to get laws changed to their benefit.”
“There’s no actual proof of backroom dealing, though?”
“Some hints, but not enough for anyone to take action.”
“What about the Harton scandal? The timing was convenient.” Harton was a member of the regulatory board who had emails leaked showing him attending illegal pokemon fighting rings.
Zoey lifts her cup of juice and takes a sip. “You put that together?”
“It wasn’t hard. I just made a list of all the people in positions of power and checked if anything happened to them or their families. I was thinking of blackmail being followed up on, but that one seemed more direct.”
Zoey nods. “Yes, it’s suspicious. Harton won’t talk though. If he was brought down for getting in their way, there must be something more they have on him that he’s worried about.”
Leaf sighs. “That’s about what I had on that. You can check if you want.”
Zoey flicks her hand to the side. “I gave you nothing even if you didn’t have anything. Not a bad story to pursue, but I’ve got nothing on it, or I’d be doing it myself.”
“Well, I’ll probably still do some digging just in case. Let’s see, what else…” She taps her foot against her chair leg as she spears some honeydew on her fork and bites into it.
“I was expecting something a bit more high profile, especially if you’ve been paying attention to my stories and recent activity. Like the Leader’s disappearance on the day of your adventure.”
“What, the rumors of a dangerous pokemon sighting?” Leaf shakes her head. “I’m not really interested in that.”
“Misty and her Second go off the radar for hours just as a Tier 1 event takes place on Mt. Moon, and you’re not interested?”
“Not really, no. I don’t know what they were doing, but I’m sure Misty had good reasons.”
“And good reasons not to tell the public?”
Leaf frowns. “She’s your Leader. If you don’t trust her to have the best interest of your city at heart… I mean, who can you trust?”
Zoey laughs, an oddly merry sound considering her normal tone. “Ah, youth. Here I had you pegged as a proper cynic. You’ve still got a ways to go it seems.”
“Hey, I’m not saying they’re perfect or anything. But really, what are you expecting? Do you actually have any evidence that she was doing something shady? Because if so, then yeah, I’m interested.”
Zoey shakes her head, voice lowering slightly. “Nothing on that, yet. But our dear Leader isn’t as guileless as you might think.”
Leaf leans forward, voice lowering slightly to match hers. “Okay,
that
sounds like a story. What do you mean?”
Zoey spreads butter and jam on another piece of toast, taking her time. Leaf fights down her impatience, seeing the thoughtful expression on the woman’s face. Rushing her wouldn’t help anything.
“I wasn’t going to bring this up,” Zoey says at last. “Not unless you asked about it specifically, though I admit I would be
very
shocked if you did. This is not only private knowledge, it’s from a proper private source whose career is at risk if it gets out.”
Leaf takes out her notepad and flips it open. “You have my interest.”
“I don’t know if I should bring you in on it. It’s rather close to you.”
Leaf’s pulse picks up. What could she possibly mean by that? “No need to draw it out, okay? I admit to intrigue. You’ve built suspense up properly. Now what is it?”
Zoey is quiet again, chewing on her toast. Leaf feels her impatience growing again, and just as she feels like she won’t be able to keep quiet a moment longer, Zoey says, “The Renegade’s execution. Do you have the notice?”
“No, my friend Red received it. He was one of the witnesses.”
“Check the time on the alert. Then find out what time the meeting that Misty attended on the mountain ended. You’ll find your answer there.”
Leaf’s heart is pounding. Is the reporter saying that the notice was sent early? Late? “Why not just tell me?”
“Like I said, I got this information from a source who risked a lot to tell me. I can’t jeopardize that.”
“But you’re saying something was off about the execution. Okay. That’s ominous and all, but I don’t know if it’s a story or not.”
“It’s a story,” Zoey says, tipping her head forward so she can peer over her sunglasses. “Trust me. A hell of a story. Now, what else do you want to ask about?”
August 7th, Evening
Red’s sits in lotus position with his eyes closed on the floor of the workroom he used with Psychic Ayane, and goes down the mental list.
First identify the pain.
He’d nicked his arm with a small cut, just small enough to sting without bleeding.
Then identify the “path” the pain is travelling.
Ayane had described this as a glowing yellow light in her mind’s conception of her body, but to Red it’s more of a pulsing, jangling vibration of a long, imaginary nerve connecting the cut to his brain, even though he knows that isn’t how nerves work.
Picture the path. Ease the discordance. Feel it fade.
Red doesn’t actually follow that step, though. Instead of feeling his pain fade, he remembers the sensation of feeling Ayane’s pain fade, and what her mind was doing as she did. The way her mind seemed to split itself, the way her stream of thought, far too faint and swift for Red to pick up on, bent around a sudden dark spot in the sparking, twisting thundercloud of her mind.
Red smiles at the memory, sweat dripping down his face. Being able to sense another mind is
so cool.
Even if it makes him nauseated. And feel a lurking emptiness in his mind that threatens to boil over at any moment. And even if he often feels like he’s just imagining everything he perceives.
“
Why does that matter?” Ayane said. “You think in metaphors all the time. Is it so strange your powers would manifest in them?”
“
No,” Red admitted. “But I was kind of hoping for a peek into some objective truth with them.”
Ayane merely smiled and said, “Then perhaps it is seeing the two as incompatible which is at the heart of your difficulty.
”
Which was a fancy way of saying not much at all, other than maybe
there is no objective reality,
and screw that mystic nonsense, thanks very much.
But either way, when he felt her mind shift into its new arrangement, the pain from the pinching hairclip on her finger did indeed fade away to nothing.
Red mimics that mental state now, mind teetering into what he dubbed “many mirrors and a dim room.” That last part was the important one, and he feels it when he separates the part of himself feeling the pain from the rest of his mind, and
dims
it, until suddenly the stinging pain is gone.
Ha!
Red grins wide even as his mind slips past some tipping point and he snaps back to himself, the stinging back in his arm and an empty, cold void rising up in his mind.
He leans forward and throws up into the bucket he placed in front of him.
Head and heart pounding, he slumps onto his side, still smiling as he breathes deep and waits for his pulse to slow. He did it. He used his powers to change something in the world, even if it was just his perception of his own body. “Mind over matter” is more than just a motivational phrase to him, now.
His elated giggles are interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by Blue and Leaf walking in. They both immediately rush over, making noises of alarm that makes his head hurt.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, ow,” Red says as Blue lifts him into a sitting position. “Oh, that does help, actually, thanks.”
“Red!” Leaf cries out. “You said you’d be careful!”
“I was! I put the bucket here, didn’t I?”
Blue snorts and shakes his head. “Idiot. Is that why you had us meet you here, in case you made yourself too sick to move?” He puts the nearby lid on the bucket and nudges it to the corner of the room with his foot.
“No, I just wanted to use whatever time I had before we met.” Red reaches to the side and unscrews the top of a water bottle, drinking once to wash the taste out of his mouth and a second time for his thirst. He feels clammy with sweat, but more mentally stable, now.
“Do you want to postpone this?” Leaf asks as she sits in one of the chairs.
“No.” Red struggles to his feet and sinks into another chair, while Blue finds his own between them and turns it backward, tilting it against the edge of the table. “We’re ready.” Red takes the sheets of paper out of his bag on the table and spreads them out in front of his friends. “We have our location, our pokemon picked out, and our backup on board. Tomorrow afternoon, Operation: Abra is a go.”
The wind sends rippling waves through the field of grass around Leaf, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. She instinctively raises a hand to keep her hat from blowing off before remembering that she put it away.
Joy, Leaf’s freshly named wigglytuff, stands mute and waiting, its wide, beautiful blue eyes peering cheerfully around. Leaf walks a slow circle around her pokemon, staying just within range to return her if needed. Meanwhile, her eyes scan rippling fields of grass.
Her phone vibrates, and she checks Blue’s message:
4th speaker set
That was the last one for him. Now Red just has to get his fourth in position, and they’ll start.
It took them over an hour to meticulously comb through the central circle where they plan to drive the abra. There were a few pokemon that fled from them, but Blue did manage to catch a venonat, which he traded to Leaf after she and Red caught a pair of bellsprouts. She knew Grass types are going to be especially useful to him in the next Gym battle, and some quick research showed her that venonat and its evolution venomoth have a lot more non-lethal attacks than the bellsprout family.
Now the field is as empty as they can make it to ensure there aren’t any pokemon around that might resist Joy’s singing.
Leaf checks her phone as it buzzes again.
Fourth speaker ready.
Ready when you guys are
, she texts back, pulse picking up. She puts her phone away, sets a vibrating alarm on her new watch, and sticks her earplugs in. “Joy,” she says, voice muffled and distorted in her head. “Sing!”
Her wigglytuff bounces and twirls happily, then opens its mouth wide and fills the air with its haunting melody. Muted through her earplugs, just barely audible enough for Leaf to know if it’s still going.
Somewhere, Red and Blue are returning to the inside of Joy’s singing radius, after which they’ll activate the speakers to begin transmitting various sounds of one of abra’s natural predators: an umbreon.
It wasn’t a perfect choice, Red admitted. Ideally they would want one that would neither scare off or attract the plant and bug pokemon in the area. But they had limited options when it came to local pokemon that wild abra might encounter and be wary of, and umbreon was the most neutral of those.
Leaf doesn’t know when it’ll start working, if it even does. But after about two minutes, once she’s gotten a pair of vibrations indicating the activation of the speakers, she enlarges a pokeball in either hand, then begins turning in a slow circle, taking deep breaths as she scans the fields around her. The tall grass rustles silently as she passes through it, as high as her knees. Hopefully any pokemon lurking in it that weren’t scared off by her approach are asleep now.
“
Remember,” Red said in the taxi ride over. “Since there’s no guarantee they’ll fall asleep right away, there might be a few moments where they sense our minds. Blue is safe from that, but the two of us need to be focusing on projecting feelings of calm and safety and peace as much as we can, or we’ll spook them into teleporting again before they get knocked out.”
“
What about you?” Leaf asked. “Isn’t it hard for you to engage a psychic mind?”
Red smiled. “As long as it’s only for a few seconds at a time, I’ll be fine.”
He sounded confident at the time, and Leaf let it go.
Now that they’re here, doing it and waiting for the first abra to show up, her mind has nothing better to do but feed her all sorts of worst case what-ifs, and one she keeps coming back to is Red’s exposure to the abra being too much for him to handle, maybe even causing him to pass out.
A drop of sweat slides down Leaf’s back. The risk for Red seems too big, suddenly, he should have stayed out, he should have-
Stop! Your mind is supposed to be calm. An abra might show up at any second, so get to soothing!
Leaf takes a deep breath, then focuses all of her thoughts on things that comfort her.
A warm bedroll to keep out the morning chill. The sound of rain on a roof, far off thunder. The smell of grandpa’s travel bag. Mom’s voice, singing to herself as she worked.
It feels a bit forced, but hopefully it’s better than nothing.
The wind lifts Leaf’s hair again as she continues her slow spin, smelling acres of grass as she breathes in, then out. In the corner of her eye she sees a minute pass on her watch, then another, and imagines what might be happening elsewhere: abra, teleporting around the field as they go from one area with the umbreon cries to another. Surely some will teleport into their middle circle, rather than out of it… and of those, at least one or two
should
be near the center where she and Joy-
A flash of yellow, and Leaf’s heart leaps into her throat. Her body reacts automatically, running in its direction as she quickly scans the area around her to see if the area is safe for her to leave Joy alone. The spot of yellow in the thick grass resolves itself into the top of a head, and Leaf grins as she recognizes it as an abra.
She quickly focuses on projecting calm thoughts again, but it doesn’t seem to matter: the abra is completely still as she approaches, and with a wide grin she points the ball at it and, after counting down a few seconds to ensure it locks, lobs it gently underhand.
There’s a flash of light as the ball bounces off the abra’s head, and by the time it begins to fall, the pokemon is gone. Leaf quickly grabs the ball out of the grass and tucks it into her backpack, then dashes back toward Joy, practically skipping.
It works! IT WORKS!
She keeps her vision moving to try and catch any new abra that appear as she returns to Joy and begins circling around her again. Red and Blue should be moving in a slow circle from opposite ends of the singing zone to catch any abra that teleported in and are dozing in the grass. When her watch vibrates, she resets the countdown on it and dashes over to her wigglytuff.
“Joy, stop!” she yells once she’s close.
The pokemon’s muffled song fades away. Leaf rubs Joy’s soft fur and feeds her a berry, eyes on her watch. When 30 seconds have counted down, she says “Sing!” and backs up again, returning to her position of slowly circling Joy as she watches the surrounding field.
In their last test, Joy maintained a song for nine minutes and fourteen seconds without pause. It left her breathless and tired, and she needed over twice as long to rest before she could do it for anywhere near the same length again.
But, when they tried giving her a breather every few minutes, she was able to sing for an an hour and a half. They realized they could probably stretch it longer, but that was about when they lost patience with the test. They were aiming for as little downtime as possible in any case.
Leaf keeps cycling Joy through quick moments of rest as she patrols the area, waiting for the next abra to appear.
We should have cut the grass around here,
she thinks as she tries to spot another glimpse of yellow in the rustling green stalks.
She’s just starting to wonder if she should message the others and see if something’s gone wrong when the second abra pops into sight, close enough for her to actually see it displace the grass around it as it appears.
Leaf raises her pokeball, careful not to make any sound, but stops cold as it vanishes.
She stares, wondering for a brief moment if she imagined it, then lets out a muffled cry of frustration. She forgot to maintain the calming thoughts! Even a couple seconds of wakefulness before the singing puts them to sleep is enough to let the abra escape, and if it’s particularly resistant and takes a few seconds…
Leaf closes her eyes, not caring that she might miss another abra showing up. She needs to exude comfort and calm, or the only abra she’ll catch are the ones that fall asleep quickly or are too far to sense her before they’re affected.
Warm blankets. Hugging gramps. Rain on the roof.
She focuses on each memory until she feels calmer, then opens her eyes and tries to walk around again. The note of discord in the back of her mind is still there however, and when the next abra appears and disappears again within seconds, her calm shatters.
A wave of panic threatens to crush Leaf as she feels her breathing become quick and shallow. She
can’t
mess this up for everyone. Hopefully the next abra appears far enough from her to fall asleep before it senses her mind, but how many more will she lose because she can’t keep herself from stressing out?
Leaf gives Joy another quick break, then walks in growing circles around her pokemon to try and find abra that appeared without her noticing and are napping in the tall grass.
As she continues to turn in a slow circle, she checks her watch through the corner of her eye. 2:17. Red timed the whole operation around a nearby Ranger Outpost sending a patrol out that would pass by the outskirt of the speakers’ radius. A final safety measure, ensuring that Rangers will be nearby if something goes wrong and they need to call for help. But the window of time left to have them nearby if something goes wrong is shrinking.
If she’s going to do something risky, now’s the best time.
Leaf breaks into a run. Grass whips by her knees as she keeps turning her head left and right, covering almost every angle of sight to ensure that she’s not missing any. The wind whips her hair into her face as she keeps turning in her slow revolution, and one hand dips into her pocket before tying her hair back into a ponytail. She starts to leap into the air to get a better view, and on the third jump she spots a flash of yellow to her left.
She takes a quick second to reorient herself relative to Joy, then dashes for the yellow. Seconds later she sees it: a sleeping abra almost completely hidden by the grass. A quick scan and capture, and she’s running back toward her wigglytuff to give her another rest, heart pounding as she catches her breath along with her pokemon.
Okay. Two captures isn’t bad.
Still, how many more is she missing out on?
Leaf wonders if Red is having better luck. She knows his idea for calming them down was never a sure thing, but if it’s not possible then they’re going to lose out on a lot of potential captures.
She has to resolve the problem. If she accepts the premise that the abra are reading her thoughts on a surface level and reacting to what they find, what can she be focusing on that might slow them from teleporting away for at least another second or two, to give Joy’s song a better chance to put them under?
Maybe a sense of safety instead.
She tells Joy to resume singing and takes off again
,
running through the grass and focusing on memories and sensations of being
safe.
She tries to dismiss all the thoughts and worries about her circumstances, making herself feel as safe and carefree as she can while running, turning, and leaping around the field.
Another flash of yellow, this time far off to the right of Joy. She wonders if she should leave it: it might be close enough to be in Blue’s path. She turns toward it anyway, knowing that every potential catch is worth pursuing over more fruitless searching.
She’s panting hard by the time she arrives at the slumbering abra, and wipes sweat out of her eyes with one hand as the other aims a pokeball and tosses it. She tucks the third abra away, slightly more at ease and focusing hard on feeling
safe
and
carefree
as she makes her way back toward Joy.
When the next abra appears a stone’s throw away she’s ready for it, holding still and maintaining her sense of confident safety. Barely a second passes however before it vanishes.
“
Dammit,”
she yells as she jogs back toward Joy with a scowl. What’s she doing wrong? Maybe nothing, maybe it’s just the presence of a nearby human that’s enough to send them off, but admitting that would mean there’s nothing she can do about it, and she’s not about to give up.
All of these emotions aren’t genuine. I need something I really feel, something effortless.
Leaf reaches Joy and gives the wigglytuff another quick break, spraying a bit of ether into her mouth to make up for the longer singing period.
What do I want right now? Why am I doing this?
Not just for the money. Not just because Red needs help with it.
Deeper. Why do I want to be a trainer at all?
She could be a groomer or breeder if she just likes spending time with pokemon.
Leaf commands Joy to start singing again and resumes her spiraling outward walk. What are her priorities? Too many.
Focus. Simplify. Find the inverse. What would have to be true for me not to want to be a trainer anymore?
Put like that the answer is obvious. If she knows, for sure, that being a trainer is worse for pokemon than not being a trainer… not just pokemon in general, but
her
pokemon… she wouldn’t be able to do it. She loves her pokemon, and even when she’s training them or using them to defend her from wild pokemon, their well-being is at an equal priority with her own. Staying alive and becoming a better trainer means continuing to help them live longer, safer, happier lives.
Leaf feels something loosen inside herself, and smiles.
This
she could do effortlessly, and with all her heart. Loving pokemon is her default emotion at any given time: she just has to bring it out.
She begins to jog again, thinking over all the adorable and fun and fascinating pokemon she’s cuddled and played with and learned about. Pokemon are
awesome
, pokemon are
fun,
and she can’t wait to make
more pokemon friends today
to save them from a dangerous wilderness full of predators and other trainers that might be less interested in their well-being.
It takes two revolutions for her to find another abra, far off to her left. This one’s already fast asleep too, as is the next one she encounters. It makes sense: the longer the trial goes on, the more likely the abra are to bounce around into the song’s area of influence. She might not have the chance to test her new mood on a conscious abra, but is too thrilled at the double capture to care, and keeps maintaining it anyway.
Leaf dashes back to give Joy another quick rest, then checks the time. 2:41. The Rangers should be heading past the edge of their outermost circle now. No more running around: time to play it safe.
She begins walking again once she finishes catching her breath. She finds her sixth abra after starting some controlled hop-spins to get a better view of her surroundings, and her seventh after she gets dizzy and goes back to simple patrolling.
It isn’t until she gives Joy another rest and begins patrolling again that the next abra appears near her. Leaf reinforces her feelings of love and caring, mentally throwing her arms wide and letting them thunder through her whole being as she stands completely still and waits.
A heartbeat later, the abra is still there.
Two heartbeats later. Three.
Its head dips beneath the grass, yellow ears the only thing visible.
Chest bursting with gratitude and happiness, Leaf finally steps forward and captures the abra, smiling down at its ball before carefully putting it in a separate pocket from the others. Maybe it was a fluke and her emotions had nothing to do with it staying, but this abra she would keep for herself.
Leaf keeps walking through her spiraling route, beaming out love for all to feel.
“Dad… Come back, dad… please…”
Red’s fingers curl in the grass, forehead pressed to the ground. His mind feels wobbly, like a mound of gelatin on a plate just a bit too small for it. Tears drip from his nose and chin as he tries to even out his breathing.
Ten abra-filled pokeballs are in his bag, a source of distant, hollow joy compared to the soaring triumph that filled him from his first capture. He rode that feeling all the way through the next two captures, until the first abra popped into existence near him, and the connection of its mind took his breath away.
It teleported away a couple seconds later, but he stood rooted, gasping at the sudden, crushing sense of despair. The next few abra he caught helped renew his spirits, until the second awake encounter left him quietly weeping, unable to stop himself even through his next captures. The third one drove him to his knees, chest heaving with sobs that felt like they would break him in two. It took him almost three minutes to force himself back to his feet, trembling and scared of what the next encounter would bring.
At first he thought the abra were actually attacking him, using a Confusion attack or something. But each only stayed for a couple heartbeats before they teleport away, and besides, these were nothing like his spinarak’s Night Shade, where he was forced to feel memories he couldn’t identify, and actively remembering the encounter caused echoed effects.
He knows exactly what’s happening, for once. He might be glad for that, if it wasn’t so terrifying: his partition is being rapidly eroded by the abra’s coupling. Where Psychic Ayane’s mind approached his like a ship docking at harbor, throwing out ropes one by one before sidling alongside the pier, the abra minds couple with his in binary states: one second absent, the next second fully there.
Whether it’s the strength of the connection or the sudden speed, his psychic abilities seem unable to balance their work. All the memories and emotions behind his partition come pouring out every time, a flood that fills him for the second or two the abra is around, then vanishes as they do.
Leaving a backwash of loneliness. Shock. Despair.
Grief.
He was able to catch three more sleeping abra before the fourth awake one leaves him a sobbing heap on the ground.
“Please, dad, you promised! Please… I miss you so much…”
Red doesn’t know how many minutes pass, but eventually the sobs grow weaker, then fade. He raises his head and wipes at his face with one hand as his other picks up his hat from where it fell. His hands knead the bill rather than put it back on, and he pulls in a trembling breath. When no new burst of sobs come out with it, he relaxes a little.
Red lets his head hang back, wind blowing his hair and fresh tears streaming down his face as he watches the clouds drift across the pale blue sky.
This was a mistake.
Psychic Narud was right. Red’s partition is essentially a type of selective amnesia that leaves him with the memories of his father’s passing, but just a shadow of the emotions.
No wonder he still can’t think about it for too long without having to shift his thoughts away. He hasn’t been able to for years, but this is different. It’s not a memory or an echo: he feels almost exactly the same way he did right after his dad died.
“
Fragile?” his therapist asked. She stared at him with gentle but intent eyes, her tone curious. “In what way?”
“
Like I’m made of glass.” Red sat hunched in the chair, gaze down. He barely saw the office around him, barely took note of anything for longer than a moment. It was his third session, and he was just beginning to respond in more than single words, when he responded at all.
“
Your mom says you don’t react to hugs anymore. That you go stiff. Is that why? Because you think you’ll break?”
Red shook his head. “Already broken.” His voice sounded rusty to his own ears, hollow from being so long unused. “Full of cracks. Ready to… fall to pieces. Shatter, if the wind blows too hard. Or someone touches me.”
Her eyes were full of too many things: detached calm, gentle compassion, clinical interest. Red kept his gaze down. He just wanted to make her understand, so she and his mom would leave him alone.
“
Wow. That sounds pretty shitty.”
Red felt something at that. It wasn’t much: just a flicker of surprise, deep down. But it was more than he felt of anything besides anger or sadness or emptiness in awhile.
Unable to muster the energy for a response, he just shrugged.
“
It also sounds like you need time, Red. Nothing wrong with wanting breathing room to let the pieces settle. “
Red lets out a shaking breath. “Let the pieces settle.” That’s what he thought happened, over the years. Apparently not as well as he thought.
Red’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes it out and stares blankly at the message from Blue until a thread of alarm finally penetrates the fog around his mind.
3rd speaker offline. dunno if glitched or some wild got it.
Red wipes his face again, then slowly gets to his feet and begins walking, one arm wrapped around his stomach as if it’ll help hold himself together. Tears continue to track down his cheeks as he makes his way across the grassy field, intent to keep sweeping his path of the abra landing zone. If he holds still too long Blue will finish looping around and come up behind him.
He has to catch as many as he can. The longer the speakers are in effect, the more abra should be already in the middle zone and asleep, rather than popping in. If he’s lucky, he won’t encounter any more awake ones.
But he needs to be ready in case he does.
At first Red tried to prepare his mind for abra contact the same way he prepared for Ayane’s: by mimicking the state of mental connection enough that he could get used to it, and keep his mental footing when she linked with him.
Now that he knows that’s not going to work, what’s left?
Red spots another pair of abra ears sticking out of the tall grass and walks over to capture it. His arm trembles as he holds the pokeball toward it, and fresh tears slide down his cheeks as he remembers standing with his dad in their backyard and mimicking his ball-throwing motion.
Red’s ball pings its lock, and he gets closer before tossing it underhanded to ensure it doesn’t miss. After he tucks the new capture away, Red checks the time. 2:31. An hour left. He doesn’t know if he can make it that long.
He tries refocusing on the basics as he walks. The air rushing into his lungs, the beat of his heart, both seeming louder than usual thanks to his plugged ears. His attention shifts to the feel of the wind on his skin, pressing his shirt to his body… then to the hollow pit in his chest, sucking inward, a constant, aching pain that completely breaks his concentration.
Red scowled and opened his eyes. “I can’t do it,” he said, voice sullen even to his own ears. He pushed himself off the floor anyway, returning to the comfy chair as his therapist stayed on the floor with her legs crossed. “I can’t concentrate, I keep thinking of… other things.”
She nodded. “That’s understandable. As I said, it takes time and practice. It’s okay to be distracted when you first try.”
“
It’s
not
okay! Easy for you to say to ‘let it go,’ it’s not something stupid like thinking of a math test that’s distracting me!” Red realized he was shouting and forced himself to stop, fuming silently in his seat. It was only his sixth session with the therapist, but suddenly the whole thing felt like a waste of time.
“
What is it that’s distracting you, then?” she asked, still serene.
“
You know what it is,” he snapped, but he could already feel his anger leaving him. It took too much effort to hold onto emotion, even anger. Everything got sucked down the empty void in his chest eventually. “The point is I’m trying to
stop
feeling this way, having these thoughts. It’s totally stupid to say it’s okay to be distracted by them while trying to stop being distracted by them.”
She raised an eyebrow then surprised him for the second time in their sessions together by nodding and getting up. “I think you’re right, meditation probably isn’t the answer right now.” She returned to her chair. “So, let’s see what else we can try.”
Red takes a deep breath, not breaking stride as he tries to ignore the pain. If it’s one thing he learned in those sessions, it was not to give up on searching for answers. To not get stuck on one solution just because it worked before, or angst about how hopeless everything is. His therapist never let him dwell on his failures, or her own. She just kept engaging him, pushing them both to try new things, until something helps, even a little… and then to keep finding new things to build on the successes. A sort of inverse of the “death by a thousand cuts” concept.
A thousand small braces and splints and bits of glue tacked onto every part of him, so he could keep moving, keep walking forward, into the wind, without it blowing him to pieces.
He draws on those memories again now, the ones he could apply in the moment. Comfort foods are out, even in moderation. Same with music, since he has his earplugs in. He’s already being physically active, but maybe he can step it up.
Red forces himself into a jog, trying to kick some adrenaline into his system to help chase the depression away by brute force. It doesn’t feel like it’s helping, but he keeps at it anyway. If nothing else it’ll help him cover more ground.
In the meantime he still needs a mental defense in case he encounters another abra. How else can he use his powers to help him?
Red feels frustration welling up, a frustration that hides a familiar hopeless apathy at its core. He doesn’t know enough about how his powers work to fashion a solution. He only knows a couple tricks, one trick, really, just copying mental states. If he had any experience utilizing his powers from the ground up-
Stop focusing on problems. Focus on solutions.
Mimicking mental states. His first, balancing-on-a-tightwire, didn’t work, but he also copied a weak form of Ayane’s ability to block physical pain. Could he use many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room to ignore emotional pain too?
Now wouldn’t be a great time to get nauseous and throw up again, but it’s worth trying, even for a moment.
Red focuses on the sadness and loss that reverberate through his chest. He pictures the black hole centered there, just below his heart, scraping everything inside him raw as it pulled and tugged in pulsing aches.
It’s surprisingly easy, maybe too easy. The sensation seems to amplify, his focus and attention making the feelings more pronounced, and Red slows to a stop, breathing hard as his lip trembles, eyes welling with tears.
Some distant part of him cries out in alarm, worried that he’s actually feeding the sadness with his psychic powers. It doesn’t matter, though. None of it matters. His dad’s dead, he’s
gone
and never coming back, even if Bill’s right and people eventually cure death, his dad will be forever in the past, his mom probably will too, and…
And me… one day, I’ll die too, and there’ll be nothing, just blank absence of everything I am…
Red sees his dad a dozen times a second, in the kitchen with his mom in the morning, training with his pokemon, coming home for the weekend, carrying Red on his shoulders, leading him through the forest…
Red falls to his knees, pokeball dropping from his hand as he rests his palms on the grass, catching himself as he begins to weep again.
If you’re going to put yourself through this, at least let it be worth something. Try the experiment, just so you know if it works.
Red sucks in a long, shuddering breath, then closes his eyes, concentrating on the gaping black hole inside him. He pictures his psychic powers like vibrant colored lines around it, streaks of gleaming light that connect in a hexagon, keeping the effects of the hole from reaching past to the rest of him.
Red winces as the ache continues, and the image falls apart. Ayane’s skepticism comes back to him: “
It’s not enough to simply imagine yourself doing something with your powers, or a psychic’s life would be far easier.”
She’s right: it’s one thing to mimic a state of mind he felt and come up with a metaphor afterward: doing it in reverse would be pure wish fulfillment.
NO! That’s loser talk!
Red blinks, tears trembling on his lashes. That mental voice sounded oddly like Blue. He wonders if he’s starting to crack up.
You’re not concentrating. You lost the mental state when you imagined the black hole, before you even started with the lines. Try again, something easier.
Red feels a gust of wind blow his hair against his wet face, and tugs his hat down lower to keep it from blowing off. Ok. Something easier. He can do this.
The black hole is there, he doesn’t have to imagine it any clearer. Instead he focuses on his heart: a glowing source of warmth in his chest, being worn away by the sucking, empty void. Red imagines the blocking lines around his heart instead, and at the same time shifts his thoughts to all the memorized points of many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room, then-
–
wait what if that takes away all feeling-
-inverts-
–
who cares that’s better than this-
-it into a single island of light inside him, everything else going dark as he gives them over to the void.
Red’s trembling stops. He breathes deep a few times, surprised at how… quiet isn’t the right word, with his earplugs in
everything’s
quiet, but
still
his emotional state feels.
The depression is there, the sucking ache in his chest is there, and, yes, the nausea is there. It’s just all… distant. Dim, like the pain in his arm was.
Red smiles. It feels strange on his face,
strained
and oddly disconnected from his inner self, like the muscles of his face are reacting independently. But he finds he can’t stop.
He figured something else out with his powers. Neat.
Red gets back up, and picks up the pokeball he dropped. He starts walking again.
Things feel strange. Not just emotions, but
things.
The feel of his clothing on his body, the wind on his skin, the sunlight. It’s all muted.
Why isn’t he moving?
Oh right. He stopped walking.
Red looks around. Nothing of particular interest is going on.
What’s he doing again? He knows what he’s doing, obviously, but what’s the point?
Shit. This is what it’s like to not feel anything, isn’t it?
But that’s ridiculous, he clearly still wants things. He doesn’t want to get hurt, for example. Dropping shining-mirror-in-a-dim-house would make the hurting feelings come back.
He had a purpose in doing that though. To keep catching abra unimpeded. It would all be rather useless if he didn’t keep catching abra, right?
Red keeps walking. Eventually he finds more abra and catches them. He doesn’t know how long he walks, but nothing exciting or interesting happens. He just keeps walking and catching abra. Eventually his phone vibrates, though he barely feels it.
It’s probably not important.
Blue stares down at the broken speakers with a frown. He hoped it was something he could fix, but this thing is utterly trashed. Looks like something really heavy smashed it over and over again.
Blue looks around. Nothing but grassy fields. Whatever pokemon did it is long gone.
He sighs and jogs back toward the abra landing zone. The gap in their circle of speakers will make it easier for abra to slip free, but they only have about 30 minutes left before Joy gets tired anyway.
His bag jostles with over a dozen expanded pokeballs in it, most of them filled with abra. There was another bellsprout that wandered into range of Joy’s singing after it had started, and now that he has two he feels much more prepared for his battle with Misty.
He keeps an eye on his GPS as he moves, and relaxes when he reaches the landing zone again. It’s a nice feeling, being able to walk through fields of empty grass and not worry about pokemon jumping out and attacking. Relaxing, even.
Most of the abra he encountered were already asleep, but a few popped into existence within his line of sight. He just stood completely still for a few seconds until it was clear they were out of it, then caught them too. He hopes whatever Red and Leaf figured out works too, because if they’ve caught as many as he has…
Blue grins. They’re going to make
so much money
off of this.
He spots another pair of yellow ears sticking out of the grass and changes course to catch it, cheerfully lobbing the pokeball underhand after giving it a moment to lock. He really has to hand it to Red, he really struck gold with this idea. They’ll be able to control the market on abra for a bit before it gets flooded, and combined with the cash from their clefairy trades, make enough money to not have to worry about their allowance restrictions for months.
He’s already thinking of all the TMs and training tools he’ll buy, along with maybe a competitive pokemon or two. He probably won’t be able to afford a larvitar or anything crazy like that, but with his eye on the next couple gyms, he could use a solid Ground or Fire type.
Blue reels himself in before he goes too far down that imaginary road. He already comes from enough of a privileged position, with the Oak name and connection and resources at his back. Beginning his journey with a premium starter, instead of a rattata or meowth or whatever most people could get, is usually grudgingly accepted by the less fortunate masses, but only as long as skill is still shown. No one cares that Lance started his journey with one of his clan’s dratini, because he raised it himself, without even using a pokeball. As long as Blue doesn’t throw money around enough to seem like a “spoiled rich kid,” he could use it for a number of helpful boosts.
Blue checks his supply of pokeballs. He has nineteen left before he has to start using the more expensive balls. He doesn’t think he’ll need them all, but it would be nice to cap out.
The next few minutes are spent continuing his circuit, occasionally spotting an abra and detouring to catch it. He finds a rare hill, really just a small elevation in the grassy field, and stands at the top as he takes out his binoculars and looks around.
Hmm. One abra there, another about a 120 degrees from it. He’ll pick up the farther one first, since the closer is on his way forward.
He catches both and keeps walking, wondering how far ahead or behind Red is. Hopefully they kept about the same pace with each other, but his detour to see the speaker might have closed the area of their search a bit.
Blue finds Red’s GPS position and sees it’s not far in front of him. Huh. Guess he got delayed by something too.
Better slow down a bit.
Blue looks for another hill to spot from, and a few minutes later he finds one, taller than the last. He runs to the top and lifts his binoculars again, looking around. There’s an abra, aaaand another… and…
Blue lowers his binoculars, then lifts them back up.
Shit.
He checks his GPS. “Shit!”
He lifts his binoculars again, pulse quickening as he watches the loudred walking steadily toward the center of the field, a small group of whismur following it. They’re not heading directly toward Joy and Leaf, but they’re moving in their general direction.
There are only two pokemon families in the area that might be completely immune to Joy’s singing: hoothoot/noctowl, some of which don’t sleep, and whismur/loudred/exploud, who are immune to sound-based attacks. The former rarely travel during the day, and the latter mostly stick to the caves that dot the surrounding mountains, only occasionally migrating. Still, knowing that they’re attracted to loud sounds, Red and Leaf planned for this.
Blue takes out his phone and sends them a warning.
Got it.
Leaf sends back.
Heading back to Joy to move us. Let me know when you guys are ready for the song to end.
might not have time for that if they get close enough to fight. maybe we cancel the song and hit them together?
Let’s avoid battling a group please, especially since we have no Fight/Rock/Steel pokemon.
we can put them to sleep another way, bulbasaur and zephyr with sleep powder?
Maybe. What do you think Red?
Blue taps his foot as he waits for Red to respond, and looks around. Should he rush over to the abra he saw and catch them? He picks up the binoculars and tracks the loudred’s progress until it’s out of sight.
careful leaf it’s close
red you there?
shit
RED
Have you talked to him recently?
no
he’s close though gonna find him
Blue takes off, nearby abra forgotten.
Come on man, answer.
He keeps checking his GPS as he runs to see if Red is moving. Finally his phone buzzes again.
I’m here.
Blue slows to a stop, breathing hard.
the hell man?
Are you okay Red?
Leaf asks.
Fine. Stop the song, relocate somewhere safe until they pass through.
you’re not going to use charmander’s smokescreen?
Red takes his sweet time responding again. Blue wonders if he’s actually hurt after all, and is about to send another message when Red says
No need. It probably broke speaker. Without singing it’ll go for another.
Blue frowns.
we can take them, if the three of us are together.
Sound based attacks. Too risky. Stick to abra catching.
Shit, he left two of them back there. Rather than argue, he turns and rushes back in the direction one of them was, knowing he won’t make it to both on time before Leaf stops the song.
Red better have a good explanation for what’s going on with him.
Red stands in front of the sleeping abra, and waits.
The phone’s continued vibrations grew annoying eventually, and he took it out of his pocket to turn it off. Seeing the screen made him hesitate, and some part of him reacted with enough horror to what he almost did to snap him out of the mental state.
Returning from it was like getting a bucket of cold water dumped on his head. He trembled as the aching sadness filled him again, and in fear of how far he almost sank into total apathy.
Still, he knew he had to return to it. He has to test if it works on awake abra.
So he ran until he found one. He holds a pokeball pointed at it, already locked on by now. He knows he’s risking throwing away a capture, and wants to at least try to get it if he can.
The seconds crawl by as he waits for Leaf to end Joy’s song, and as he does he sinks back into the apathetic state, trying to remain focused on his singular goal: catch the abra after it wakes.
Catch the abra after it wakes.
Catch the abra. After it wakes.
Catch the ab-
Its mind is suddenly there, sleepy at first, but alert within a second. Red groans as despair floods him, pushing past the numbness and breaking his concentration. He throws the pokeball as he doubles over and clutches his torso with both arms, but the abra vanishes before the ball reaches it.
Red sobs in a mix of grief and frustration. Not enough. All that effort and risk for nothing. He can blunt his feelings, but they’re still just a portion of what’s behind his partition when it comes down.
Somehow he manages to keep his feet as the storm of sobs wrack him, but when they pass he feels utterly hopeless. If coming up with a whole new mental state wasn’t enough, then he’s out of tricks. He tried, and he failed.
“
Why do you think of that as failure?” His therapist seemed genuinely curious, the way she always did when asking questions no matter how obvious or pointed the question might be.
“
What do you mean, why? It’s the definition of the word.” She stayed quiet, waiting, and eventually Red searched for something else to say. “If I passed the class, I would have succeeded. I didn’t, so I failed. It’s not complicated.”
“
But why do
you
think of that as failure?”
Red frowned. “You can’t just emphasize a word and repeat the question as if that changes the answer.”
“
Doesn’t it?”
“
No,” he said, ignoring the dissonance he felt. “I think of that as failure because that’s what failure is, to everyone.”
“
I see. So if a scientist tests an idea and doesn’t get the result they want, did they fail?”
“
Obviously.”
“
What if they learned something from it?”
“
Well, good for them, I guess, but they still failed.”
“
Do you think they could ever be happy they failed, if the thing they learned ended up being more important?”
Red sensed the trap, but he couldn’t ignore his inner agreement this time. “Sure, I guess. So what did I learn from failing a class? Since, you know, failing a class comes from not learning?”
“I thought you failed because you didn’t do the work,” his therapist said, but continued on before he could answer. “But if you failed because you didn’t learn the subject, then at the very least, you learned what doesn’t work for you, right?”
Red rolled his eyes. “Right, I learned that staying in bed all day and not doing the homework won’t pass the class. I’m a genius, now.”
She leaned forward, resting her chin on one fist. “What if you also learned that you can’t force yourself to be productive when you’re feeling shitty? That maybe you have to focus on feeling better first?”
“
Sounds like an excuse to not even go to class next quarter. I’ll take it, thanks.”
“
Maybe you shouldn’t. Do you want me to call your teachers?”
Red’s eyes widened. “Uh. No, that’s okay.”
“Are you saying that because you think you’ll get in trouble? Because I promise you won’t. I’ll speak to your mother about it too if you want.”
Red fidgeted in his chair. “I can’t just miss a whole quarter.”
“Why not? You’re not going to pass it anyway.”
Red felt like arguing, but caught himself. Why was he trying so hard to stay in school? But the implication that he wouldn’t pass… it bothered him, even though he didn’t care a moment ago. “What are you trying to do, here? Get me to skip a quarter, or push me into trying to pass it?”
His therapist cocked her head to the side. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
Red stifles a sob before it can escape his lips, and breathes deep, smelling the fresh green grass all around him.
Change a failure into a learning opportunity.
So. What did he learn?
He learned that the loss of the partition is more impactful than a change to his mood. So what he needs to do is keep his partition from mattering.
Start at the beginning. What are his tools? What can he do?
He can mimic mental states influenced by psychic powers. He can mimic his own from specific stimuli, and others’. What does that leave him with?
Red keeps breathing in and out, focusing on the thought. What other psychically influenced mental state can he mimic? If only Ayane had used her power in a way to make her mind “healthy” or “stable” or-
Red’s eyes open as his breath catches.
I don’t need Ayane’s mind in that format: my default state
is
a psychically sculpted stable one!
He doesn’t waste time wondering if it could work. Red drops into the lotus position, evening out his breaths as best he can. One arm rises to impatiently rub his face dry, then again as fresh tears appear at the ache of sadness that goes through him.
Nevermind. Let it go.
He waits until his awareness is mostly drawn inward, then begins shifting his attention to different parts of his mental state. He’s
emotionally
sad, but his
thoughts
aren’t being overwhelmed with negative associations like when the partition is down.
For a glimmering second, Red almost grasps what Elite Agatha meant when she insisted to Professor Oak that there’s a distinction between mental and emotional pokemon attacks.
Then it passes, but he’s still able to reach far enough to work with the distinction.
No set of words seem fit to describe it, however. How would you describe your default mental state? It’s just “existing normally.” But that still has markers, anchors, a framework he can remember and nail into place.
It doesn’t feel like anything has changed. He hasn’t made the partition stronger, and he isn’t using his powers to do anything. He’s just… focusing on keeping everything as it is.
He stays that way until his phone vibrates again. He checks it and sees that the first speaker he put down is offline.
The loudred got another one,
he sends.
We should be clear.
Okay,
Leaf says.
Summoning Joy. Earplugs back in, if you took them out.
Red puts his phone away and focuses on the mental state again, waiting until it feels stable before he gets to his feet and resumes walking. Every so often he feels as though he’s lost it: trying to consciously hold onto a “default” feels like trying to cup water in his hands, but he keeps reinforcing it every so often, retracing his mental path around the touchstones of how he thinks, around the gap between what he feels and his memories of his dad’s death.
He eventually spots a sleeping abra and catches it. A few minutes later he finds another. Part of him is glad the system’s still working with two speakers down, but he begins to grow impatient as he walks, checking the time occasionally. He needs to find another awake one. He needs to know if this works.
When there’s just fifteen minutes of singing left, Red starts to seriously consider sending one of his captured abra back out and waking it up himself. He’s still talking himself out of it when he feels an abra pop into existence nearby, its mind suddenly “next to” his.
He freezes, eyes flicking around. He can’t see it, it must be behind him… but-
Red’s mind wobbles, a mass of gelatin on a small plate again as the abra… tries to reconnect. It’s almost like the mind bounced off, then came back again. He focuses on his mental state, keeping all the anchors in place, all the parts of his mind that make up just-being-normal-Red…
And a few heartbeats later, suddenly as it started, the sensation is gone.
Red waits a few more seconds, pulse pounding in his ears, and finally, slowly, looks around. He spots the abra a few paces behind him and to the left, practically in arm’s reach.
Red slowly extends his pokeball turning it so the lens aligns with the abra. He counts to three. He throws.
The ball flashes, snaps shut, and rolls onto the grass.
Red falls to his knees once again.
The ache is there. The grief. The pain. The loneliness. The despair. The wind blows, feeling extra cold on the tear tracks on his face.
But still, for a moment, he smiles.
“Are you kidding me?” Red asks. “You got them to stay with
the
power of love?”
“It’s not that simple.” Leaf pauses, then smiles. “Okay I guess it is that simple, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. It took a few tries to actually figure it out.”
Red grumbles. “Well, it probably wouldn’t work for me anyway. And I figured out my own solution, eventually.”
“Good, because when we do this again I expect you guys to get on my level,” Blue says as he cheerfully fills his corner of the table with pokeballs almost twice as fast as them. He can already tell he got a lot more than they did.
They sit in one of Bill’s living rooms, placing a growing collection of balls on the table after registering each pokemon in their dex. There’s a fruit bowl in the middle that Blue quickly has to move elsewhere to make more room. His stomach grumbles, and he picks out an apple before resuming work one-handed.
Once they finish emptying their bags, the three put aside the other pokemon they caught until just the abra are left, then start counting. Blue glances at Red every so often, noting the tautness of his features. When Red explained what happened to him, he made it seem like his experimental mental states were temporary. But there’s something distant and off about his friend’s gaze, and Blue wonders if Red understated how strong the renewed emotions are, or how he’s managing them.
The final tally is 19 for Red, 24 for Leaf, and 31 for Blue, a few of them temporarily in greatballs.
“I got one more.” Leaf holds the ball up. “But I’m keeping it.”
“Yeah,” Red says. “I’ll keep one too, once we finish analyzing them all.”
“How long do you think your study will take?”
Red shrugs. “A week, maybe? The only reason the last one took so long is because I had to wait for people with spinarak to come to me. Now I have a big sample ready to be tested.”
Blue studies Red’s face again. He sounds almost… uninterested. “Well, it’ll take at least that long to study the market and come up with a good plan to sell them,” Blue says. “So no rush on that.”
“I’d like to vet my buyers personally anyway,” Leaf says.
They look at her in surprise. “What, you’re going to meet each one?” Blue asks.
“Maybe not meet in person, obviously, but at least check them out online, maybe give them a call. I want to at least try and make sure the people who buy mine are going to take good care of them.”
Blue shrugs. “As long as we agree on how we price and list them, then your pokemon, your rules.”
His hands move out among his collected pokeballs, straightening each one into a uniform pattern, enjoying the sight of all of them. It’s a bit hard to believe how many he got. Hearing the other two talk about their struggles to catch the awake abra showed how being Dark has its advantages, but now that the catching is over and he listens to the other two discuss how they’ll train their abra, all the great uses they’ll have for them, Blue feels the warm glow of contentment fading away. He always wanted an abra when he was younger. The idea of being able to teleport, or share the thoughts of one of his pokemon, always seemed so cool.
But he’ll never have that, no matter how many abra he catches.
Blue’s jaw sets as he picks one of his abra’s balls up. Leaf has gone around to get the bowl of fruit, and is sharing it with Red. Blue waits until they’ve picked something out, then says, “I’m going to keep one too.”
Red and Leaf look at him in surprise. Dark trainers don’t use Psychic pokemon. It’s just not done: without the ability for their pokemon to sense them, they would be incredibly hard to interact with, let alone train.
Blue meets their gazes, waiting for their skepticism and questions.
“Wouldn’t the time be better spent training others, though?” Red asks. He holds a palm up to stop Blue’s response. “I’m just curious. I don’t doubt you can do it. You’re the most determined person I know, and a great trainer. I’m asking from an efficiency perspective.”
Blue relaxes slightly, and smiles. It means a lot, hearing Red say that. Not that Blue would ever admit it out loud. “It won’t be efficient, no,” he says. “I don’t fully know how I’ll do it yet. Maybe in the time it takes I could train two other pokemon instead. But I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Strategic advantage?” Red asks. “Having a psychic will surprise people who know you’re Dark.”
“Optics,” Leaf suggests instead, munching on a strawberry she liberated from the bowl. “A Dark trainer with a powerful, well trained Psychic pokemon… I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone like that. It’ll really make you stand out.”
Blue nods. “You’re both right. But most of all, it’s-”
“To prove you can,” Red says.
Leaf smiles and adds, “To yourself as much as anyone.”
Blue grins back. “You guys know me so well. Can I count on your help?”
Red extends a fist, and Blue bumps it, glad to see the gesture. Blue then extends his other fist toward Leaf. She grins and taps her knuckles to his, and Red and her extend their other hands at the same time to complete the triangle. Blue feels a bit better seeing Red smile, even though it fades a second later.
“Today was… a good day,” Red says, keeping his fists out.
Leaf nods. “To Red, for his great idea.”
“Hear, hear!” Blue says.
His friend flushes. “To Bill,” Red says. “For letting us use his land.”
“Hear, hear!” the other two repeat.
“Welcome,” the speakers above them says, making them all jump and lower their arms at last.
“And to me,” Blue says with a smile, “For catching Joy and making it all possible.” He ducks as the others toss fruit at him. “No need for thanks, folks, my bigger catch is thanks enough. And next time, I’m going to be bringing more pokeballs.”
Leaf gets off the bus, and finds herself in the shadow of Mt. Moon as it blots out the sky. She and the most of the other disembarking passengers make their way to the pokemon center at the foot of the mountain, a bastion of peace and comfort for travelers on their way up or down its slopes. The majority of the crowd heads for the front desk, but Leaf finds the cafe and looks around until she spots a familiar face at one of the tables.
“Hey Ryback.” She slides into the chair across from him.
“Hi, Leaf. Good to see you again.” The paleontologist tucks his phone away and lifts his coffee cup. “Get you something?”
“I’m okay.” She takes out her notebook and puts her phone on the table in case she needs to start recording. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem at all. We owe you guys a lot. I saw that interview you did, very modest.”
She opens her mouth, then closes it when she realizes she’s about to say something modest again. “Well, I won’t pretend I’m not here to bank on that gratitude a bit.”
“Figured as much. You said this was about a story you want to write, but did you need to come halfway up the mountain to talk about it in person?”
“I’m hoping I can convince you to take me farther up the mountain, actually, if the conversation goes well.”
He raises his brow. “I’m listening.”
“First things first. Would you mind telling me everything that happened when you left us at the Outpost that night? Off the record. I just want to get a sense of things.”
Ryback shrugs. “Sure. Let’s see, was dark by the time I got back up to camp, and I missed the meeting with all the bigwigs. Went to check with the cleanup detail, then helped Rob look over the damage at a couple of the digs as best I could with just the lamplights. When the meeting ended I spoke with the site leader-”
“Dr. Zapata, right?”
“Right. Told her you guys were safe and asked how the meeting went. Got a summary, helped her with some new security protocols that were decided on. That took up the rest of the night, I think, and I went to bed after updating our logs.”
Leaf watches the older man’s face the whole time he speaks, listens to his voice. She doesn’t know if it’s her imagination, but he sounded… too bland. Not rote, exactly, just emotionless.
Consciously
emotionless.
“Can you give me some timestamps for all that?” she asks when he’s done.
“Sure. Got there around 8:20, met with Dr. Zapata about an hour later. Coordinating the new security was finished around 10:30, was in bed by 11.”
“So about two hours, all told.”
“Yep. Is that important?”
“Just getting a rough sense of things.” Leaf finishes scribbling the numbers down on her timeline, and glances at the note she made back in Cerulean. Red got his notification about Yuuta’s execution at 11:17PM. Assuming Leader Misty began the execution proceedings after leaving the meeting around 9:30, two hours would be almost four times longer than the average she looked up beforehand.
Zoey was right: there’s something off about this.
“Do you know what the Leaders did after the meeting?”
“Giovanni stuck around to talk to people, but I believe Brock left shortly after.” Ryback’s face darkens. “Misty stayed to oversee Yuuta’s execution. I stayed away from that. Didn’t know him that well, but a year of working together… it’s still hard to think about.”
“Yeah, I get it. Do you know if she did anything before that though, or is that all she stayed for?”
“I think that was it. But I wasn’t involved, like I said.”
Leaf nods. “Do you know who was involved, that I could talk to? Ranger Sasaki, maybe Paul?”
“Yeah, probably them,” Ryback says. He doesn’t look quite so distant now that her questions are narrowing in, and she catches him looking at her speculatively before he takes another sip. “Sasaki’s not at the site now though, you’d have to go to her outpost. I don’t mind giving you a lift to talk to Paul, but he won’t be off duty for another few hours. You really want to go all the way up the mountain just for that?”
“If he doesn’t have the information I need, then I’d like to be able to ask others.”
“And what information is that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I do, actually,” she says. Ryback’s eyebrows rise, and she smiles. “Sorry Ryback, but I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
The paleontologist turns his cup in his hands. “That bad, is it?” he asks eventually.
Leaf is quiet a moment. Zoey Palmer made one thing clear about the story leads she shared: they’re not gifts, where Leaf has exclusive rights to publish on them and Zoey has to ignore them. She gave Leaf a helping hand, pointed her in directions to investigate, but ultimately if Zoey felt she had a story to publish, she would publish it. Leaf is on a timer.
A headline flashes in Leaf’s mind, one of Zoey’s more famous pieces. It revealed corruption in one of the League’s safety boards, but rather than just singling out the corrupt overseers and asking for better oversight, it insinuated widespread corruption that just didn’t seem founded by the facts at hand. Nevertheless, it fed into a lot of anti-League sentiment and increased her readership immensely.
She can’t even accuse Zoey of impure motives. She seems to believe what she writes, and just happens to focus on the stories that fit her ideology. Which means that great reporter though she is, Leaf is worried about the same thing happening here. She doesn’t want people like Ryback and the others at the dig site, the mission of the site itself, to be smeared by whatever a bad actor or two were doing.
“I don’t know how bad it is, actually,” she says at last. “But I think from what I suspect, it’s the kind of thing you couldn’t have missed if you knew enough to help me. Which means either you don’t, or you purposefully left it out of your summary of the night, probably because you were told to. So if I do end up piecing the information together, I don’t want you to be involved unless you choose to volunteer it, which you didn’t. So, the less you know the better.”
Ryback chuckles. “Thanks for the consideration, Leaf, but assuming there is some conspiracy going on, if I fly you up there and you start asking around about whatever you want to know, wouldn’t the people think I’m involved anyway?”
Leaf smiles.
“An article on the dig site?” Dr. Zapata asks. Leaf can hear her frown over the phone. “Didn’t the interview you did recently already cover everything?”
“I don’t mean the incident,” Leaf says. She’s standing outside the Center, watching Ryback smoke a cigarette by the edge of the mountain. “I want to do a piece on the site itself, the people who work here. I think it’s a good opportunity to talk about the importance of projects like this, and it ties into my article on the Pewter museum.”
Leaf holds her breath as the director silently considers. “Alright, I have no problem with it,” Dr. Zapata finally says. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone’s duties, you have my permission to ask around and interview whoever consents.”
“Thank you! I’ll try and stay out of anyone’s way, but I have one more favor to ask.”
“Yes?”
“Is there a room I can rent, by chance? It would save me a lot of time if I can spend a few nights there.”
“Hmm. I think that can be arranged. We’ve replaced the damaged buildings and added another two to house some extra staff, but they won’t all be here until the end of the week. You can take one of those until Friday: no need to pay for the bed as long as you keep the room in good order, but any meals you take in the cafeteria will cost you.”
“That’s fine, thank you! I’m on my way up.”
“Safe travels.”
Leaf closes the call and waves to Ryback, who begins walking back toward her. Twilight is beginning to fall around them, and she feels a chill coming on the air as the sun starts to set behind Mount Silver in the distance.
Ryback flicks the smoldering butt into a trash bin. “So?”
“She said it’s okay.”
“Well, alright then. Anything you need to do before we’re off?”
She tightens her backpack straps. “Ready when you are.”
The flight up the mountain is exhilarating, and only mildly terrifying. Leaf has only ever flown on a pokemon once before, and it was a fairly tame, straight shot between cities. She clutches the pommel of the pidgeot’s rear saddle as the wind whips her hair and clothes around, even shielded from the front by Ryback’s body. The pommel grip is more for comfort than anything, since the straps around her waist and legs do most of the work of keeping her secure.
Eventually she feels safe enough to look around without getting vertigo. Her coat keeps the worst of the air’s chill away, and her goggles keep her eyes safe as she marvels at the sweep of the land beneath them, sloping down from the mountain. She cranes her neck to see the distant gleam of Cerulean City, and the bay beyond it.
They climb in sweeps and fits, gliding between updrafts and only flapping to get through dead air. When they finally reach the dig site, Leaf closes her eyes and braces herself as the pidgeot brings them down. The landing is surprisingly soft however, just a couple hops and a few flaps of its wide, long wings.
It takes her a few minutes to get her land legs back, during which she thanks Ryback and asks him if he wants to give her an interview for the article.
“Sure, I guess so,” he says as he strokes his pidgeot. “I figure you’ll slip whatever questions you really want to know in with all the other stuff, but if others decide to do it too, no harm in that. Let me know when you get four or five of them already.” After another minute of grooming and feeding, he seems to know when his pokemon has gotten enough rest, because he steps away and withdraws it in one smooth motion. “Come on, I’ll show you around… again.” He smiles. “The buildings this time, ‘stead of the dig. Our last tour got a bit interrupted, anyway.”
Leaf starts interviewing people that very night, just taking the time to find her room and put her stuff away before wandering around the break rooms and introducing herself. Some of the people recognize her from the incident or Zoey’s interview, and a few express interest.
“Security is pretty standard,” an ACE trainer says, scratching his neck. “Talking about it shouldn’t be an issue, though I’ll have to get it cleared.”
“Sure! I read your Pewter piece, after I saw your interview about the attack.” The geologist smiles. “I’d be happy to talk about the kinds of fossils we’re finding here!”
“Oh, yes, worked plenty of digs like this in my time,” says an older man who introduced himself as Albert. “This one’s run better than most, for sure. That night was tragic, but don’t let it give you the wrong impression. Zapata runs a tight ship compared to some of the idiots I’ve worked for.”
Leaf smiles and nods and writes down names and availability times, then moves on to the next building, then the next, until she has over a dozen volunteers ranging over every aspect of the dig.
Well, every aspect but one. The new security from Viridian, specifically tasked with guarding the dug up fossils, don’t seem keen on the idea. They’re friendly enough, some mingled with the other site staff, but most kept each other’s company. There’s a definite air of separation to them that probably comes from only being on-site for a couple weeks, and not knowing anyone else that well.
Since they weren’t on-site the night of the incident anyway, Leaf isn’t particularly interested in them, but it might seem strange if she doesn’t ask them too. She’s a bit relieved that they all say no, since it frees her up to pursue others. She’s serious about the dig site article and plans to write it as well as she can, but her “real” story is looking more and more substantial as the night goes on.
Buried in the general questions she asks are a few that help her narrow down who’s in a position to know if something unusual happened with the renegade’s execution. Ranger Sasaki isn’t on site, as Ryback said, but she’ll be the last person Leaf speaks to, once she has a better idea of what to ask.
She checks in with Laura as she prepares for bed, summarizing everything she learned and listening as her mentor lists out all the possibilities.
“The most important thing to clarify is whether Yuuta is actually dead,” Laura says. “That’s the primary fact that shapes the story. In all likelihood he is, and maybe there was some other problem. But if he’s alive…”
“You think he escaped? That they’re trying to save face?”
“Or he turned out to be someone important, politically.”
“That would be…” Leaf tries to find the words and fails. “I don’t know, ‘irresponsible’ doesn’t seem to cover it. If it were just one person who had to keep the secret, maybe, but this many?”
“How many is ‘this many?’ Remember not to jump ahead of what you know. At the very least, who needs to be in on this?”
“Misty. Ranger Sasaki. Maybe a couple ACE? They might have been intimidated, had their jobs threatened…”
“Right. So it’s possible he’s alive, one way or another. But more likely he’s dead, and there’s something else that caused the delay.”
“Or the same things caused it. He tried to escape, or there was some last minute intervention attempted by someone high up, both of which failed.”
“Sure. What else could have taken up the time?”
Leaf slips under the covers, cold feet grateful for their warmth as she fluffs the pillow behind her head and lies back with a sigh. “Umm. An interrogation? Some questions they wanted to ask him about his plan or conspirators?”
“If there was more than one person working the job, that could be worth hiding. Especially if it was someone from ACE. Make sure you check the staff roster just to make sure no one was quietly taken off it since the incident.”
“Will do.” Leaf yawns. “What about Yuuta? Should I look into him myself too?”
Laura chuckles. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. You should get some sleep.”
Leaf is about to argue, then realizes how tired she is. “Alright. Have a good night.”
“You too, hon.”
Leaf closes the call and tries to sleep. Her thoughts are too busy racing from one topic to the next to settle down however, and eventually she pulls her phone back out and opens it to browse the web and distract herself from her story.
At first she stays on the lighter stuff, happy to to be entertained by amusing pictures and videos. But eventually she starts checking more serious topics, and before long her sleepiness is gone as she reads about a scandal with some Silph Co. executive in Fuchsia, a Zapdos sighting north of Pewter, and…
She sits up, pulse spiking. There’s a Tier 1 occurring in Celadon, right now. She taps the headline and scrolls up as the live thread continues to update with pictures, public messages, and a running tally of suspected casualties.
She watches a short video clip, shaky and far off, of someone recording a living wave of sludge pouring over a street below their apartment. A flood of grimer and muk, rising out of the city’s canals and sewers, covering the streets with poisonous waste as they spread outward.
Leaf quickly calls Laura back, heart in her throat. “Laura! Are you okay? I just saw-”
“I’m fine, Leaf, I’m safe. It’s on the other side of the city from me.” Laura’s voice sounds breathy, and Leaf hears the sound of feet on stairs. “Thanks for calling hon, but I’ve got to go.”
“Go, go where? Are you evacuating?”
“No, I’m heading to the roof to get a better view!” Laura says.
“You’re
what?
”
“I’ll be perfectly safe, don’t worry, I just want to see it myself if it does get this far, in case I end up writing about it!”
“But-”
The sound of a door being slammed open. “I’m here. Go to bed Leaf! Don’t tell Red, he’ll just worry! Goodnight!”
The call ends, leaving Leaf frozen for a moment before she pulls up her internet and checks a map of Celadon. It’s the largest city in Kanto, so it’s hard to guess where Laura might be, but the hazard zone that’s currently marked on the map only takes up about a tenth of the city in red, with a quarter in varying shades of yellow and orange. She could be anywhere in the other three-fourths of the city… hopefully that’s what she meant by the “other side of the city.”
Leaf gets out of bed and starts pacing, eyes glued to the live update feed. She wants to call Red, but his mom asked her not to… she doesn’t know if he’s asleep or not, but she’s sure his work training all the abra to prepare them for his experiment is exhausting, and she really shouldn’t worry him and make him lose sleep over nothing…
She should sleep too, she knows that. But… how can she, knowing what’s going on there?
Memories flood her mind, first of the attack on the mountain, then the forest fire. There are trainers and civilians and pokemon in Celadon right now, fighting and dying, and there’s nothing she can do about any of it.
Not that there ever was in other pokemon attacks she heard about, of course. She even had people she cared about caught up in them. She worried then and she’s worried now, but that’s not what has her pacing around the room. It’s a sense of frustration, a desire to
do something
that she never felt before becoming a trainer.
After being in emergencies herself, and gaining some measure of power… it feels wrong, somehow, to not be part of one. To not be helping.
She thinks of Red and Blue’s promise to each other, to go and help if any of the Storm Birds attack a nearby town or city. Before she thought they were a bit crazy, and just hoped they could find some other way to help out while avoiding any danger.
Now, though, she knows she’ll be right there with them, running straight into harm’s way.
Leaf is exhausted, but she can’t force herself to sleep. She wishes she could have Joy sing to her, but the noise would travel through the walls, and anyway she wouldn’t be able to get her back in the ball afterward.
But maybe Joy can help another way. Leaf summons her wigglytuff, and wraps her in a hug, closing her eyes and sighing as her pokemon cuddles back against her. Its fur is so soft and warm that Leaf feels the knot of worry inside her relaxing slightly.
When she was young, after dad left, she took to sleeping cuddled up with Wilby, the family’s herdier, to keep the bad dreams away. Her mom had complained about Wilby getting hair all over Leaf’s bedsheets, but relented when she saw how much more well rested Leaf was afterward.
Wilby may be back in Unova, but Leaf has her own pokemon now. “Okay, Joy,” she says, returning to bed with her pokemon and tucking them both in. “Just rest here with me a bit.” Her pokemon seems happy to cuddle up under the blankets, and after a moment of shifting around to get comfortable, deflates her body into a soft, malleable pile of fuzz.
Before long Joy’s wide eyes slip closed, and Leaf feels herself drowsing beside her. The occasional worry continues to shoot across her thoughts. Is the rampage over now? Did it spread to other parts of the city?
She reaches for her phone on the nightstand, but her hand drops to her chest as she’s finally pulled down into a warm, comfortable sleep.
“So you switch off with two others?” Leaf asks a paleontologist the next morning.
“Yep.”
“Is there a time slot you each have?”
“Yeah, normally Fara takes sunrise to lunch, I’m the afternoon guy, and Will has nights.”
She scribbles this down. “Got it. So, what do you usually do on your time off?”
Later, with an ACE on security: “Do you all run drills in case something goes wrong?”
“Of course, once a week,” the woman says. “That’s why the response was so quick during the attack. We specifically had a plan in place in case pokemon burrowed up from under us.”
“Of every kind?”
“No, just those that could dig. We didn’t foresee a paras colony driving some pokemon that could dig in front of them to the surface. Obviously a mistake, in retrospect, but we’re better prepared now.”
Leaf smiles. “Well, you all did fantastically regardless. So what’s the chain of command up here?”
Later still, with a geologist: “How do you guys decide where the fossils go?”
“Oh, that’s all done by the funders once we report what we’ve found. They hash it out among themselves, then pass down the orders.”
“Do they ever ask for advice, or suggestions?”
He laughs. “No, not really. We give some anyway, and they actually do listen once in awhile. They’re paying us for our expertise, after all.”
Leaf nods and scribbles, then moves onto another topic, another interview, where she can scribble and nod some more. Hour after hour, with whoever’s on a break or off the clock for the day.
She’s a bit tired from last night, but luckily she didn’t lose the habit of waking up early while in Cerulean, since the dig site is up and working by the crack of dawn. Leaf rose to find her wigglytuff fast asleep beside her, and woke Joy up for some breakfast before withdrawing her and calling Laura, who assured her she was fine. Leaf checked the news of the incident, a bit relieved that the casualty list wasn’t bigger, then prepared for her day of interviewing the site staff.
Schedules. Routines. Duties. Again and again, Leaf asks who does what, where, and when. She builds her picture of the dig site piece by piece, until she has a good idea of what the site should look like on any typical day.
The problem, of course, is that the one she cares about most was anything but typical. She slips questions in here and there to probe what each person she talks to was doing on the night of the attack, who they were with and when. The more she knows, the easier it’ll be to reconstruct what happened.
In terms of her major questions, her first real clue came from Albert. He was in the meeting with the Leaders, and confirms that Misty went to see Yuuta right after, which in turn confirms Leaf’s timeline.
“Do you know who went with her?” Leaf asks, barely able to contain her excitement.
“Well, the Ranger went, but other than that, don’t think anyone else from the meeting did.”
So it’s down to Misty and the Ranger… and whichever ACE was in charge of watching Yuuta.
But when she tries to get that info, however subtly, there’s nothing. She pokes and prods a bit more than she intended, but it isn’t until she asks to see the staff roster that Dr. Zapata sends a message asking to see her.
Leaf goes to her office with some trepidation, knocking on the door and entering when prompted. “Hello, Director. Is something wrong?” Leaf asks as she slides into the chair across from her desk.
The older woman finishes typing something on her computer, then turns to Leaf and adjusts her glasses, leaning back a bit. “To be honest, Leaf, I’m not sure. How has your stay been so far?”
“Good. Informative. I’ve been learning a lot about the site, the people who work here, the mission. Did I bother someone or interfere with their job?”
“No, no complaints. I’m glad you’ve been finding your stay productive. I do have some concerns, however.”
Leaf folds her hands in her lap. “Yes?”
“I asked a few of the people you spoke with what you talked about. I hope you don’t mind, but I was curious. At first it all seemed fine, but then one or two people came forward themselves, either people you interviewed or those nearby who overheard. Can you tell me why you asked Mr. Pao about our site’s recruitment practices?”
“Oh, sure.” Leaf relaxes a little. This was far off from what Leaf feared. “I was curious to know what it takes to be hired here, the kinds of qualifications that are needed.”
“And this is important to the article?”
“Probably not. I actually don’t know if most of the stuff I’ve been asking about will be in it yet, but I want to get as complete a picture as I can before I start writing.”
“I see.” The director is quiet for a moment. “And the questions on our ‘chain of command?’ It sounds like you were quite extensive.”
Hm. That question was a bit harder to answer. “I’m sorry Director, I don’t understand. What’s this about?”
“When you asked for permission for this project, it sounded like you were interested in a day-in-the-life sort of article, or a general kind of human interest story with the dig site set as the focus. I agreed because I didn’t see the harm in it, and because you helped us during the attack. But ultimately, you’re a stranger to me.” The director’s gaze is intense, and Leaf struggles not to blink or look away. “And if a stranger came to the site and asked the sorts of questions you’ve been asking, I would assume something much different about their intentions than a simple article on paleontological digs.”
Leaf’s throat is dry. “What would you assume they were writing about instead?”
“Do you know what corporate espionage is?”
Oh.
Relief makes Leaf struggle not to smile. “I do, yeah. But I don’t have any ties to anyone that might be interested in that sort of thing. I wouldn’t even know who was interested in the kind of information I’ve been asking about.”
“And the monthly personnel files you requested, from the first day of the dig? This expedition is partially funded by Pewter. Why not check the-”
“-public records, I did, but they’re not recent or organized, and it’s just a lot less convenient.”
Dr. Zapata taps her fingers on her desk. “Whatever we give you would be stripped of all but the basics, to protect privacy. Just names and dates.”
“That’s totally fine. Does that mean you can do it?”
“What I want to know first is what you want to do with the info.”
“I just want to know who might have left, maybe contact them too. See where they are now, what they’re doing. Kind of draw connections between other, similar projects.” Leaf feels she’s close to babbling and shuts up.
“So you’re not headhunting?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Alright. I’ll send the files over by tomorrow.”
Leaf’s brow rises. “Thank you.”
Dr. Zapata smiles briefly. “I think you’re probably on the level, but I had to at least ask you myself. I was a trainer once, long ago. I know not to underestimate kids who go on their journey as young as you and your friends.”
Leaf flushes, both from the praise and a bit of shame. She doesn’t want to deceive the director, but… she’s not actually lying. And besides, if the story’s going to come out either way, she’d rather be the one to break it than risk Zoey’s broad strokes. “Is that all?”
“One last thing. Can you promise me that you really will be publishing an article on the dig site? I don’t care if it’s flattering or not, I can take a bit of disappointment. I just want your assurance that you’re not compromising the integrity of the site.”
Leaf manages a smile. “I promise.”
“Then you can go. Thank you for your time.”
“No problem. Night.”
Leaf closes the door behind her, thoughts racing. She’s relieved the director is so far off the mark with her suspicions, but it’s clear that Leaf will have to be as careful as she can moving forward.
“Usually I go through the day’s discoveries and catalogue them, cross check the request lists we have from our various funders. Once that’s sorted, there’s some quality assurance to do, in case someone gets clumsy between removal and storage.”
Leaf nods and scribbles. “Does that happen often?” she asks Rob.
“Oh, not particularly.” The Unovan paleontologist smiles and takes a sip of his beer. He has a full head of grey hair and a goatee that reminds her of her grandpa. They spent some time talking about cities they lived in back home before getting into the interview, sitting on fold-out chairs in front of his residence quarters as they watch the dig site wind down for the night. “Most of the fossils take a day or two to get fully up out of the ground though, so accidents do happen.”
“Gotcha. Wow, it must have been rough for you the day of the incident then, huh?”
He grimaces. “‘Rough,’ hell, that’s one way to put it. Not that it was the worst thing that happened that day, not nearly, but the damage to some of the digs was a huge headache. Took me most of the week to get a handle on it, and we lost a couple weeks of work, all told.”
“Ouch. When did you start damage control?”
“That very night! While everyone was cleaning up from the battle, me and a couple others were securing the digs. Most were okay, thankfully, but a couple were hit by the wave of paras, and of course the one at ground zero was completely destroyed. I had to get Zapata’s permission to go down into the mountain and look for anything salvageable before they plugged the hole up.”
“And did she give it?”
“Yeah, once she was out of her meeting. Just said I had to bring some ACE with me, but that was a chore and a half in itself.”
Leaf manages not to visibly perk up, pencil only pausing for a moment before she says, “How come?”
“Well, I had to wait for them to finish whatever they were doing. Their own meeting, looked like. Went to them right away, but Leader Misty and the ranger had them all holed up in a building, talking about something.”
“Huh. I wonder what it was.”
Rob shrugs, drinking again from his bottle. “No clue. I just hung around until they were done, then talked to Paul about going down in the hole. He said okay, and a few of us did some prep and went down.”
“How did he seem?” Leaf asks.
“Who?”
“Paul. How did he seem, after the meeting?”
“Distracted. Upset. We were all high strung that night.”
Leaf nods, gaze unfocused as she watches a machoke roll a boulder out of a hole. “I remember.”
He chuckles. “You kids went through a lot too, stopping Yuuta like that…” His smile fades, and after a moment he lets out a heavy breath, taking another swallow. “Ahh, let’s not talk about that. Bad business.”
“Yeah, no problem. Would you mind telling me who was at the meeting with Leader Misty though? I’m curious about it, want to know who I can talk to later.”
“Oh, sure, sure. Let’s see, ah, there was Paul of course, Kenny, Mei…” He goes on to list over a dozen names before he trails off. “Probably some others, but I didn’t really pay attention at the time.”
“That’s plenty, thanks. Do you mind if I ask you about it later, check some names with you?”
“Alright, but you could just ask them, couldn’t you? I’m sure they’d remember better.”
“I will! But I won’t be meeting them until tomorrow, and I have the list in my room. I can just text you some names to check, if that’s okay.” Leaf smiles. “So, what happened once you went down into the hole?”
He smiles back. “Ah, that was rough, let me tell you. The smell! Burnt fungus and dead bugs everywhere…”
“Hey there,” Leaf says to the group of ACE Trainers. “Mind if I join you?”
The four security staff look at her in surprise, then shrug or nod as Leaf approaches. They’re set up away from the dig site, three guys and a woman of various ages, all standing across from practice dolls as they train their pokemon in the morning sun.
“Thanks,” she says, and takes out her own pokedoll. “Go, Ruby!”
Her new venonat appears, fresh from its virtual conditioning. She begins to run Ruby through her paces, giving her treats often and restraining the urge to pet her fuzzy body. Not because it’s uncomfortable, though some dislike the texture, but she read that bug pokemon don’t often like the feel of being stroked when they’re still new to their trainers. Instead Leaf uses lots of verbal praise, especially when Ruby finally manages to link two commands in quick succession.
Leaf takes a moment to look around as her venonat eats its pokepuff. Two of the ACE are coordinating their growlithe and magmar together, while the other two train their butterfree and weepinbell separately.
She recognizes the woman as one of the ACE who helped with Yuuta. Leaf watches her train her magmar, but doesn’t approach or speak with her. After Ruby finishes properly following every order twice in a row, Leaf withdraws her and sends out Ledyba. She puts her venonat’s ball in her bag instead of her belt, since her recent captures put her over the belt’s limit of six.
At first she was irritated with the arbitrary limit, seemingly modeled after the standard League maximum that would never have any impact on her. Now she has to admit that the space between the balls on her belt are just wide enough to avoid any fumbling, and that adding extra slots, as some belts do, would come with drawbacks, such as being unable to sit in a chair without removing it. For now carrying the extras in her bag works okay, but it would eventually become unwieldy, and she’s not sure if she’ll turn to alternate solutions or just keep her active team limited to what she can carry with her. Blue, who is already approaching two dozen pokemon, has already deposited the ones he doesn’t plan on using for his match against Misty.
Leaf begins practicing some aerial maneuvers with her ocarina. Part of her hopes the noise doesn’t bother the other trainers, but she would welcome the excuse to begin conversing with them if someone brings it up. None do however, and she keeps to herself, merely waving goodbye when everyone begins to pack up and head back to the site. A couple wave back, including the woman.
She goes again the next day, hoping the same people are there. She’s happy to see they are, with one new addition. Leaf once again asks permission to join them. They agree, and she begins training with her pokemon again, intent on practicing some more complicated attacks that she knows her pokemon will struggle with.
For example, venonat only naturally use Stun Spore when facing down threats they want to escape from, which makes it hard to train them to do it on command. Leaf manages to get hers to use it on the mannequin by attaching a rope around the doll’s middle and dragging it toward her pokemon as Ruby keeps retreating, but Sleep Powder is a bit tricker. Venonat tend to use it on pokemon they want to feed on. Apparently the mannequin isn’t particularly appetizing.
“Sleep Powder!” Leaf commands again, brushing some hair out of her eyes as the wind blows from behind her. Ruby just shifts in place, antennae swaying as she tries to find some succulent morsel to incapacitate and suck the life from. “Ruby, Sleep Powder! Come on, I’ve got berries right here, but you need to put it to sleep first. Sleep Powder!”
Five minutes of this and Leaf doesn’t have to pretend to be frustrated. Eventually one of the ACE trainers notices. Not the one Leaf recognizes, which would be ideal, but the butterfree trainer. He watches Leaf and Ruby, then steps forward with his hand out.
“May I?”
“Oh, sure!” Leaf hands him the berries. “Thanks. I’m not sure what to do, the ‘dex says not to feed them and just keep the berries nearby so they get hungry, but…”
“Well, the quickest way to train them is to find some natural prey to offer,” he says. “The berries work okay, but since they don’t need to put them to sleep, you gotta really make them hungry to prime them.” He begins to mash up the berries with his fingers, then steps toward the pokedoll and spread the sweet innards all over the foamy exterior. He wipes his hands clean on its head, then steps back. “Okay, now try.”
Leaf sees Ruby’s attention focused on the pokedoll and waits. Maybe she’ll do it on her own… but after a few moments pass, Leaf says, “Ruby, Sleep Powder,” and the venonat hops forward, shimmying out a cloud of spores.
“Good job, Ruby! Good girl!” Leaf quickly throws a handful of berries in front of her pokemon before she decides to jump on the pokedoll and be disappointed. “Thank you,” she says to the ACE.
“No problem. Let me know if you need any more help.” He returns to his own training. Leaf does the same, but when everyone begins wrapping up for the day, instead of trailing behind like she did yesterday, Leaf approaches them and keeps pace.
“Hey, thanks again for the help. I’m Leaf.” She extends her hand.
He takes it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Omar, this is Mei, Alex, Nora and Jean.”
All people who were in the mysterious meeting, according to Rob. “I think I remember you,” Leaf says, waving to Nora, who nods.
“Yeah, she told us you were the one that stopped Yuuta,” Alex says.
Leaf smiles. “I had some help.”
“The thing you’re writing, is it why you were here that day?” Nora asks.
“No, my friends and I were just passing through. Curious about the fossils, but the idea for the article came after.”
“Well, you saved us all a lot of grief. You’re welcome to join our training anytime, after what you did,” Nora says.
Leaf flushes slightly as the others agree. She counted on Dr. Zapata feeling grateful to allow her up here in the first place, but hadn’t realized how much more that counted toward the site’s security. Maybe she can use that, be a bit more direct when questioning them.
“Do you usually train daily?” Omar asks.
Leaf smiles. “I try to, though sometimes it turns into more of a play day.” A couple of them chuckle. “I didn’t plan on it while I was up here, but after the Tier 1 in Celadon…”
The group nods, faces grim. “And we thought the cleanup here was bad,” Jean mutters. “Whole city probably stinks. Fuckin’ mess, that’ll be.” He catches dirty looks from a couple of his peers. “What?”
“It’s okay,” Leaf says, grinning. “I’ve heard the word before. My grandfather cursed like a Ranger recruit, and I spent most of my life with him. Mom wasn’t pleased when I picked it up.”
“Well, if you hang out with ACE grads long enough, we give the Rangers a run for the cursing.”
Leaf chuckles along with the others. “Sounds fun. Speaking of which, do any of you know Daniel? I was hoping to see him again, but he doesn’t seem to be on site. Is he okay?”
Everyone is quiet for a moment, and Leaf keeps her face innocently curious. Daniel was the only ACE Trainer that was listed as a staff member before the incident and not afterward who wasn’t on the casualty list. Maybe coincidence, or maybe something more. He also wasn’t at the meeting, as far as Rob could remember. Leaf never met him, but there’s no reason any of them would know that.
“He’s on break, I think,” Jean says at last. “Took some time off.”
“Oh, alright. Any of you have his email? It’s not important enough for a text, just wanted to say hi.”
The silence is longer this time. Leaf watches them out of the corner of her eyes, seeing people glance at each other. As if everyone’s waiting for someone else to answer.
“Yeah, I think I can find it,” Nora says. “I’ll get it to you later.”
“Thanks. Here’s my number.” She extends her phone toward Nora, who does the same, and they tap their screens to swap info as they approach the outer buildings at the site. “See you guys tomorrow!”
Leaf walks back to her room, gaze distant as she keeps replaying the expressions of the others in her head. It might just be her imagination, but those pauses were a bit too long, their expressions too emotive, for someone asking about a coworker who simply took some time off. She just wishes she knew what they were thinking and feeling.
Leaf has never felt any particular envy of psychics before, outside of wanting to bond with pokemon better. But now she has to admit that it would be a valuable ability for a reporter to have. She wonders if Zoey is one, keeping it secret so as not to tip off people she talks to and interviews. Laura might even be an untrained, low level psychic, if Red went so long without realizing he was one. Isn’t it a maternal trait?
In any case, not every good investigator has had psychic powers, however much it would help, and she’ll just have to confirm her hunches the regular way: corroboration of facts.
It seems strange that someone would be removed from a staff listing just because they took some time off work. The list of site staff must include others who took time off, even from the security staff. If she can find someone else and see if they were removed for the time they were gone, that would help.
As for why they would lie… Leaf can’t outrule the possibility that Daniel Levi was somehow involved with Yuuta. Wasn’t there talk of him not being a sole actor? If Daniel and Yuuta worked together, maybe he ran after the execution, afraid he would be found out. Or maybe he helped Yuuta escape.
Leaf has been asking around as subtly as she could, and she can’t figure out who was watching Yuuta during the meeting on the night of his execution. Paul was the last person she
knows
was with him, unless he lied to her when he recounted his night. But he never named who took his place, and Leaf didn’t want to press the point at the time, still wary of asking questions that would get back to Director Zapata.
It’s possible she’ll have to now. Maybe whoever replaced him was the last person with Yuuta before Misty and Sasaki saw him. Maybe there was another exchange of the watch. Either way, Leaf is willing to bet her hat that the meeting with the ACE Trainers had to do with Yuuta. Maybe Daniel was missing because he was still watching him, or maybe not. Finding out what happened to him, where he is now, is the most important step.
“I mean, seriously, where does she get off, always telling me to be careful?” Red asks. “She’s not even a trainer, and she’s running around a Tier 1 for a story?”
“Mmhm.” Leaf shifts her phone to the other shoulder, reminding herself to buy some new earphones. She sits on her bed, gaze on her laptop screen as she reviews her timeline for the night of the paras attack. She has a chain of supervision written out for who was watching Yuuta, trying to narrow down potential possibilities. “I think she just stayed on the roof, though. It was probably safe up there.”
“Yeah, right, until the grimer start climbing up the walls.”
Leaf grins. “Really? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Hey, it happens!”
“I think you’re being a bit overprotective of your mom, which is, you know,
totally understandable,
but her building is like twenty stories up, and I’ve never heard of them going that high.”
“They can go through windows on the second or third floor and then take the stairs.”
“Right.” She plugs in an alibi corroboration from her notes with one of the ACE Trainers, putting him and another away from Yuuta at the relevant time. “In which case staying in her room would probably have been worse.”
Red grumbles something. “So how’s the research going?”
“Okay,” she says, and gives him a summary of what she’s learned so far. “I’m starting to appreciate how hard it is to figure things out by eye testimony. Some people who claim to have been at the same place at the same time are giving me very different reports of who they saw, or when they did things.”
“Yeah, hearsay is the least reliable form of evidence in court for a reason. I’m glad I rarely have to consider it for the things I’m working on.”
“Mmhm.” Leaf frowns at a pair of notes that put the same person on opposite sides of the dig. Are there two Michaels on site? She pulls up the staff roster. “How are our abra, anyway?”
Red sighs. “They’re fine, but figuring out a way to test their psychic strength is proving difficult. All they can do is teleport! I’m starting to think I’ll have to buy a TM to teach them some kind of attack. It’s not a bad investment, in any case. Think I should ask Bill if he has one lying around?”
Leaf barely hears him, distracted by a notification. It’s an email from Nora. “Hey Red, mind if I call you later?”
“Uh, yeah, no prob.”
“Thanks, bye.” She ends the call and stares at the message, which just contains an email address. Ostensibly Daniel’s.
Leaf lowers her phone and looks at her timeline again. She goes back to the beginning, checking through the whole thing again as one hand goes out to stroke Bulbasaur, who’s sleeping in his potted plant beside her bed.
Even if one or two people misremembered things… there are three facts she can clearly put together.
One, Daniel was the one watching Yuuta. Near certainty: there’s no one else it could be, unless multiple people all gave her bad info, accidentally or otherwise.
Two, Daniel disappeared afterward. No one, not any of the ACE Trainers, not any of the other dig employees, reports seeing Daniel all night. She’s less certain about this one: there’s a chance he didn’t disappear, but was for some reason detained, and those that detained him kept it secret or made everyone else keep it secret.
Three, Yuuta is dead… and was before Misty even got to him.
This one she’s the least sure about: maybe 70% at most. From the time that passed between the two meetings, it seems clear there wasn’t nearly enough for a full interrogation by the psychic Leader. Leaf still doesn’t know what she met with the site security about, but if Yuuta had escaped, the more likely outcome would have been an immediate manhunt.
Of course, there are other possibilities. Maybe Misty quickly sensed that Yuuta collaborated with one of the security, and called the meeting to find out which one. But there’s no account of returning to Yuuta after, and it still leaves unclear where Daniel was. Maybe he stayed with Yuuta, but in that case what happened to him afterward? No, it seems more likely that he was involved somehow. Maybe Daniel ran and left Yuuta alone in the room, but then who was left to watch him during the meeting?
So. Daniel was likely gone by then. And Yuuta was likely dead, and thus not in need of supervision.
It seems solid. But Leaf knows she has to account for unknown unknowns, and drops her confidence down. Maybe 60%. Maybe 55%. She could be wrong in ways she hasn’t even considered.
Speaking of which… she opens Nora’s message and considers Daniel’s email address. Part of her was expecting the email not to arrive, for Nora to just conveniently forget to send it. Now that she has it, she’s wondering if she really is way off. Nora wouldn’t share it if something serious happened with Daniel, would she?
Then Leaf realizes she’s being silly, since just having the address is meaningless if Daniel isn’t in a position to respond. Leaf still has to follow through.
She types up a quick message, glossing over how she knows him and hoping that if she claims to remember meeting him briefly, he’ll just think he forgot in all the chaos that day. With such a thinner relationship however, instead of trying to check in on him she instead informs him of the article she’s writing and asks if he’s free to answer some questions for her.
Leaf reviews the letter twice to make sure it’s vague and innocent enough. She knows she’s being paranoid, but she can’t help but wonder who else might actually read the email besides Daniel.
Finally she sends it and gets back to the alibis. There are a lot of ACE trainers who she never managed to talk to, and she tries to figure out a way to get the info out of them to corroborate her theory.
She’s still thinking it over when an email notification interrupts her. Leaf stares at the screen, then slowly clicks the icon.
It’s from Daniel. Less than three minutes since she sent her own email, a little over five since Nora sent her the email address at all, and she already has a response.
It’s not paranoia if there really is a conspiracy, right?
She knows she’s being silly. It’s a little past nine in the evening, plenty of people are up and have their phone at hand. Besides, Nora probably sent it after getting an “okay” from him in the first place, so he was up and not busy and expecting Leaf’s email. And the reason the others were so odd when talking about him wasn’t that they’re all in on some conspiracy: they’re likely just as in the dark as Leaf is, but know something weird happened with him.
The message, distilled to basics, is simple: “Hello, all’s well, a bit busy for any questions at the moment, thanks anyway.” It leaves nothing to really follow up with, and after reading it a few times, Leaf closes the email and goes back to stroking Bulbasaur. Her leg begins to bounce in place, and eventually she frowns, stretches, and starts to pace.
Let’s assume that was really Daniel and he’s fine and not on the run or anything. How does that fit into what’s probably true?
Maybe Daniel didn’t actually work with Yuuta. Maybe he was dismissed for something else.
She looks back at her timeline. It starts as a single line, but branches off into multiple smaller ones after a major division splits it in two… the point at which Yuuta is either executed, or not, whichever the case may be. There are facts she’s still gathering to confirm which path is the right one, but until she finishes getting all the answers at the dig site, she doesn’t dare risk contacting Ranger Sasaki to check about things like the execution itself or the transportation of Yuuta’s body.
Now, however, it seems she has few other options. Leaf believes she has the right cards: it’s time to play her hand, and see what a bit of bluffing can get her.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Ranger,” Leaf says as she enters Sasaki’s office the next morning. It took her about an hour to make her way down the mountain to the outpost. A can of repel, and Bulbasaur walking along beside her, kept away any wild pokemon, though she did have to send Crimson out to chase away some spearow that were circling them.
“Of course, though I only have a few minutes.” The Ranger offers her a seat in front of her desk.
“I’ll get right to it then. I just need to corroborate some facts for an article I’m writing on the dig site.”
“Alright.” Sasaki sits down, her serious eyes lightened by a smile. “What can I help you with?”
Leaf takes a deep breath.
Calm. Resolute.
“First, I should say I know about Yuuta.”
Sasaki blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“I know about Yuuta. And Daniel Levi. I just want to confirm whether you have any leads, or if you have any comment you’d like to make before I publish the story.”
The two stare at each other, Leaf’s heart pounding in her chest.
Don’t break eye contact, don’t look unsure.
“I’m sorry,” Sasaki repeats, slowly this time. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.” There’s no confusion on her face however: all hint of a smile is gone, and there’s nothing but resolute blankness before Leaf.
“I want you to know that I’m not here to embarrass anyone,” Leaf says, and has to take a breath to make sure her voice remains steady. “I first heard about this from others who were intending to look into it. I thought if I got the facts first, I could publish a story that just stuck to what’s true, and won’t unfairly implicate others who had nothing to do with it.”
Leaf meets Sasaki’s stare as best she can, wondering if the Ranger understands. If she had any part in the cover up, she would be implicating herself… but saving those who weren’t involved.
“Alternatively,” Leaf says. “If there’s a
good reason
for what occurred… something that would make publishing a story on it a bad idea… that’s something I’d like to know too. Can you confirm for me first that Leader Misty did execute Yuuta, as reported?”
“Miss Juniper.” Ranger Sasaki pauses, opens her mouth, then closes it and takes a moment before speaking again. “I really don’t understand what you’re talking about. If you have some accusation to make, or believe something improper was done, I would urge you to report it to the authorities, along with any evidence you may have.” She checks the time. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”
Frustration pins Leaf to her seat, trying to find something else to say. Eventually she stands and bows. “Thank you for your time.”
The walk back to the dig site is uneventful, giving Leaf plenty of time to ruminate on her disappointment. She wants to mope about it to Laura, but her phone goes to message, so Leaf just plays the brief conversation back over and over and wonders what else she should have done or said.
When she reaches her residence building, a man in a dark suit and tie is sitting in a fold-out chair beside the door. He stands as she gets closer, and she recognizes him from pictures online: Leader Giovanni.
“Um,” she says.
“Good evening, Miss Juniper. If you have a minute, I believe it’s time we spoke.”
Leaf stares. Her mind is drawing a blank on what an appropriate reaction to this should be, which leaves her with the most honest one: utter bafflement.
How long is a flight to here from Viridian?
some part of her wonders.
Or was he just in the area when Sasaki messaged him?
No one who passes by is rude enough to stop and stare, but Leaf notes that their strides slow, their heads turning constantly as they catch sight of the legendary trainer. “Shall we go inside?” Giovanni says after another few moments, and Leaf flushes, nodding and leading the way to her room.
She sits on her bed, leaving the one chair for him. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you,” she says.
Obviously.
She casts about for something to say, still trying to get her bearings. “Were you in the area, or…?”
Giovanni sits in the spindly desk chair as if it’s a comfortable recliner, one leg crossed on the other knee, hands folded over them. His eyes are dark and piercing, and Leaf finds herself staring at his nose instead of meeting his gaze. “In a sense. I was passing through Pewter to discuss the recent Zapdos sighting when Ranger Sasaki messaged me.” He takes a phone out of the pocket of his suit, shifting it enough for her to get a peek at the lid of one of the balls on his belt. It’s unlike any she’s seen before, chrome grey with a circle of yellow around the top.
Leaf’s pulse quickens at his words. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”
He places the phone against his knee, screen facing him, and his gaze moves down to it. He occasionally taps, but doesn’t seem distracted from their conversation. “No, not at all. The ranger is under the impression that you have reason to believe something improper was done regarding the renegade you helped capture.”
Leaf takes a deep breath. Now is her chance to get some answers. She wishes it was Misty she could confront instead of Giovanni, but then, the Cerulean Leader is a psychic, so maybe this is for the best. Plus, she’s not sure if Giovanni actually knows anything or is involved, and if not he could be an ally.
She decides to start with the safest assumption. “I have reason to believe that Yuuta wasn’t executed by Leader Misty.”
Giovanni is quiet a moment, staring at his phone. Without looking away from it, he says, “Who do you believe executed him?”
“I don’t think he was.”
Now Giovanni looks up, briefly meeting her gaze. “Then what do you think happened to him?”
“My best guess is that he was already dead by the time she reached him. I think one of the site security, Daniel, was involved somehow. There’s also a chance that he escaped, but I don’t think that’s as likely.”
Giovanni is back to looking at his phone, fingers moving as he asks, “Why not?”
“Because the danger of a loose renegade is too big a thing to keep covered up. And I don’t think Leader Misty would do that, just to save face.” Leaf pauses, considering her words. “I hope not, anyway. But if you’re interested, maybe we can get to the bottom of things. You have a lot more power and influence, you could… ask around…” Leaf trails off as Giovanni continues to watch his phone. His inattention is starting to make her feel slighted, but also embarrassed for feeling as if her suspicions are worth the undivided attention of a Gym Leader.
No, these are more than suspicions. Don’t waver.
“If not, I may just write up my article with the questions unanswered. I’d rather not, though.”
Giovanni looks thoughtful, as if weighing her words. Or maybe just reading an email. Eventually he looks up again, catching Leaf by surprise and holding her gaze. “Tell me honestly, Miss Juniper, do you care about the truth, or getting a story published?”
“I… are those two mutually exclusive? I care about the truth, obviously. But unless there’s a really good reason to keep it hidden, the truth only has value if others know about it.”
Giovanni watches her another moment, then looks back to his phone. Leaf feels herself relax a bit, but most of her body is still tense. She knows he’s not a psychic, Blue mentioned that he was Dark when discussing ways he looked up to him, but she still feels as though he can look right into her.
“I couldn’t convince you not to publish such an article?”
“I’d have to know why first.” Shit. It seems Giovanni is in on things, meaning he’s not a potential ally after all. Her stomach floods with acid as she remembers Laura’s warning about getting into political topics with her articles. This is a man who could make her life very unpleasant if he chooses to: losing access to the dig site is suddenly the least of her worries.
“Telling you in and of itself is part of the problem,” he says. “If you deem the reason insufficient, it would be worse than telling you nothing and letting you publish your article of half-truths. Would you be willing to take my word that there is a good reason to keep silent for at least a period of six months? I can offer some compensation for the time you’ve spent investigating, if so. Perhaps even purchase your investigation data, as it may contain things useful to us.” He’s still staring at his screen, even as he offers to bribe her into silence. Leaf is too distracted by the sudden rush of conflicting emotions to fit any sense of annoyance into things.
Does
she trust his word? A part of her balks at the idea of expressing any lack of faith in him, but she pushes past that sentiment. The whole point of journalism, if it’s to have any civic value, is to make things so that people don’t
have
to just trust their leaders.
The problem is she does trust him. Mostly. At least, she believes that he has good intentions, and that he believes there’s a good reason not to publish the article. She knows that him offering to pay her is supposed to be sinister, if this were a cartoon or movie or book, but really, if his intentions are good, he’s just being considerate. It’s a token of respect, for her time and effort.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and means it. “I would love to take your word for it, even without any payment. But I can’t if there’s any chance I’d look back and regret the decision. And… there’s one more thing I have to be honest about. There are others who are looking into this story. I don’t think even if I stay silent, they would, which would make the whole agreement pointless for you.”
“You can tell me who they are, and I can make the same offer to them. Is it Shunichi Morri? Mara Hawthorne? Zoey Palmer? Jon Urich?” He pauses between each name, still staring down at his phone.
Leaf steels herself. “I’m sorry, I won’t confirm or deny anyone. I learned of it in confidence.”
Leader Giovanni is silent for a long time, gaze down, fingers occasionally typing. Leaf swallows, hands folded together in her lap to keep them from moving restlessly about.
“Thank you for your honesty,” he says at last. “And I respect your convictions. I believe I’ll take a gamble, and tell you some of what is going on, in the hopes that you find our reasoning sufficient.”
Leaf hardly dares breathe. She reminds herself that she can’t automatically trust what he tells her.
Giovanni’s gaze is still on his phone, but his speech is clear and sure. “Renegade Yuuta is dead. Leader Misty didn’t have the chance to execute him, or even interrogate him: as you said, he was already killed when she arrived. The suspect is still at large. Mr. Levi is still being investigated, and is under house arrest. He was in charge of watching Yuuta at the time, and claims he was distracted by a false message asking him to report to his superior, Paul Newcomb. There was in fact such a message on his phone, but it came from a number that wasn’t Mr. Newcomb’s, programmed in as a second line. Both claim it was without their knowledge.”
Leaf gives herself a moment to process it all, repeating it to herself to commit it to memory. Now that she knows she was right (assuming he didn’t lie), her mind explodes with questions on the killer. What motive would someone have to kill a dead man? To prevent them from giving information away, of course. But the timing was too perfect, it had to be someone on site, right? “Any other current suspects?”
“None that I’m willing to share. But you understand why we do not want this information to come out during an ongoing investigation, I trust.”
Leaf frowns. If someone else still working around here is under investigation… “If the idea is to keep the investigation secret, why not make it public, charge Daniel, and make the murderer believe they got away with it?”
“That was suggested. Leader Misty was against the idea. She questioned him herself, and for now believes him innocent. She doesn’t wish to tarnish his name with a formal charge, even if it’s later recanted. Instead he has been removed from employment, and any investigations will reveal that he was lax in his duties. As in truth he was, to some extent.” Giovanni is still looking at his phone, tapping something into it.
Leaf’s thoughts keep racing, unable to help herself from trying to figure out which of the people she spoke with or saw around site might be it. She thinks of the new security at first, the ones who all refused to talk to her, then reminds herself that they weren’t here at the time. “Not to mention that there are also financial interests, including from your cities, that would be hurt if the whole site fell under suspicion, right?”
Giovanni’s gaze flicks up from his phone to meet hers. There’s a hint of a smile there, warming his strong, stark features for a moment. “Perhaps. I should say that Leader Misty is rather irritated with you, believing from your actions here and the impression you left on Leader Brock that you’re something of a trouble maker. I, however, believe that Professor Oak chooses his trainers more carefully than that.”
“I’m the daughter and granddaughter of Professors too, you know,” Leaf says, feeling slighted again. “Neither of them raised me to be reckless.”
“As you say. Indeed, I am counting on it. Now I must ask again for you to be honest with me, Miss Juniper. Does this satisfy your curiosity and ethical misgivings? Will you publish, knowing what you know?”
Leaf still isn’t sure, really. It
sounds
reasonable, but even if Yuuta is dead, letting a co-conspirator stay at large is almost as bad as letting a renegade run free without telling the public. He might well
be
another renegade! Certainly he’s a murderer, and a skilled one.
“I’m sorry, I’m still not sure I agree. There’s still someone dangerous out there, possibly at this very dig site. The people here deserve to know.”
Giovanni is silent again. Leaf waits, watching him watch his phone screen for a moment, then look up at her. She’s getting better at meeting his gaze.
“I understand your concern,” he says. “So here is another bit of truth that I hope will change your mind. I do not believe Yuuta’s murderer was working with him.”
Leaf’s eyes widen. “What? Why not? If he wasn’t worried about what Yuuta would say, or what Misty would sense when interrogating him, why bother?”
“Because their goal was exactly as you said earlier: to throw a wrench into the plans of those with interest in this endeavor. To cause a scandal, call for investigations, and embarrass the Leaders who are invested in this. To admit that this occurred at all would be giving them exactly what they seek.”
Leaf feels the pieces fall into place. “Your people! The ones in charge of fossil security, that’s not all they’re here for, they’re investigating the others too, aren’t they?” She wishes this was all on the record! The plot just keeps thickening, but Leaf feels her skepticism rising again too. “This person, he or she took an enormous risk just to sabotage the dig. They must have known that an opportunity like Yuuta would come up, too. How are you so sure that they weren’t actually working together? It seems much more probable that they were working with him and just wanted to tie up a loose end.”
Leader Giovanni smiles. This one is less brief, but it doesn’t touch his eyes, and leaves his face hard and cold. “When you live a life such as I have, Miss Juniper, you learn to recognize the actions of an enemy. And those such as myself have plenty of enemies. Now, I’ve shared quite a lot with you, as a token of trust. I ask a third time for your honesty.” His eyes seem to be boring into hers. “Will you publish, knowing what you know?”
Leaf meets his gaze, just barely, but inside she feels the shift. There are too many reasons not to now, she can’t in good conscience do something that might cause harm or mess up an investigation.
But maybe she doesn’t have to admit that just yet. She won’t publish, but she can keep fishing for info. “I still want to know more about how you can be so sure of their motives. Has something like this happened before?”
Giovanni is no longer looking at her, however. His gaze is back on his phone, silently reading whatever is on it. Leaf realizes suddenly that for all his activity on it, the phone hasn’t vibrated or made any sound since they entered the room.
The Gym Leader finally slips his phone in his jacket pocket, and he looks… satisfied. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have, and there are other matters that need my attention. Thank you for speaking with me, Miss Juniper.” Before she can respond, he’s standing and headed for the door. “Leader Misty will be pleased to know she was wrong about you, and I trust I can count on your discretion in this matter. It would not go unrewarded.”
“What?” She’s on her feet too, taken off guard as he opens the door. “But I-” It closes behind him, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Leaf is left standing in her room, staring after him and feeling as though she missed something.
I was
super
tempted to end the chapter at the second line of dialogue in the final section, “I believe it’s time we spoke.” Not just because of all the busyness of the holidays, but for the sheer cliffhanger value. Consider me finishing the section here rather than another chapter my new year’s gift to all of you 🙂 Happy 2017!
For the lies. For my imprisonment. But most of all, for the hope they keep alive, like a starving flower. A drip of water, a peek of sunlight, and stubbornly, it endures.
We think we found a way to bring you out.
It is a hard thing to keep my mind partitioned. To let the false-hope, the harmless-hope, show on the surface for Sabrina to read, while inside the desperate, anguished, starving hope rends at me. I sense her concern as my mask leaks briefly, and some of my true feelings go through.
I would like that,
I tell her, and carefully regain control of my thoughts.
What will you try?
A mobile life support system, able to replicate all the functions of your tank for brief periods of time.
Hope. Feeble, but piercing. I hang in my prison and study her through the glass. Sabrina has changed much in the past decade. Her thoughts, what little I can glean of them behind the blank shield she surrounds them with, are heavier, more full of consideration and nuanced doubts. Physically, she has gone from a teenager to a young woman.
But far more important are her mental powers, already strong as a child, grown far beyond any other psychic in the facility. The scintillating light of psychic energy around her has become much stronger, shifted to a color that has no name in human languages, for they cannot see it.
I discovered from the other minds that she is a Gym Leader now, in Saffron City. Learning this filled me with pride. She must be one of the strongest human psychics in the region. Which demonstrates how powerful I am in comparison, to be so much farther above her.
How brief? When will it be ready?
Development has just completed. We wanted to be sure before we told you, so as not to give you false hope. Giovanni gave the order to begin construction this morning.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I listen to my heartbeats speed up, a sound I’ve long since grown accustomed to, filtered out of my consciousness. Again I struggle to keep my mental mask in place, remind myself of all the false hope I’ve been fed before.
Why has the system not been developed here, in the lab?
The technology for it was developed for other purposes. It’s being adapted to your needs, and should be ready to test in perhaps two weeks. Think you can hold out that long?
She sends humor, concern, trepidation. I carefully add resolution and eagerness to my mask.
Yes! Thank you for telling me, Sabrina.
Of course, Mazda. Now, what would you like to learn about today?
Mazda. This name she gave me, from an obscure, mostly dead language. “Wisdom,” because she often found my thoughts and perspective uniquely fascinating, insightful. In the early years, this too filled me with pride, and joy, to have a name, even if it was a private one between myself and my teacher. Its charm has long since fled.
I have been wondering how the governments of the different regions interact with each other, day to day. The files on the computer gave only a brief overview of the systems and history…
As we begin our lessons, I remind myself that this new development, this mobile support system, is not kindness. They want something of me: some way to test their new toy, to further their knowledge. Perhaps even better refine it for the others of my kind that surely exist, if they are similarly as crippled.
But to leave this prison… I cannot bear to silence the hope that they speak true. And for that I curse them a hundred times again.
Days pass more slowly than whole months that came before. My prison is not uncomfortable. There is music, when I want it, and a computer connected to screens to show television, display books, watch films, and even play games.
My telekinesis, like my telepathy, grew in strength naturally, but developing finesse was a task that the games were endlessly useful for. First simple board games, moving pieces from one square to another, then more complex movements to connect blocks and build things. Electronic game controllers were useful as well, but once I overcame the interface challenge they presented, I quickly tired of them.
Sabrina visits often, to talk and play games. I enjoy the distraction she provides, but am hungry for news on the life support system’s development, which she claims to have none of.
It’s so rare to have something to look forward to. Something to break the daily monotony, stop the weeks from blending into each other. The only way to normally track the passing of time is through the others at the facility.
Most have remained here over the past decade. Sarah, who has matured with the years, become more confident in herself. Haruo, still burning with passion, but no longer as anxious to reach the next discovery, more willing to stop and consider the previous.
Others are gone. The details of why are not always available in the minds of their coworkers. Most simply vanished, like Fuji had. Others were killed in some tragedy or other. Darin killed him/herself, the confusion and pain within finally driving them to desperation. Their mind was too painful to share near the end. I often wonder if I had tried harder to endure it, whether I would reach out or alert someone of their plans.
Without the humans’ thoughts to share, their company to keep, I do not know how the years would have been bearable. The thought of living them only through the minds of my limited, few comforters, as originally intended, seems sadistic, even for shorter periods of time. I think often of the others, my hypothetical siblings. Would the humans correct for their oversight? Expand the distance between my siblings and the rest of their labs, leave them truly isolated? It pains me to think of what isolation they must endure, beyond even my own pitiable state.
But the media is a blessing as well. Thousands of television shows, tens of thousands of books… in them a million characters acting out their dramas, pursuing their goals, overcoming their obstacles. Watching television or movies was uninteresting, at first. Without being able to merge with their minds, it all seemed so distant and meaningless. Then I realized it allowed me the rare chance to observe interactions of humans from the outside, to truly not know whether they were being honest or not, how they felt, what their plans were. To be in suspense, test my predictions of what the characters would do, is both educational and entertaining, even if the events are scripted, the characters actors.
Books were harder. Learning to read was easy, but envisioning the events, when there’s so little I’ve seen with my own eyes… seeing descriptions of thoughts and feelings, rather than sharing them myself, felt empty.
It was poetry that connected my mind and those in print. Sabrina suggested it upon hearing of my difficulty, and I spent a hundred sunless days and starless nights sampling from one famous poet to another, until I finally reached one that broke the barrier:
I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied, stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep, as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.
The words were like rain upon parched earth, a cool cloth upon a fevered brow. I absorbed them again and again, first fascinated without knowing why, then desperate to feel again the author’s kindred, solitary pain.
I still do not know if I can weep. If I am physically incapable, or if the liquid I’m immersed in prevents me from noticing when I do. But I have never felt more trapped, despite my mental freedoms. I have never felt more rent by sorrow. It was as though my mind touched one filled with extraordinary despair and longing, but also grace.
When I composed myself and reassured my monitors, who were greatly alarmed by my agitation, I looked up the author, John Clare. Born and died hundreds of years ago, yet so sad was his voice in my mind that I imagined it as Dr. Fuji’s. His biography told of a life filled with its own share of tragedy.
Poetry became my obsession. All the borrowed metaphors I’d taken from people’s minds found a home in the words of strangers. Once it became known to the rest of the lab, one of my comforters, Eva, began reading poetry from time to time. It was not often that our tastes overlapped, but to share the mind of another as it enjoyed poetry helped me value more as well.
Eventually I moved on from there, particularly enamored by stories of outsiders, outcasts, those trapped, either physically or by circumstances. For a while it gave me solace, between Sabrina or Giovanni’s visits.
My creator has been an errant figure, visiting only once or twice a month, for varying periods of time. Sometimes we would play games: Checkers, Renju, Chess, Shogi, and more, until I mastered him in each. Sometimes we discuss books, or things I had learned, him speaking through an amplifier set against the glass, I through my computer’s voice synthesizer. Today, of course, we talk of the life support system, the “suit.”
“It is something that is being developed for exploration in harsh environments,” Giovanni says. “The design is by Silph, which made the proprietary rights and design specifications difficult to come by.”
“But not for you, surely,” I type out into my computer. My “voice,” through the speaker, is deep, far deeper than I have heard through others’ ears, and just barely male rather than altogether inhuman. I helped pick it, though I do not know why it appealed to me above the others. It is unknown if I can even speak, let alone what it would sound like, and from what I’ve been told, I have no gender. Yet another source of disconnection: my species was not meant for procreation, to join the rest of life’s endless cycle.
“Yes, difficult even for me. The president and I have had more… disagreements, lately.”
I stay silent and study the Go board, wondering if I should form an eye or start a new formation. The room is empty, as it often is when Giovanni visits. Perhaps to create an atmosphere of intimacy. Perhaps to let him speak more freely. I’ve rarely managed to decipher my creator’s motives, made infuriatingly impenetrable by his cursed abnormality. “Do you think it will affect your friendship?” I eventually ask, after moving a stone.
“Friendship is not an easy thing, for men in my position. I would call him a useful ally, but the time for that alliance may be ending. Perhaps it already has.”
“I thought he shared our vision for the future.” That vision that he had so tantalizingly dangled before me, during his first visit. I still call it “our,” ever pretending, ever hiding how I despise him. Dark though he may be, my thoughts are not safe. Psychics nearby monitor my mood, no doubt informing him of them somehow.
“Perhaps he still does. But there’s been trouble in gym coordination lately. Mayors that were meek, effective public servants last year are growing spines and pushing back against gym leaders. Price controls are being lifted, regulations stripped or softened until they’re toothless. Silph is expanding into foreign markets and leveraging that political capital here at home.”
“To defy you?”
“To accomplish his own agendas. We’ve only ever agreed on a single goal, not the methods or aftermath.”
And when I help you capture the Stormbringers, what then? Shall we turn to the Silph President and his agenda?
I do not say it. I must act as though my loyalty to him is without question, on the smallest chance that he may take it for granted.
“Well,” I type as I float a new piece into position. “I do not see why it should affect you so. He can continue amassing his wealth and empowering individuals, while you continue building connections.”
Giovanni takes a piece from his bag and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger. “There have been other things. Setbacks. Unexplained problems. The word sabotage is whispered by my people, when they think I cannot hear them.”
“You suspect Silph?”
“I suspect many people. Altogether, too many people.”
“Bring them here, then. I will read their thoughts better than your psychics can.”
Giovanni seems to consider this a moment, but shakes his head. “To those few I can convince to come, I would be extending a trust that’s worth more than what they can offer.” He places his stone.
Frustration flares within me, then dies back to sullen embers. I have often tried to get more people to visit the facility, to learn more from new minds. I have met with little success over the years. It has not escaped me that all I think I know might be an elaborate ruse, a carefully molded illusion from all the minds in the facility. I have long since discarded paranoia as a concern: of my creator, I would put nothing past.
We continue to play the game until his victory. It was not as great as the first, nor the tenth. One by one, I learn these games he teaches me, and eventually become his master. But they are only games. In the only one that matters, he holds all the pieces, controls the whole board.
Still, I learn. Ten years is a lot of time to test the security of my prison, even confined as I am. A lot of time to track movements of personnel, pick up glimpses and memories to form a mental map, notice safety measures, human, pokemon, and other.
Back when I practiced influencing the minds of the wild pokemon in the stone and soil around the facility, I tried at times to poke and prod them into digging toward me. Always, after a certain point, there would be a reaction somewhere in the facility. Some sensor that detects life forms or seismic activity, I know not which, keeps the facility prepared for pokemon attacks beneath the ground.
Dark humans with their various pokemon stand vigil night and day, switching shifts every eight hours. They have minimal contact with the others in the facility, are almost as enigmatic today as they were when I first beheld them through my glass walls.
But not completely.
Perhaps my most profound discovery of humans has been of their inconsistency. There are vanishingly few rules that do not eventually get broken, and their beliefs about themselves are often misleading. Perhaps if I could truly plumb their depths rather than just their minds’ most immediate forms, I would find some underlying, inviolate rules, but so far none have emerged.
All of which means that, over a long enough period of time, they all make mistakes. I have overheard conversations that should not have taken place, inferred patterns from the thoughts and remarks that should have been better hidden among those closest to my cell. Not enough to get through their security, but enough to know that there are layers upon layers of it… and that, ultimately, there is some sort of failsafe they all worry about from time to time. Just a thought, once in awhile…
whatifitgoesoffaccidentally,
associated with some brief terror of everyone dying.
Not knowing what these failsafes are makes any escape attempt suicidal. Even knowing that, it has been hard to keep patient and seek out mistakes.
Some of which are more subtle than others.
Easy as it is to find patterns given enough time and information, what I have found more difficult, but similarly rewarding, is spotting conspicuous holes in patterns. Fewer staff in the facility on certain days of the week. Travel habits of individuals that go to areas everyone else avoids. And gaps in what sort of information I have access to.
Of all the media available to me, there are some glaring exceptions. No information on pokemon battles or various abilities, no details on the nature of Dark pokemon. What little I know of them I’ve gleaned from the facility’s inhabitants.
What’s more, in thousands of books and shows, movies and documentaries, histories and biographies, there are no stories, no information at all, about escapes from imprisonment or restraint of any kind.
Such stories must exist. They
must.
My situation may in fact be unique throughout all of history, and yet similar ones cannot be. The chances of such a gap in human imagination are too low, and the humans in the facility fear and wonder over my chances of escape too often, think briefly of similar situations too specific and imaginative to be their own invention rather than a story they remember.
Whoever decides on what media I am allowed to see must fear me learning anything from it that might aid me in escaping. As soon as I realized that, I began to imagine my own. Not trusting anything that would be saved in the computer, I would often imagine stories of capture and escape. Project myself into the role of the captor, design ways to keep others imprisoned. But it is difficult to know how much is possible, let alone probable, without knowing what information or technology they might be hiding from me.
Regardless, I persist. The alternative is unthinkable.
“I know how badly you want to be free of this place,” Giovanni says as he clears the pieces from the board and divides them for another game. “And you’ve been more than patient. I hope this new suit will allow you to finally begin venturing out into the world.”
It’s easy to believe him. Even if everything else is a carefully constructed lie, if all I know is some elaborate illusion, I know that I exist for a purpose. I was
created
for a purpose. Giovanni will continue to invest resources into me as long as there is a chance he can benefit from it somehow.
“It is hard to believe that I may soon see the sky at last,” I type out. “And I am eager to see what I can do for the world as well. I often fear I will be unable to repay humanity for the generosity you have all shown me.”
“Be at ease on that account. You have already done much for us. I know you will continue to defy our expectations.”
I practice reading faces often, testing my predictions of how people feel by observing them with others, then jumping to their mind, but my creator remains inscrutable as ever. It’s likely that Giovanni is aware of my true desires, that he is speaking with two meanings, as I am. He is intelligent enough to not introduce such a suit without knowing that I might take advantage of it and escape.
Which means I must simply be more intelligent to do so.
“I intend to,” I say, and place my first piece on the board.
The day has come. The suit is here, in front of me, and I can barely keep my mind from jumping to others in excitement, to try to see them from other, closer angles. Useless in any case, everyone in the room is Dark besides Sabrina.
She is explaining the suit’s function, how it will attach to my body at several places where the current medical apparatus does and fulfill its function. I pay attention as best I can while also watching the pieces get removed from their crate, manipulated by the technicians and doctors, filled with fluids. They are bulky and roughly shaped like metal tubes. A power source is inserted at the back, wires and tubes connected to the arm and leg and torso pieces.
That battery, how long does it last?
I ask, interrupting Sabrina mid-sentence.
She asks, and one of the engineers responds.
Days, but the suit would run out of potion long before then.
I see.
No point in asking how long before those run out: it remains to be seen if they would work at all as a substitute for my tank.
Is it refillable, or would I need to return here between outings?
“
It would need to be removed to be serviced.” Remember that this is just a prototype. Future iterations can be different.
Of course.
Future iterations that may take another 10 years of imprisonment…
But the anger does not last, fleeing quickly before a renewed surge of anticipation and hope. Freedom is minutes away…
That hope is soured by the final piece they remove from the crate: a helmet, with a vizor on it. Bitterness wells up. Yet another layer of glass between me and the world!
Calm, Mazda. I know you wish to see the sky. We must proceed carefully, even now. You have never seen sunlight: it will be painful without protection.
I am remaining inside today anyway, am I not? Surely the glass can be removed while I am here?
It is part of the helmet. Let us be sure it works first. It would be foolish to rush ahead and cause yourself harm, after waiting so long.
Her words do nothing to quell my impatience. I begin manipulating the various things around my tube, splitting my mind into more and more partitions as I struggle to distract myself. Puzzle pieces scatter and rearrange themselves, toy blocks move together to form shapes before melting back into pieces, and the pieces of the Go board fly up and begin to circle my tube in twin black and white orbits. Several of the workers slow, staring, and one of the guards’ umbreon steps forward, lip curled in a snarl. I pay them no mind, too busy testing my fine control to its limit.
Mazda. They are ready.
Everything drops back in their respective boxes. The technicians are all around me, pieces positioned for quick placement. I prepare myself for the coming pain.
Begin.
First comes a gurgling noise as the liquid is drained around me into the floor, a sound I haven’t heard for over three years. As soon as my head emerges, I feel the absence of it, like a layer of skin peeled off to leave me raw and exposed. I lower as the water does, until finally my feet touch the floor. As the buoyancy is lost, my weight comes to rest on them completely, and I collapse to the floor.
From time spent in other minds, I know how bodies move and feel. But my own is still foreign to me, and is not strong enough to follow my commands. The humans are staring at me, murmuring. Humiliated, I finally resort to telekinesis to lift myself up, until I precariously balance on the ends of each foot, where they feel the most supported. I try to push the rest of my feet down, but it feels uncomfortable, painful even. With a fresh wave of self-loathing, I finally accept that I’m a digitigrade, unable to even stand or walk like a human.
Next the glass around my pod lifts into the ceiling, and air rushes in around me, cold and prickly against my wet skin. I savor the sensations, uncomfortable though they are, and prepare for the true discomfort.
One by one, the needles withdraw from my skin and cease their steady supply of healing potion. The immediate, sharp pain is nothing compared to the aching agony that starts to radiate through my bones almost immediately.
In the space of time between their removal and the others rushing forward, I try to heal myself. To undo the damage of my body, keep the pain from growing. I’ll finally do it, this time, all the years spent studying my own biology will pay off, I’ll be able to regenerate my cells as they begin to rapidly die stop them from dying be free it hurts I will be
free
it
hurts
–
Mazda! You’ve fallen, are you okay?
-the humans are attaching the pieces to my back and arms, shouting commands, now, I will begin healing
now,
but the pain continues to grow, an ache fills my chest, vision growing hazy-
-pain, stabbing-
-despair-
-can’t think-
Mazda!
Sabrina
. So close. I can touch her. But. I can’t see. Yelling. Panic. Giovanni’s tone of command, cutting through the babble. Can’t focus on the words, can’t feel anything but the pain as my awareness begins to fade…
Get up, Mazda, they can’t put the suit on you-
-hurts-
Get up!
–
sleep, please-
No, Mazda, you’ll die!
die
don
‘t wa
nt
I
d
on’t w
ant
to die!
A tingling rush. A door in the mind, opening-
Mazda, breathe! You have to breathe!
Memory of the sensation, the action, the muscles move, gasp, draw in a deep breath.
There are hands on me, pulling me up. I can feel them. I can feel… things other than pain. My senses return, and I focus on my body, sitting on the floor. I feel along it and lift, righting myself again and allowing the humans to finish attaching the suit. New pinpricks of pain in my legs, and then sweet, cool relief.
The suit is working. I feel… not normal, nothing close to the comfortable lack of sensation my pod provides, but sensate. The suit is heavy, weighing down my limbs and head, making it harder to hold myself up. My vision is dark, limited, as I peer through the round visor and look around me.
The humans have all backed away. The guarding pokemon are ready, eyes on me, teeth bared and claws extended. I find Sabrina, more apprehensive than fearful, but also relieved.
I turn completely around, then do it again. My tail extends, stretching to its limit, then moving from side to side, causing everyone to take another step back. I’m free.
I’m
free.
“Ma-Mewtwo, are you alright?”
Sabrina’s voice, a bit muffled by the helmet, but undistorted. I turn to her, marvelling again at the freedom to turn completely around.
Yes, I can-
I stop. Open my mouth, feel the air inside it. My breathing is too quick, desperate. I try and slow it, take a deep breath, lungs aching. It’s too hard at first, to hold a breath, let it out consciously. I huff, try again, struggling to breathe deeper even as I marvel at the sensations.
Once I can hold some breath in my lungs, I let my mind drift back to memories, the sensation of speech, and say, “Aeeeaaheaah!”
All the humans except Giovanni recoil, even Sabrina. The room is silent. Waiting. My heart pounds in my chest. I take a breath and try again, carefully.
“Aaa. Iah. Aahaheaea.”
The noise is nonsensical, beastial. The horror in their faces reflects my own.
Calm. It’s new, all new. Perhaps I just need time, practice.
Mazda?
I cannot speak, Sabrina.
I’m sorry. How are you feeling? Are you in pain?
Pain? Yes, some. Inconsequential.
I am fine. Tell everyone to move away.
Once she does, I move my leg forward, both with muscle and mind. Then the next. It is slow, a shuffle, but moving at all, leaving this particular space… for years, it’s been more than I dared imagine. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps this is the start of something new after all. So I cannot speak: so what? I can move under my own power, oxygenate my own blood, perhaps even feed myself. I take a deep breath through my nose, savor the smells. I can leave this accursed room. I can see the sky. The suit is a small price to pay, for that.
One of the umbreon suddenly barks as I move in its direction. Its trainer quiets it, but the spell is broken. Amazing as this experience is, I am still a prisoner. The trainers and their pokemon watch, ever vigilant, to destroy me if needed.
I turn around again, slowly, enjoying the sensation anew. Some of the onlookers watch keenly and take notes. Others seem more interested in the suit.
“How does it fit?” one of those asks, noticing my attention. “Are the arms securely fastened?”
“Is the medicine delivery adequate?” another asks. “How do you feel?”
“The helmet, can you see clearly?”
“Your legs, do they naturally bend like that or are you-”
“Enough,” Giovanni says, and they quiet. “Take your time. Respond when you can.” My creator’s face is its usual blank mask, but with something more. An edge of… eagerness? Hunger? I cannot tell.
And for now, I don’t want to. I simply move, enjoying the aches and pains of exertion. It is hard to focus on multiple things at once, but I eventually continue to move myself around while also typing out, “There is pain, and I feel weak, but it is hard to tell what the cause is. The left arm’s piece is loose. It hurts when the needle moves.”
Someone moves forward, then pauses and looks to Giovanni. He nods, and the technician reaches me and adjusts the strap. “Better?” he asks. I stare at him through my visor, marveling at how close he is to me. I can hear his breaths, short and excited. I can turn my hand and touch his clothing, if I wish. Instead I simply move my arm up and down, then nod. He backs away.
I continue shuffling around, occasionally remarking on my observations until my limbs feel too heavy to move, and my telekinesis is used almost exclusively to hold myself up. I simply stay still and feel along my body with my mind, finding easier ways to mold my psychic field, support myself with the lift.
Eventually I notice my audience stir, some frowning, others looking concerned. I have been still too long. “Are you tired?” Sabrina asks.
“Yes,” I type out, understanding the word for the first time on a physical level. “Tired.”
“He should return to his system,” one of the scientists says, and fear immediately rises up, sharpening my attention. “The suit is running dry soon anyway.”
Panic. Hard to breathe. “No. Not yet.”
“Your first excursion was a success,” Giovanni says. “There will be others.”
I back away from them, then remember the others are around me. I’m trapped, and soon I’ll be trapped in truth, trapped back in my prison… I can’t. I
won’t.
My power begins to cover the room, feeling everything, preparing. But there are too many holes, empty shapes where the humans and pokemon are. Years of plotting fill my mind as I think of ways to defeat them. I can lift the machinery, shatter glass, make a shield of metal around me…
Then Sabrina is beside me, hand taking mine. Her fingers are warm. Her face is calm.
It’s okay, Mazda. Trust us.
I stare at her. The closest thing to a “friend” I have known, my teacher and companion. But not the true friend that Fuji was. Still one of my jailers. No, I cannot trust her.
But I can pretend to, and bide my time.
I nod, and return to my prison. The technicians approach me and begin to remove the suit. I prepare for the pain to return, eyes closing as it wells up in me, burns through my limbs. Then the needles stab into me again, sharp pains that quickly fade and take the deeper, burning ache away.
When I open my eyes again, the glass is back around me. The chamber fills with liquid, and I watch the others as they look the suit over. Watch as they pack it back away, as my head becomes submerged and I begin to float again. I must trust that they will return, to test out new versions of it. To learn more about me.
I will give them what they want. I will act obedient, grateful. And in return they will deliver to me the the key to my escape.
Days pass, and my mind knows obsession. The experience of being outside my prison, the freedom, the sensations, are all I can think of. I begin to move in my tank, exercising sore and atrophied muscles. On the second excursion I can move around the entire room before tiring, and on the third my suit runs out of potion without me doing so. The scientists are fascinated by my muscular growth, and the technicians work to increase the suit’s capacity.
I’m asked hundreds of questions, tested in dozens of ways. I eat food for the first time, the taste of simple bread bringing ecstasy with the intensity of experiencing it myself. Eventually I’m allowed more complex foods, and each brings new rapture.
It’s a period of much excitement and discovery for all, and reminds me of the early years, when everything was still new and filled with hope. I even dream, once in awhile, that this will be a new chapter, that the past ten years of waiting were not malicious. Two things keep me from succumbing to hope.
First is the constant presence of the guarding trainers and their pokemon. They surround me at all times, on every excursion, never relaxing, constantly vigilant.
Second are the moments between. The moments when I am near death.
I can feel it, each time I transition from the pod to the suit. My body, dying. My will to live, rising… and something very much like my powers, responding. It is hard to focus on through the pain, and only lasts for a few moments. The first time it happened, I barely noticed it, and was too distracted afterward to remember.
But in those few moments between being disconnected from my pod and connected to the suit, my body is beginning to heal itself.
It takes all of my willpower, not to reveal this information. Not to insist that we wait before putting the suit on next time, that I’m given a chance to heal myself and study the process. I cannot afford to give up such a secret. If I am ever to escape this prison, I must be able to take my captors by surprise in some way.
But that is the easy belief. Beneath it lies a deeper motive: fear.
Each time the liquid drains from my cell, I fear the pain to come. Each time the glass rises, I wonder if they will put the suit on in time. If my last sight will be them rushing forward before the agony robs me of my senses.
It is a weakness in me, this fear. I will have to overcome it, or forever be a slave.
Wow. This one looks different.
Sabrina and I watch as the technicians remove the second iteration of the suit from its boxes. I can’t make out the finer details yet.
How so?
Smaller. More refined. You’ll see.
The liquid from my cell begins to drain, and as it finishes I stand on both feet, unaided by my telekinesis. My body feels strong. Whole. An illusion of sorts, as the pain to come will demonstrate.
I can see the pieces more clearly now as the humans approach with them. Sabrina was right. This suit looks more angular, each piece about the same size, but more shaped. The helmet particularly is different. It doesn’t seem as though it covers my entire head, and there are two grooves in the top that appear to be there for my horns.
“Was this designed for me?” I type out.
“Yes,” Giovanni says. “It’s time to bring you outside this room, so you can meet the others in the facility. I thought you would wish to project a more refined image, than the bulky original allowed.”
“This will reveal more of me. That one made me look more human.”
“Your difference is not something to be hidden. You must take pride in your appearance, be comfortable with your uniqueness.”
The idea is familiar, from one of the books I read. “
Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”
A good sentiment, from one human to another. Harder for an abnormal creature such as myself.
But perhaps they are right. And this new suit, it does look more like armor than anything.
Ready?
Ready.
The pain is bad as ever, though my awareness is more tenacious. Once again, I feel my body failing, and once again, I feel a response, deep within. I can just barely glimpse the workings of my body through my mental senses, before the armor is attached, the unique potion infusion resumes, and it’s once again lost.
This new suit, this armor, is heavier than the last, despite being more compact. But my body is stronger now, and I barely notice the weight. As the humans move away, there’s an expression on their faces that is hard to interpret. I don’t know that I’ve seen it in others before… not quite fear, not quite fascination. Something between.
Giovanni’s face, however, I can read: satisfaction. I’m tempted to ask for a mirror, but decide against it. I have not seen myself in ten years, since that first occasion.
You look very imposing.
I wonder if she picked up on my feelings, and refocus my mental mask.
Is that desirable?
Perhaps? It’s impressive, to say the least.
Hm. I begin to walk, tail held carefully out behind, conscious of the others. The armor does not chafe or hinder my movements at all, and I can lift my arms without the attached parts pulling against each other. “Good,” I type. “I am ready to leave.”
The room is silent. I have become so attuned to my body these past weeks that I can feel my pulse, my heart pounding in my chest. Will they let me go? Or is there some new obstruction?
But they are merely waiting for Giovanni’s signal, and when he nods, the guards at the door move aside. One presses keys on the pad, and after a few moments, the door opens.
I immediately move for the doorway, aware of my time limit. How far can I go, before the suit runs out? Can I reach the surface?
A small crowd follows, some technicians and researchers, doctors and guards, as well as Sabrina and Giovanni. Those in front lead the way through branching halls with doors. Mundane as it is, I find myself entranced. These are new parts of the facility that I have spent my whole life in, mere steps away. I must remember the layout.
Straight forward, then left along a curving wall, then right and straight through to another curve. This time the layout of the doors on either side looks familiar, and I stop following the guards ahead to approach one.
I ignore the others’ hesitation, their alarm. My focus is entirely on the door ahead of me, and who’s behind it. One arm rises, clad in its dark armor, and my fingers close in a fist that taps the door. I feel… apprehensive. How will they react? What should I say?
The door opens to reveal some living quarters, and a young man standing in the doorway. Gyokusho. He came to the facility just a few years ago, my newest comforter. I often enjoy inhabiting his mind as he draws, immersed in the soothing flow of creativity and focus.
He stares at me now in shock/fear. A glance to the others behind me seems to reassure him, and one hand rises to his messy dark hair, patting it down. “Hello, sir. Uh, everyone…” His gaze returns to me. “You. H-hello.”
My mind reaches out for my keyboard, then stops. I left it behind. I consider speaking into his thoughts directly, but do not want to further frighten him.
Sabrina.
Yes?
Please tell him… thank you. For his drawings. Tell him I enjoyed the fletchling-in-flight, very much.
She does so, and Gyokusho’s face turns an alarming shade of red. He bows, thanking me profusely. I bend my waist as well, tail lifting up for balance.
Curious, I extend my mind and enmesh it with his.
Awe.
That’s the emotion the others felt. Some fear, some surprise, some intimidation, combined into… awe. I connect deeper, until I can see through his eyes.
When I first saw myself, I looked monstrous. Deformed. Wrong.
When I see myself now, I look alien. Mysterious. Other.
Dangerous.
I pull back. Turn away. Walk on.
Another door, another knock. This comforter is Megan, who listens to sounds of the natural world and meditates. She is intimidated, unsure what to say. Sabrina conveys my thanks again, and I move on to the next, and the next.
It is so strange, to see them in person. I’ve spent so much time in their minds, yet each meeting is a reminder of how utterly unfamiliar they are with me. How representative are they of the rest of the facility?
And why did Giovanni choose this design? Why give me a sinister appearance, rather than a friendly one?
I will ask him later. Perhaps I can discover it myself, and better learn how his mind works.
The last door. Eva. She’s nearing the end of her shift, about to get back to her research. When she comes to the door, she’s still thinking of the poetry she was reading.
Shock, fear, awe. Reassurance. The familiar pattern. And then…
“Mewtwo wants to express its gratitude, for the poems. It particularly enjoyed Wordsworth, and thanks you for directing its attention to him.”
Delight, and beaming, radiant happiness. “Oh! You’re quite welcome, Mewtwo! Wordsworth is particularly dear to me.” Memories, fleeting and bittersweet, of time spent with her late mother. “What was your favorite, from him?”
I consider a moment. Her answer is clear in her mind,
Daffodils,
but mine…
“
Ode on Intimations of Immortality,
” Sabrina echoes.
Surprise, and sadness. “I see.” Eva musters her courage. “You favor the more melancholy poems, then? I hope you don’t identify too much with them.”
“I don’t believe I know that one,” Giovanni says, speaking for the first time. “Can you recite it for us?”
“Ah, well, it’s rather long,” Eva says, alarmed at being put on the spot by her boss.
This conversation is extending beyond what I planned, but I am unsure how to end it. Instead I simply bow to her, and walk away.
The others seem surprised, but they begin to follow, two moving quickly to stay in front of me. Eva waves goodbye, flustered and confused. I catch her final train of thought before withdrawing from her mind:
Ihopeyoucanenjoythehappieronesaswell…
The tour of the facility continues. I pay less attention to the people along the way, and focus on memorizing the layout, learning first-hand how to navigate its corridors and rooms, find stairs and elevators that lead ever upward. The elevators feel a bit like being trapped at first, but the feeling of motion dispels the fear.
Two floors. Three floors. Five. Seven. Each is larger, wider, than the last. Here is the cafeteria, where my name, Mewtwo, was first mentioned. There is Dr. Fuji’s old office, long since become Dr. Oswald’s. I walk on, drawing stares and whispers, push myself to move faster. My mind keeps going to the armor’s limits, how much time I have remaining.
Finally, we reach the eighth level. I can feel the gaping emptiness above, the funnel of minds below. It’s disorienting, as if the floor has moved below my feet. What would it be like to leave this place completely? To leave all these minds, my whole world, behind?
Suddenly the void above is terrifying. I stand at the last set of stairs and stretch my powers to their limits. Nothing. Not even pokemon. My chest feels tight. Breath short. Sudden thoughts, irrational. That this is the whole world, this lab. That all I’ve known is a simulation. That up these stairs, past the two guards waiting at the top, lies empty space, where I’ll float forever into oblivion.
Someone coughs. People shift in place, nervous. How long have I been standing here?
A hand wraps itself in mine, slim and warm. Five thin, tan fingers, fitting oddly around my sickly white paw, its three digits thick and clumsy.
We shall go together.
Sabrina’s eyes are steady, patient. I nod, squeeze her hand, and climb.
At the top of the stairs there is a door. The guards open it, and pass through with their pokemon. We follow, and emerge in…
Another building. Different from the lab, with tiled floors and stone walls. “The mansion,” where many of the facility’s Dark staff live. It is rarely thought of by the others, just fleeting images and impressions in people’s minds as they pass through and into the lab. I look around at the spacious rooms and ornate halls, see others standing at balconies and in doorways. Guards or scientists or doctors from my room, who are off duty. Come to watch.
Sabrina tugs on my hand, leads me down the hall. I see…
Brightness.
Green and blue.
Windows. I cannot look away. Her hand tugs mine again, making me move, and I follow through doors…
So bright. The light is hot against the exposed parts of my skin, through the visor of my helmet.
The smells. Grass and sea salt. We are on a cliff by the ocean. The world is azure and navy and emerald and pearl.
This feeling against my skin. Wind. I step down stone stairs until soft blades of grass crush beneath my feet.
And the world is…
Everywhere.
Everywhere.
Everywhere.
It’s okay. I’m here.
My hand, squeezing Sabrina’s too hard. I cannot keep looking up, I cannot stop looking up. The sky is too big, Sabrina, it is too big, I will fall up into it, I will be lost, and she is crying, and squeezing my hand back as I keep staring up until I cannot see, the tears pour down my face beneath my helmet as I feel the wind and the sun and curl my toes in the grass below, above, the vaulted sky.
Time passes. I know not how much.
The suit is beeping. Someone speaks, saying I must return. Sabrina says nothing. Only holds my hand.
“We must go back, now, Mewtwo.” Giovanni’s voice now, so sure. So reasonable. “Or you will not be able to return to your pod on time.”
I cannot return. I cannot leave this place, this new world.
I know what I have to do. Lift myself, fly away. If the pokemon kill me, so be it. If the lack of medicine kills me, so be it. I will die free.
I begin to breathe harder. Sabrina says something in my mind, that we will be back again, soon. I know Giovanni watches, somewhere behind me. This new armor, this suit, what else is in it? Countermeasures? Poison, should I try to run? A way to track me, bring me back?
My body trembles. Muscles locked. Mind open. Powers spread. I must take off the armor. Fly away. No, fly away, then take off the armor mid-air. No, I need time to heal myself. Kill everyone first, bring down the building… I cannot get a grip on it, the walls are too strong to slip my mind around-
No, not that. It’s me. My will is not strong enough.
Red gestures for Psychic Ayane to come inside the Trainer House workroom, and closes the door behind her. “Yeah, I guessed that you’d feel that.”
His teacher goes to the table, but doesn’t sit. She studies his face with concern. “I would be a poor psychic indeed if I missed the pit of despair and grief you seem to be stuck in. I sensed it before you even opened the door. I’m quite practiced at keeping my knowledge of people’s inner states to myself, but it’s all over your face as well.”
Red rubs his face with one hand and takes a deep breath. “Sorry to impose it onto you. I was hoping to get it under control before scheduling a session with you again, but today was… particularly bad.” He’s been able to be somewhat productive for the past few days, but last night he had another nightmare about the day he found out about his dad, and woke up feeling completely drained of energy. He managed to force himself to take a shower and eat some breakfast, but afterward just browsed the internet aimlessly while lying in bed.
“If you are not feeling up to a lesson today, please let me know, and we can reschedule.”
Red runs a hand through his hair, then tugs his hat down snug. “No, I think you’re the only one that can help me with this.”
“Me? What does-oh, Red! Don’t tell me you messed with your partition!”
The use of his first name combined with the tone his mother often uses makes Red briefly smile. “Not on purpose? It’s a long story.”
“Well.” She sits at the table, hands folded on top of each other. “Tell me, then.”
Red sits across from her before recounting the day they caught the abra. He debated whether or not to tell her about it, but even aside from the emotional fallout, he needs a psychic to help with the research. Ayane is qualified, and he likes her. It makes sense to see if she wants to come in on it. But first he needs to figure out what’s going on with him.
In any case, the only risk in revealing the story is the methodology getting out, so he skips over any details of how his plan worked. Thankfully she seems too busy shifting from worry to horror to intrigue to care, or she’s just not interested.
“A forced adherence of your common mental state… fascinating. And the abra didn’t react in any way? They didn’t just fail to connect, they ignored you completely?”
“Yeah. I was wondering if you could tell me what I actually did.”
“Certainly. Prepare your mind… I will begin contact in ten seconds.”
“Make it twenty?”
“Of course. Starting now.”
Red leans back and takes a deep breath before he begins to enter meticulously-reinforced-normal-state. He’s still trying to think of a better way to refer to it.
It’s easier to enter than it was the first time, in the field. He can better recognize when he has it more or less in place, even though it’s still the hardest mental state to “feel” with his fledgling psychic senses. He finishes with a few seconds to spare, and simply waits until Ayane reaches outward with her mind, beginning to entangle with his…
…only to have his mind slip from her grasp. Or, phase through it, maybe. Bounce off it, slippery and untouched. It’s hard to stick with any single description, since his mind is just coming up with analogies from his other senses to try and approximate what’s happening.
In any case, she doesn’t sense him, and it’s clear first from the crease between her eyebrows, then the way they shoot up, that she’s realized it. Eventually she opens her eyes, eyebrows still raised.
“Impressive, Mr. Verres. Very impressive. You have effectively created a mental shield, not just a blank mask, but an actual shield, without instruction on how. Very few with the Gift have done so, perhaps in part because of how young they often begin training. But it is still a great accomplishment.”
Red knows that would normally make him excited and proud, but any positive emotions he feels quickly drain back down the empty hole in his chest. Curiosity is all he has left, though even that feels a bit like a rote impulse. “Could you explain more what that means?”
“Certainly. A psychic’s mental shield is a simple enough thing: it prevents an established, mutual connection from another psychic mind. The psychic who is attempting to sense the shielded individual will not even know they have missed someone. It’s as if their mind is simply not there, like a Dark individual’s. But there are some exceptions to this cover. Can you guess what one is?”
Red thinks back to what he knows of psychics. He didn’t know that mental shields existed before, but what does that knowledge change about the world?
Seek confusion.
What no longer makes sense, now that-ah, right.
“Mental attacks can still affect a shielded mind, right?”
“Not all of them. Indiscriminate mental attacks, what might be considered ‘blunt force’ attacks, will still work. But the mental shield prevents ‘entanglement’ or joining of two minds, which is what allows detection and communication and many forms of manipulation.”
“And the shield does nothing against Ghost attacks.”
“Correct. They operate on a very different wavelength, so to speak, as do Dark mental attacks.”
“Got it. Well, I’m glad it worked out the way it did. I just wish I thought of it sooner. Every time their minds were able to enmesh with mine, my partition weakened and I got these floods of… of sorrow. Intense grief.”
“And this new state, it doesn’t cause the same side effects as the previous ones? The shakes, the nausea?”
Red blinks. “Huh. No, and none of the other states have lately. I didn’t even notice, with how bad I’ve been generally feeling anyway.”
“It’s possible this new state was only available to you through the weakening of your partition. As less and less of your powers are devoted to maintaining it, you’ve become accustomed to not having it so strongly reinforced.”
“But I
haven’t,
” Red says, fingers gripping the edge of the table. He makes an effort to relax them. “I’m not curling up into a ball and crying every five minutes, but I
want to.
I hate feeling like this again, this…”
Empty. Alone.
“I want the partition back.”
I want to go back to not missing my dad this badly, this constantly, it hurts too much.
His throat feels blocked, and he quickly enters many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room to cut the emotions off, just long enough to avoid tearing up.
Ayane watches him with a mix of alarm and compassion. She can obviously feel him enter the emotionless state, but if she disapproves, she keeps it to herself.
“Can you help me?” Red asks after regaining control of himself.
“I don’t know.”
“That sounds ominous.”
She doesn’t smile. “It’s hard to enter your mind now, full of grief as it is. It makes it difficult to not get swept in, to focus on the deeper levels of your mind. Perhaps if your shield is up, I can attempt to breach it and simply examine how your powers are being utilized. Is that alright?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not unless I choose it to be.”
“Still ominous.”
This time she does smile, briefly. Probably just humoring him. “The breaching itself usually results in a deeper reading beyond the most surface thoughts and emotions. An aggressive attacker would use projection abilities to distract or confuse you so that your defense is less robust, but without any of those it will be harmless. I only ask permission because if I do succeed, it could result in a deeper read than people are normally comfortable with, privacy-wise.”
He thinks it over for at least a solid minute, which she quietly gives him. What secrets does he have? Worst case scenario is what, she finds out how he did the abra thing? That he knew the clefairy prices would go up, maybe? All that’s protected by confidentiality, theoretically, and as long as he thinks of something else it shouldn’t come up.
Finally Red shrugs. “Sure. Give me another twenty.”
This time he feels the slipperygraspingbouncy attempt of her mind trying to connect with his for longer, but nothing really changes. It doesn’t even get harder to maintain, which he finds surprising. Eventually however the sensation feels more… complete. Like her mind is all around his, pressing in from every side. It still doesn’t connect to his, but it’s a rather disconcerting feeling.
Eventually she opens her eyes and relaxes. “I’m sorry, all I could sense is that it’s a clean shield. I can’t even sense what portion of your powers are going into maintaining it. I’ll have to think of something else.”
“Wait, so what was the difference between what you just did and what you originally did?”
“This was more thorough. When a psychic knows there is a shielded mind nearby, we can find it through careful search.”
“And that wouldn’t work on a Dark mind?”
“When you have developed your third eye you will better understand, but for now think of it like camouflage compared to invisibility, where viewing from another angle might reveal the trick for the former, but not the latter. In truth, it is more like invisibility versus
intangibility.
”
“Which would mean that what you did now was like throwing flour or paint around and seeing my outline.”
She smiles. “That explanation works as well, though again, in truth the sensation is different from the analogy. A bit like poking at a missing tooth with your tongue.”
Something she said earlier was interesting to him. “That explains why it felt like your mind was all around mine, but you said that the searching mind won’t even realize it missed something normally, right? Does that mean you felt nothing when you reached out toward me?”
“Correct.”
Red shakes his head. “Man, psychic powers are so weird. I thought anything I felt from the other mind was the result of what that mind felt too.”
“What do you mean?”
“That strange feeling, of your mind slipping or bouncing off mine. It’s handy to know if someone is trying to touch their mind to mine, I guess, but it’s confusing my models of how psychic powers work that you don’t feel something too.”
Psychic Ayane stares at him. Red infers from her expression that he just said Something Significant.
“You felt something when I reached out with my mind?” she asks at last, speaking slowly.
“Yeah. Is that weird?”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing during a mental shield. Are you sure it wasn’t imagined, or some effect of your unusual shielding method?”
“No, it… hm.” He never tried entering the state without another psychic mind nearby: he mostly just practiced it while training the abras. “Okay, maybe. Let’s check.” Red stands and goes to the workroom’s table, then takes his notebook out and goes back to sitting on the floor. “So, I’m going to make a mark when I feel it. It should coincide to when you reach out, right?”
Ayane nods, a small crease between her brow again. Red takes the pencil out of the notebook’s spiral binding and opens to a fresh page. He concentrates on meticulously-reinforced-normal-state, pencil tip hovering over the paper. “Okay… ready when you are.”
He waits. And waits. He keeps his gaze on the paper, though in truth he barely sees it, focus inward to catch the sensation again. Red begins to wonder why it’s not happening when he realizes that she’s probably not actually trying. He smiles slightly. It’s always nice to meet others with a grasp of good methodology.
Finally, after staring at the paper and maintaining the mental state for what must be a couple minutes at least, he feels her mind brush his again before slipping/bouncing/whatevering off. He quickly draws a line on the paper, lifting his pencil back off the moment the sensation stops.
When he looks up at her, she’s staring at the page with wide eyes.
“Is this good, or bad?” he asks.
“This… I don’t know what this is.” She seems genuinely baffled, and Red feels some genuine interest kindle.
“Well, in the context of what you do know, what’s most confusing about this?” He flips to a new page and poises his pencil to take notes.
“Our Gift works through mutual entanglement,” she says slowly. “As you said. Some projection powers can differ, but to sense one-another first requires contact, intangible as it may be to our other senses. For you to feel my mind while I cannot feel yours is… I’ve never heard of such a thing. It confuses me, because I don’t understand how your shield is detecting my mind without sending any feedback for me to notice.”
Red finishes scribbling, then prods his chin with the eraser, thinking. “Okay, so what rules or laws would that break, that you assumed were absolute? Does anything change about the world, or… is there something that used to not make sense that now does?”
“I don’t… I have to think about it. But this is all aside from the main concern: your partition.”
Red’s mood immediately drops back down, and he sighs and puts his pencil down. “Right. That. So how do we fix it?”
“There are no easy paths. It’s possible that if you refrain from using any psychic abilities for a week or two, possibly more, it will eventually rebuild itself.”
Red stares at her. “Two weeks. No. That’s… I have to keep training my abra, to do research. I can’t just stop. Besides, that would just mean I go back to square one. I would effectively be giving up my ability to use my powers. What else?”
“We can shift the focus of our lessons, try and teach you the basics of memory and mood manipulation. Or…” She hesitates. “Perhaps this is not my place to suggest this, but another option is to deal with these emotions how someone normally might, without the Gift. I don’t know the source of your trauma, but it may be best resolved, if possible, rather than locked away.”
Red stares at the table. He wants to deny her words, get a quick fix that will help him sleep tonight, or at least get something to give him hope for tomorrow, or the day after. Something to end this constant, churning pain and emptiness
soon
, not next month or next year.
But he can’t rule out that she might be right. That it’s something he’ll just have to grow to live with, fight through… again.
Maybe it’s time to call his old therapist.
“I’ll think about it,” Red says. “We can talk it over again next lesson, along with my weird shield thing. In the meantime, let’s try those other options.”
“As you wish.”
“Oh, and one more thing. There’s some research I’m doing on the abra I caught, and I need a trained psychic to participate…”
Blue reaches the island stadium and immediately begins to explore the sandy dunes that make up the bulk of it, ignoring the trainer platforms for now. He tests the firmness of the ground, then begins to dig to make sure there isn’t concrete under it. Once water begins to fill his hole, he stops and scoops the sand back in, then goes to examine the dropoff at the edge, brushing wet sand off against his pants.
It’s the first outdoor stadium he’s fought in, now that he’s finally ready for his match against Misty’s Second. All around him, the water of Cerulean Bay rolls by in waves as the sun beats down. The terrain won’t be a problem for most of his pokemon, though he’d prefer a more solid surface for his shinx to run around on, if it comes to using Ion. He already trained Kemuri on the beach to ensure that the shiftry’s odd feet wouldn’t have trouble with sand.
Some spectators begin to arrive at the bleachers near the island, mostly others training at the gym who have sparred with him or are planning to challenge Ariya soon. Blue hasn’t lost an official match in Cerulean yet, and he’s glad to see the interest that’s generating for him. He knows his opponent is on her way, so he starts measuring out the dimensions of the sand dune. About eighteen meters across, and almost thirty meters long, with the edges tapering off to narrow strips before ending at the base of the trainer platforms. The platforms themselves stretch out over the sand a bit, the bottoms just within reach for him to pull himself up after he spots Ariya arriving from the pier.
By the time he finishes climbing up, she’s on the walkway leading to the small island. Misty’s Second is wearing dark clothing that doesn’t look particularly designed for swimming, which he takes as a sign that she doesn’t plan on engaging in a full battle below the water. He brought all his equipment just in case, but he’s far less prepared for a water battle. Thankfully Misty only sets those as Challenges for trainers with at least four badges.
Ariya, on the other hand, is far less predictable. The point of fighting one’s way up the ranks is to help the Gym try to find weaknesses and make sure that any challenger is prepared for the Leader. Brock’s Second threw Blue a curveball, and he expects Ariya will too.
That would apply to any Leader’s Second, however. Ariya particularly has a reputation for being a bit “wild,” especially considering her position of authority. If he expects a conventional battle, he’ll get blindsided.
Blue puts his earpiece in and turns it on as she mounts her platform and does the same.
“-hear me? Hello?”
“Hey, yeah I can hear you.”
“Cool. Nice to finally meet you, Youngster Oak. Heard good things.”
Blue smirks. Banter he can handle. “Thanks. I was actually in one of your amphibious classes a couple days ago.”
“Oh, yeah? Sorry, I tend to forget those things as soon as I finish them.”
Yeah right you forgot having the grandson of Professor Oak in your class.
“I probably would too. I guess you have to do them?”
“Pretty much. One of a lower-case-L leader’s obligations. Just like busting an up-and-comer like you down a peg. Ready?”
“Yeah. What are the rules?”
“Pretty simple: three pokemon each. First to withdraw three loses.”
Blue is not reassured. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay. Should I go first?”
“Nah, I’ll start.” She unhooks a ball from her belt and throws. A flash mid-air, and a swanna is suddenly circling the small island, sun gleaming off its bright white feathers.
Ariya catches its ball and reclips it, and Blue watches it circle, once, twice, three times, mind racing as he wonders how to best counter a Water/Flying type. He knows it must look like he’s frozen, maybe even panicked, to the audience. From deep in his battle calm however, the thought doesn’t compel him to action. He has to play this carefully.
“Well?” Ariya finally asks in his ear.
“You didn’t say anything about a time limit. You just said three withdraws, right?”
Blue can’t see the smirk, but he can hear it. “What are you, a rules lawyer now? Fine, you’ve got ten seconds to send a pokemon out now or you lose.”
Crap.
Ok, options. Half his team won’t be able to fight, and he brought his shinx, pidgey, shroomish, one of his bellsprout, and of course Maturin and Kemuri. Swanna aren’t strong, but being a flyer helps them dominate Grass types like Gon or Kemuri by evading or blowing away most of their attacks. That same airborne advantage makes them especially weak against electric pokemon, but Blue still hasn’t used his shinx yet in any of his matches, and he’s not about to reveal it now, one battle away from Misty-
“Three… two…”
“Go, Maturin!”
Blue’s squirtle materializes crouched on all fours. It seems excited about the surroundings, but quickly locks its gaze on the flying swanna, and Blue yells, “Maturin, Water Gun!”
“Swanna, Wing Attack!”
Swanna swoops down and Maturin’s jet of water clips its wing, sending it into an awkward spin. Its feathers are highly water absorbent, but it still takes a moment for the bird to right itself.
“Maturin, Tackle, then Bite!”
“Swanna, Gust!”
His squirtle dashes forward across the sand and leaps just as the swanna orients itself and pumps its wings. The burst of air slams Maturin back down and kicks up an obscuring cloud, but Maturin leaps up out of it a moment later and slams into the swanna.
It squawks as it tumbles back, Maturin holding on tight and snapping at it. Her weight is making it hard for the swanna to keep its altitude until Ariya yells, “Swanna, Brave Bird!”
The swanna tucks its wings in and dives. Maturin manages to tuck into her shell a moment before the swanna, with no target apparent, pulls up just above the ground and speeds forward in a blur. The squirtle is dragged along the sand for only a moment before tumbling away into the water.
The swanna speeds off over the waves before finally lifting upward. “Good call,” Ariya says. “Have you seen me do that maneuver before?”
“No, I just… didn’t know what to expect, so assumed the worst.” Blue watches Maturin crawl back onto land and lets out a sigh of relief. “How did you train it to do that?”
“Ask me again after the match, and maybe I’ll show you. Swanna, Air Slash!”
“Dodge!”
Maturin tries, but the focused blast of air moves too fast. Blue watches his pokemon flinch as the air hammers her into the ground and kicks up another spray of sand. “Tackle!”
Maturin rockets up at the swanna again, but it easily avoids the attack by climbing altitude. Ariya tries another Air Slash, but this time it’s far enough for Maturin to get out of the way.
Blue wipes sweaty palms on his pants. He put Maturin out so the swanna would be restricted to its air attacks, but squirtle don’t have many attacks that can effectively deal with a flier so resistant to water.
Or rather, they don’t normally. Blue sold some of his clefairy and bought a few TMs for his pokemon a couple days ago. He was hoping to keep them secret for Misty too, but right now it’s the best path to victory. Maybe he doesn’t have to show all his cards, though.
Blue waits for the swanna to get a little closer… a little closer…
“Swanna, Aerial Ace!”
“Maturin, Bubblebeam!”
A tight, thin stream of water filled with bubbles lances out and rakes the swanna’s wing as it dives. Each tiny bubble pops explosively, like the bigger ones from the Bubble attack, causing the swanna to flinch and stumble in the air.
It still strikes Maturin with the iconic one-two downward then upward maneuver, but it’s slowed enough by Maturin’s attack that she can bite its tail as it passes by, without Blue even having to tell her to. The swanna screeches in pain and begins to claw and buffet Maturin with its wings.
“Withdraw!”
“Wing Attack!”
Maturin ducks into her shell, beak still firmly clenched down, just like they practiced. The swanna grows more frantic, until finally it tears its tail feathers out in its attempt to escape.
Ariya’s withdrawal cuts off its cry of pain, and Blue hops down off his platform to check on Maturin as she cautiously pokes her head back out of her shell, then follows suit with the rest of her limbs and spits out the bloody feathers. He sees a few scratches on her face and arms, only one of them deep enough to drip blood. Blue crouches down and checks her shell, then rubs her belly. Her tail begins to wag, and some tension eases from his stomach. She’s okay for a bit more.
“Ready for the second?” Ariya asks.
“Yep.” He jogs back to his platform and climbs up. If this were a real match Ariya probably could have kept her swanna out and worn Maturin down, but he’ll take the win. Unless her next pick is something easy for a squirtle to counter, he’ll bring Maturin back after a few attacks. His shiftry should be able to handle almost any other Water type she uses…
“Go, Pelipper!”
Blue scowls as the second Water/Flying type is summoned.
So much for that idea.
“Pelipper, Wing Attack!”
“Maturin, Ice Beam!”
“Dodge!” Ariya yells, too late. Maturin opens her mouth and emits a tight beam of light, invisible in the bright day except for the white plume of frost that forms in its wake and hits the pelipper in the chest.
The bird only suffers through a moment of the cold before it tips out of the way, but that’s near Maturin’s limit anyway. The Bubblebeam was one thing, but a squirtle’s body has to be more drastically altered by a TM to allow it to shoot freezing rays. It will never be as effective as one coming from a pokemon that can naturally learn it.
“Tackle!”
“Gust!”
Maturin leaps up, only to get slammed back to the ground by the burst of wind.
“Ice Beam!”
“Dodge!”
Blue waits until the pelipper’s flight path loops around. “Water Gun!”
“Wing Attack!”
“Bubblebeam!”
“Gust!”
“Ice Beam!”
“Dodge!”
The pelipper dives, stalls, banks, and dodges as Maturin swaps attack moment to moment, and Blue keeps the pressure going. “Water Gun! Bubblebeam! Water Gun! Ice Beam!”
Over and over, Maturin obediently switches on command, like their drills. Ariya’s attempts to take advantage of attacks that her pokemon can shrug off get cut short by Ice Beams, and eventually the pelipper begins to get hit by them rather than the other attacks while Maturin endures repeated gusts of wind and the occasional rake of talons.
Seven… Eight…
The next Ice Beam is visibly weaker, and Maturin is responding to Blue’s commands much slower than the pelipper is Ariya’s. The next gust of wind knocks the squirtle from her feet, and Blue finally points her dive ball forward. “Maturin, return!”
“Not bad, Oakseed,” Ariya says. “Need another minute to choose your next one?”
“Will you give it to me?”
“I’ll give you as long as you want. Pelipper, Roost!”
Shit.
Blue watches her pokemon wing down to the sand and fold its feathers back as it begins to rest and heal itself. Blue’s fingers brush Kemuri’s ball, then move to Ion’s for the easy win.
No, not yet…
But that leaves him with one of his Grass types, or Zephyr. Would the pidgey fare better, bird to bird?
“Your squirtle is well trained.”
“Thanks.”
“That Ice Beam must’ve cost you.”
“Worth the price.”
She’s trying to distract me.
Or giving him a subtle hint?
Or playing mind games.
But if this pelipper knows an Ice attack Zephyr is just as screwed… Better to go in strong.
“What do you think of-”
“Go, Kemuri!”
“Pelipper, up!”
The shiftry has barely materialized before the pelipper leaps back into the air with an explosive clap of wings, sending sand flying to either side. “Pelipper, Gust!”
“Dodge!”
Kemuri leaps aside, avoiding most of the wind. It still spins him around, and the pelipper dives forward as Ariya yells “Wing Attack!”
“Feint Attack!”
Kemuri pivots on one foot and brings its leaves up in a diagonal slash that catches the pelipper along its side, even as it rakes Kemuri with its talons in a flyby.
It’s hard to tell which is more injured at first, but the pelipper is definitely bleeding. Blue expects Ariya to withdraw it. “Sky Drop!” she says instead.
For the second time in the match, Blue is too surprised to react for a moment. By the time he yells out a hasty “Dodge!” it’s too late for Kemuri to avoid the pelipper’s grasping talons.
Two flaps, three, four, and yes, the pelipper is lifting Kemuri up, up, up into the air. “Leaf Blade!” Blue yells up at Kemuri, but if it manages to hit the pelipper with its leaves, they must only be glancing cuts, because it just keeps going higher. Much higher than is safe… “You won’t actually drop it from there,” Blue says after a moment.
“Wanna bet?”
Blue folds his arms. “Yeah, actually.”
Ariya raises a whistle to her lips, and Blue feels a pit in his stomach. She’s been using verbal commands all along without needing to, a deliberate handicap against a challenger with just one badge… did he do something that made her escalate the challenge?
She blows two quick notes on the flute, then a quick series of notes, and Blue raises Kemuri’s ball in a near panic. He has to withdraw the shiftry before he hits the-
-water? The pelipper banks before releasing Blue’s pokemon, and the shiftry falls sideways, helplessly plunging into the bay beside the island.
“Bit of advice for you, Oaksprout. I don’t bluff.” Ariya blows another series of notes on her flute, and her pelipper dives back down to the island, landing for another Roost.
Blue stares at the spot his pokemon disappeared, then lets out his breath as the shiftry surfaces a moment later. He slowly drops the ball back to his belt as he watches his pokemon splash and flounder, but continue to float. The water isn’t particularly deep there, and the waves push Kemuri back toward the island so that even its inelegant thrashes allow it to safely wash ashore.
“Take your time, we’re not going anywhere.” Ariya leans against the railing on her platform, one arm propping up her head.
Blue grits his teeth and watches his pokemon shake itself dry and catch its breath. He takes a moment to do the same, and lets his battle calm surround him again. He’s not going to win this battle on brute force or a decisive blow. And while shiftry don’t naturally have the status effect moves of most grass types…
“Kemuri, Sa!”
Blue’s pokemon straightens, and Ariya’s pelipper launches up again on her order, but nothing happens. From this distance, Blue can’t make out the shiftry’s eyes, and knows that Ariya can’t either. But he’s confident that after hours of practicing his first custom command, his pokemon is carrying it out.
Ariya waits a bit longer to see if Kemuri will do something, then takes the initiative. A few quick notes, and the pelipper blows a gust of wind at the shiftry. It’s a bit off mark however, and kicks up a cloud of sand and water to the right of Blue’s pokemon. A second attempt is even less accurate, and by the time Ariya tries a new command that sends the pelipper hurtling forward with its claws outstretched, it’s clear that something’s not right with her pokemon.
Blue watches it wobble and dip erratically as it attacks, and for a moment it looks like his shiftry will simply stand there while it slams into him.
Instead, just a heartbeat away, the bird crashes into the island and tumbles across the sand, flapping its wings erratically and squawking in distress. Ariya stretches forward, one hand gripping the railing as the other extends a pokeball just far enough to withdraw her pokemon.
Blue hears scattered applause from the audience, sparsely populated and distant though they are. Ariya returns to the center of her platform and turns her mic back on. “Ugh. Stupid mental attacks. You have no idea how irritating they get when training with Misty.”
Blue makes an effort to stop smiling as he reminds himself not to get overconfident. She’s down to her last pokemon, but Kemuri’s pretty banged up, and he wouldn’t put it past Ariya to bring out yet another-
“Go, Mantine!”
Even half expecting it, Blue groans. The third Water/Flying pokemon soars gracefully above the waves, wide wings rising and falling lethargically as if swimming through the air. It occasionally dips beneath the surface, then reappears elsewhere in a spray of water.
Kemuri slowly circles in place, never letting the mantine leave his sight. Unfortunately its constant dips beneath the surface prevent him from maintaining another Extrasensory attack.
“Leaf Tornado!”
A whirl of small, sharp leaf bits begins to form between the shiftry’s rotating arms, but as he launches it at the mantine on its next surface, Ariya yells “Air Slash!” and the green cyclone is blown apart by the cutting line of air that splits the water’s surface.
Kemuri manages to dodge on time, but the mantine continues, sending blade after blade of air at the shiftry every time it surfaces. Sprays of water and sand kick up, obscuring Kemuri’s constantly dodging form as it acts without instruction. Blue watches, trying to think of something else to do. His shiftry is still his most unruly and independent pokemon, but it’s been doing well so far. He knows it can win if he just thinks of the right command.
But as the blasts of air keep coming, nothing comes to mind, and Kemuri is beginning to visibly tire. Some of the attacks start to hit him, glancing blows that have mostly spent their energy travelling so far, but still enough to contribute to wearing the shiftry down. Blue wipes his palms again and grips the railing, trying to see some pattern or weakness to exploit. As his pokemon is mostly acting on its own at the moment, he allows his eyes to unfocus so he can mostly ignore the moment to moment distraction in front of him and reach a decision.
Brock likes his gym to teach decisiveness, and Misty’s is well known for valuing and promoting adaptability, which is part of why the terrain and Ariya’s tactics are what they are. Challenges are meant to be hard, but not impossible. If Blue really doesn’t have an electric type, he should still be able to win.
And it’s not even that complicated a challenge. Any Grass attack Blue hits the Mantine with is going to hurt, but its Flying type helps it avoid most of them, and the terrain allows it to stay out of range and harass. Blue just needs to close the distance, despite the risk. The longer he just stays where he is, the more Kemuri will get worn down for nothing.
Blue tightens his grip on the railing. How far is the mantine from Kemuri, at most? 10 meters? A bit too much. But 8? That he could do.
All-or-nothing it is, then.
He watches the mantine dip in and out of the water, circling the small island. It’s getting a bit slower too, the constant movement and attacking no doubt taxing it nearly as much as Kemuri. Ariya would probably call for it to rest soon, which it can do safely, unlike his shiftry.
The mantine leaps up on Blue’s right side, sends another slice of air out at Kemuri as it floats over the island in front of him, then dips back down on his left. Two more hops and it’ll pass by the center of the island… one more…
“Leaf Blade!” Blue yells, and vaults the railing to leap down from his platform.
Kemuri jumps forward, stops at the edge of the water with its legs bunched beneath it, and
springs
forward just as the mantine emerges again. His leaves stretch out, sharp tips aimed straight at its white underbelly as it turns mid-air… and flaps its fin to send another line of air out, splintering Kemuri’s left arm as the invisible blade sends him tumbling to the side and into the water.
Blue is already standing at the shore, greatball held out to withdraw Kemuri as soon as he flounders back to the surface. “Return!” The beam shoots out and sucks the shiftry into his ball. Blue watches the mantine surface again a couple times, watching for some sign of injury. Is there a dark line along its wingspan, or is he imagining it? Either way, it’s clearly still fit enough to continue the fight.
Blue returns to his platform as Ariya lets the applause from their audience die down before saying, “Nice try, but come
ooon,
Oakling. You’ve got one shot left. I
know
you have an Electric type on that belt somewhere, you wouldn’t come to Misty with just Grass in your arsenal. So whatcha got? Did you buy a mareep from Johto? Maybe nab a pikachu during that forest fire?”
Images flash before him, of a blood-stained bundle of yellow fur lying in the grass of a smoke filled forest. Blue feels heat spreading through his chest as his fingers brush the cool metal of Ion’s ball. The shinx would make short work of her mantine, but now that he knows her entire strategy was built around baiting his Electric Type out, he can’t give Misty that upper hand.
He climbs over the railing and turns, arm flinging a ball out. “Go, Zephyr!”
A flash and the smack of the ball returning to his palm, and Blue brings his flute up with the other hand, immediately blowing into it:
Wing Attack!
Zephyr dives at the mantine and rakes it with his talons during its brief flight above the water. Ariya brings her own instrument up and gives a different command, but she has to wait until mantine is surfaced for each one, while Blue can constantly adjust his own pokemon’s position.
Zephyr is a tan and brown streak, first harassing the mantine’s left side, then hitting it from above on its next surfacing, then circling around to dodge a Water Gun or climbing up to avoid an Air Slash.
Ariya finally abandons the water as her mantine bursts out of it and soars up over the island, turning over in mid-air, then rotating on every axis to keep Zephyr in its sights as it sends burst after burst of water out. Two of them connect, one after the other, and Blue sends Zephyr in a deep dive to avoid the next ones before using a Gust to deflect the third. Mantine switches to a maintained Bubblebeam, and Blue sends Zephyr below it, wings tipped into a wider and wider spiral. The mantine is forced to turn in mid-air and drill a continuous line in the sand as it chases the pidgey around and around, losing altitude and flying more erratically as it struggles to balance the various forces keeping it up and dragging it down.
Blue feels sweat trickle down his neck, eyes burning in a reminder to blink. He doesn’t know who will run out of stamina first, Zephyr or the mantine, but he’s spent hours training his pidgey for endurance, knowing that its battles might come down to just how long it could keep up hit-and-run attacks. When the mantine’s Bubblebeam finally ends, Blue blows a sharp note, sending Zephyr up in a sharp climb-
-which is immediately abandoned as soon as Ariya commands another attack, allowing Zephyr to dodge the jet of water and loop around the mantine’s broad wings to rake a pair of bloody lines across its belly.
It shudders in the air, and finally begins to glide downward, the closest thing to a dead drop it can manage. Ariya withdraws it as it coasts by, and Blue lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
The spectators burst into applause again, and Blue is about to turn and hold up a victory sign when a bright light flashes in the air, causing a shocked silence.
Blue’s heart leaps into his throat, and he watches his first caught pokemon finally evolve with a wide grin. Zephyr is still flying, a looping, soaring ball of iridescent light that ends as abruptly as it began… leaving behind a pidgeotto, about as big as Zephyr had grown to be, but with wider wingspan, a full red crest, a smoother breast, and long red and yellow tail feathers.
The applause return, louder this time and mixed with cheers. Blue holds out his arm, and blows a note on his flute. Zephyr comes in for a landing, talons a bit sharper than before, and Blue strokes his back as the pidgeotto preens. He can’t seem to stop grinning.
“Nice job, Oak,” Ariya says. “That last command, you trained it with a feint?”
“Yeah. It’s one of my shiftry’s most useful maneuvers, so I figured I’d try to teach the others to do it too. Zephyr picked it up pretty easily. Maybe it’s got some murkrow in its lineage.”
“Well it was some damn nice flying, even without that. I don’t know if you really don’t have an electric pokemon or if you’re just so confident that you knew you wouldn’t need one, but I’m looking forward to your Challenge.” She gives a salute from her platform, and Blue returns it.
“So, if you were that impressed, how about that Brave Bird maneuver?” Even the basic version of the attack is an incredibly advanced technique, but if someone like Ariya with her own variation can teach him…
She laughs. “Yeah, I think you might be able to handle it. At the very least, it’ll be amusing watching you try to teach it to your pokemon.”
“Hello?”
“Hi Doctor Seward.”
“Hello… Red?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry to bother you. Do you have a minute?”
“Of course, Red, how is everything? You’re on your journey now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. With the journey, I mean.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And your mother?”
“She’s good. She’s in Celadon now.”
“I know. Say hi for me, when you can. What can I help you with, Red?
“I just… uh… I’ve been going through some stuff.”
“I surmised as much. Are you alright?”
“I’m… not really. It’s my dad.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Did something happen to remind you of him?”
“A few things.”
“How bad is it?”
“…Pretty bad.”
“Scale?”
“Oh. Uh. I’d say I’m at a… a three. A four on good days.”
“I see. I’m sorry, Red. Where are you now?”
“Cerulean.”
“Grand city. I hope you’re enjoying it, at least a little. I have some colleagues there, if you want a referral?”
“I don’t think I’ll be here long. My friends and I will be on the move again soon.”
“Would you rather do a video feed then? I could make an opening, either early afternoon or evenings.”
“I think that might help, yeah. In the evening. Is tomorrow okay with you?”
“The day after. 7 o’clock?”
“Okay. Thanks a lot.”
“Of course. In the meantime, I have homework.”
“Heh. Right. Okay, what is it?”
“You have pokemon now, yes? Presumably a few.”
“Yeah, I have a full belt.”
“Congratulations. Which is your cuddliest?”
“My… what?”
“Your cuddliest. The one you can cuddle up with the best, safely.”
“I guess… um… my bellsprout is pretty safe, but it’s not exactly cuddly. My pichu I guess, now that it doesn’t randomly shoot sparks out anymore.”
“Yes, that’s rather important. Good. Now, I want you to spend some time just relaxing with it. Training is fine too, by all means be as physically active as you can manage, but I don’t want you lying in bed without a pokemon there beside you. Think you can do that?”
“Yeah, I think so. That’s a good idea.”
“I know it is. One more thing. Find something to do that’s related to your dad. I know you probably have a lot to be busy with, it doesn’t have to be a big project. Just do something you know would make him happy. Something that speaks to the loss, answers it back.”
“…”
“Is that alright?”
“Y-yeah. Yeah I… I can do that. Okay. Thanks.”
“Of course. Be well, Red. Talk to you soon.”
Red squints as he leaves the Trainer House for the first time in days. The sunlight makes his eyebrows ache, a familiar feeling from years ago when he spent whole weeks in his bedroom.
Like then, going outside after so long has a mixed effect. He can feel his spirits lift ever so slightly, but it also feels slightly false. Not to mention emotionally exhausting, like he’s trading off energy for the improved mood. Walking through the crowded city streets doesn’t help, but Leaf just arrived back in town and wants to grab lunch with him and Blue, so Red keeps his gaze down and puts one foot in front of the other rather than go back and crawl into bed.
His pichu is sitting on his shoulder, its paws gripping his collar tight as it looks around. One hand goes up to stroke its fur. He’s been spending as much time with it as he can since he spoke with Dr. Seward, and he’s happy to see how comfortable his timid little mouse seems out in public, compared to when Red first got him.
The city is as alive as ever around them, sidewalks crowded with people and pokemon going about their day. Red spots some tourists and remembers their first day in the city. It’s strange how soon a new place can feel familiar. He feels his pichu climb up onto the bill of his hat as a growlithe walks by, a small spark snapping from his cheeks as he watches it walk by. Red cups him in his palm and gives him a brief scolding before placing him back on his shoulder, where he presses his flat tail along the inside of Red’s shirt.
By the time he gets to the restaurant, he’s acclimated enough to being outside that his excitement to see his friends again beats out his emotional fatigue. After arriving at the restaurant and spotting Leaf and Blue at a table, he actually smiles. They haven’t all been in one place for over a week, since the day they caught the abra. He withdraws his pichu before heading inside.
“-
so
jealous, I need to train with Crimson more so he can keep up.”
“Gonna be hard if you never do practice battles. We can spar if you want, avoid any cutting attacks.”
Leaf opens her mouth to respond, then puts her menu down with a grin as she sees Red. “Heya! Good to see you again.”
“You too. Hey man.” He slides his chair in and holds a fist up.
Blue knocks his against it. “Hey man yourself, I’ve barely seen you more than Leaf lately. You finish up the abra research yet?”
Red feels a stab of guilt over his inactivity lately. He knows the others are impatient to sell the abra. “Uh. Not yet. My teacher agreed to help with it though, so. Should be ready soon.” He fiddles with his menu, not really hungry but wanting to change the topic. “So how was the trip back?”
“Fine, but never mind that,” Leaf says, leaning forward. “Now that you’re here I have something to tell you guys…”
Red and Blue both lean in as she explains what she learned on the mountain, and how it led to her meeting with Giovanni. She stops talking when the waiter arrives for their order, and continues when he’s out of earshot, lowering her voice further as she goes over their conversation.
Her story makes Red’s mind begin to race, and for the first time all day he feels fully awake. He’s a bit jealous that she actually met with the legendary Gym Leader, but finding out that someone killed Yuuta before he could be executed, and that the other Leaders are covering it up, brings back all his uncertainties over voting to execute the Renegade in the first place.
“…and he just left! I know he was busy doing other things, he probably had a meeting to get to somewhere, but it was still really abrupt. I think I might have given away that I changed my mind, somehow.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Blue says as he slurps from his soup bowl. “He probably just had a psychic nearby reading your mind and texting to him.”
Leaf stares at him, eyes growing wider and mouth dropping open, then buries her face in her hands and let out a muffled cry of frustration. “Of
course
that’s what he did, Arceus, I’m such an
idiot!
”
“Hey,” Red says, mouth full of slimy seaweed salad. He takes a moment to swallow the tasty strands down. It’s nice having money to waste on luxury foods. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just because we have one plausible hypothesis. Do you really think he would do something like that?”
Blue snorts. “For someone so smart, you’re really naive sometimes. You don’t think people would use psychics to get an edge in social situations? Absolutely, if it works and they can afford it.”
Red frowns. “Cynicism isn’t knowledge. He’s a Gym Leader, not just some random guy.”
“So? That just means he has more responsibility and ambition. If he thinks it’s in the best interest of Viridian or Kanto-”
“But isn’t that illegal?” Leaf asks, face rising. “In Unova a psychic needs consent to affect someone’s mind.”
“Oh, that’s true here too,” Red says. “I have to sign a bunch of stuff for pretty much anything my teacher does with me. But just reading someone’s mood and surface thoughts doesn’t count. It’s a passive thing that we just… do.”
Leaf and Blue look at Red in surprise. “Not that I’m there yet, myself,” he adds. “I’d have to focus to read someone, and if they weren’t psychic I’d barely be able to tell who I was reading from. Anyway, forget the moral concern. Imagine if it gets out. No one would feel safe talking to him again.”
“Oh come on, it’s
Giovanni Sakaki.
Anyone who doesn’t already take precautions about that sort of thing isn’t in a position to not talk to him if he wants a meeting.”
“Well,
I’m
certainly not going to again,” Leaf says as she stabs at her salad. “And I’ll warn others who might not to either!”
“But will you publish the story?” Blue asks. “Seems like that’s all he was concerned with, and what he’d continue to care about. No offense.”
She bites her lip a moment, moving some almonds around in their bowl. “I want to, but… I don’t want to act out of spite. I mean, assuming he was being honest, the reasoning for not publishing hasn’t really changed, right? Regardless of what he did to me personally. What do you guys think?”
Red and Blue look at each other. “You should ask your-”
“I should ask-”
“-grandpa/gramps,” they finish, almost together.
Leaf’s lip twitches. “I thought about asking Laura, but since she’s another reporter, it would have felt too much like going back on what I said to Giovanni. Now that I know what he did though… now that I
think
I know what he did,” she amends when Red opens his mouth, “I care a lot less about that.”
“Maybe you should, still,” Blue says. “What he did, it’s all in the game. Once you get involved in important issues, not just politics but actual Leader duties and Renegade stuff, you’re in a different world.”
“And that makes it okay?” Leaf asks, brow furrowed.
He shrugs. “What he did sucks, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just the way the world works. Gramps made sure I understood that, when he first found out how ambitious I am. Leaders don’t just train people and defend against pokemon. They’re not heroes from cartoons. They have to deal with the stuff that holds society together, and sometimes that stuff is too serious for being nice and honest.”
“That logic can excuse a lot of shitty stuff,” Red says. “You sound like you’re saying to just trust Giovanni, but you called me naive earlier.”
Blue shakes his head. “Different kind of naive. Look, he didn’t actually do anything that hurt you, right? I’m just saying, as long as you play ball, Giovanni will keep it in mind. If you go back on it now, you might regret it.”
Leaf rolls her eyes. “Well that’s just an argument out of self-interest, and I don’t need help on that front. If I start to think that I’m really only doing it for myself, I might just publish the story to prove that idea wrong. I don’t want to do it for that reason either, so I need to take it out of the equation.”
“Then what’s left?” Red asks. “If you only really care about what the outcome of the story would be, like you said, none of the arguments against publishing have changed. Just your trust in Giovanni.”
“Which I’m saying shouldn’t impact your view of his motives,” Blue says. “Not on its own, anyway. Not unless you fully understand what’s at stake and what his options were.”
“Do you think he’ll mind you telling us, and asking Professor Oak?” Red asks.
“He said not to publish, he didn’t say not to talk about it. I never would have agreed to that, which he’d know if he was digging around in my head.” Leaf spears a cucumber slice and munches it, scowling. “Okay, let’s talk to the Professor.”
“To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knows,” Blue says. “But don’t worry, if he thinks it should be out there I’m pretty sure he won’t break the story ahead of you.”
“Ok, cool. I guess I’ll start on a draft of it, just in case, so I’m ready to go sooner if I need to. I’m almost done with the article on the dig site anyway.”
“Man, your following is going to shoot up like crazy if you do break a story like that,” Blue says as he leans his chair back, spoon tapping his lower lip. “Definitely more than the bump I’ll get from beating Misty.”
Red puts his foot on Blue’s chair leg beneath the table and pushes it down, jerking him forward in time to allow a waiter to pass behind him. Blue looks startled, then angry, but follows Red’s gaze and rolls his eyes before pointedly leaning his chair back again.
“Speaking of followings,” Red says. “I’ve been thinking about… some stuff lately. And I wanted to run something by you guys that might actually help with that.”
They both turn to him, and he takes a moment to remember the opening he rehearsed.
“So, I know we all have a lot of plans for the money we’ll make from the abra. And there’s a lot of good we want to do with that money. But, I thought that it might be worth considering how much good we can do with the abra too.”
He gives them a moment to say something, but other than a crease in Blue’s forehead and Leaf’s eyebrows going up, they let him continue. He takes a deep breath and feels a bit better about not remembering all of the next part.
“I was just thinking, abra aren’t just rare, you know? They’re not just good for battles. They’re also just
useful,
as natural teleporters. Not just to rich executives or politicians, but organizations like Gyms and hospitals and Rangers rely on them. Time saved travelling sometimes means lives saved.”
“You want to donate some of them?” Blue asks.
“That’s a great idea.” Leaf rubs her fork handle between her palms. “Maybe five each, to different organizations?”
“I actually had something different in mind,” Red says. “I want to sell them all wholesale, at a third the market price.”
Leaf blinks, then slowly smiles. Blue stares.
“Obviously, I can only talk about my share. But I don’t want to undercut you guys. So I thought I’d let you know, work out the timing. And see if maybe you want to do the same.”
“All of them?” Blue asks. “Like… in one bunch? That’s-”
“A great publicity move,” Leaf says. “Not only do we get people buzzing about the charitable aspect, but we also show off that we managed to catch all these abra at once, which is much less notable if we carefully sell them off bit by bit.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Blue asks. “I thought the point was to keep it secret!”
“Shh,” Red cautions, and Blue frowns, looking around. “Look, I want to get as much benefit out of the catching strategy as we can, but eventually it
will
be noticed. And it should be. I want more people to have abra that need them, and that can’t happen even if we just go around farming abra all day. For one thing it’s inefficient, and for another we can’t actually spend months traveling around to do it. We don’t have easy transportation, or mass capture permits, or the safety to do it in other areas. The only reason this worked so well is that Bill let us use his property, remember?”
Blue’s frown softens through all this, becoming more thoughtful. “Okay, but still, selling the ones we have at a bargain seems dumb. We can do that for the next batch.”
“When’s that going to be? Selling all our abra off one by one will take weeks, if we want to get the most out of it. We’re leaving Cerulean when you get your badge, right? Unless you’re planning to lose, that means we’re going to be out of here soon, and won’t have access to Bill’s land. Which, by the way, we probably depleted quite a bit with our first haul.”
“I like the idea,” Leaf says. “I have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to vetting 23 different people to sell abra to. If I sell them all to pokecenters, I know they’ll be in good hands.”
“And we save some money and time skipping evaluations,” Red points out. “Just basic health checks for each of them, rather than a notarized assessment, which I’m sure the buyers will be happy to cover. So it’s not quite as big a difference as it might first seem.”
“Aaaaargh, fine, fine,” Blue says, picking his spoon back up and pointing it at Red. “But I’m selling some of mine first.”
Red nods. “That’s fair. You have more than us, so the difference is bigger for you.”
“How about this,” Leaf says. “We do one more catching session before we leave Cerulean, then whoever has the least abra, we all agree to sell that many wholesale. I know you’re at a disadvantage Red, but-”
“No, that’s fine. I’m giving mine to the Rangers, so the more I can catch for them the better.”
“Awesome. This was a great idea.”
“You think so? I don’t want to pressure you guys…”
Blue grunts, then bobs his head left and right in some kind of weird nod-and-shake. “Nah, she’s right. It’s great optics for us, and exactly the kind of thing that would make gramps proud. Not to mention look good for him too, justify his trust in us. And most importantly, it makes Kanto stronger. The more people can get to incidents faster, the safer we’ll all be.”
Leaf nods, and smiles at Red, a warm, full smile that makes his stomach flutter. As they finish their meal, say goodbye, and go on about their day, Red finds his thoughts of his dad are less draining than they were, the tears that well up tinged more often with bittersweetness. Rather than endlessly recounting conversations he had with him, and all the conversations he never will again, he finds himself thinking of what he would say, if he were still around. And that he would be proud.
The emptiness in his chest is still there. The long nights, lying awake. The occasional crushing waves of grief. But as he works on his various projects over the next few days, including arranging the details for the sale to the Rangers, some of the pain eases.
Leaf holds her instrument to her lips and watches the sky. All she can see above is Crimson, doing slow circles of a defensive perimeter around her. Together, trainer and pidgey wait for the threat to reveal itself.
Wait, and watch, and listen.
The sun is warm. The wind is cool. Around them is a stretch of empty beach, and the only sounds are the gentle crash of the waves and the flap of Crimson’s wings.
When the attack comes, it does so without warning: a blast of water that knocks over one of the pokedolls along the beach to her left as she faces the water.
Leaf immediately blows on her whistle, sending Crimson down in a dive at another pokedoll on her right. As soon as he knocks it over, her next command sends Crimson to her left side to strike another doll there, farther away, but a burst of water topples it, and Leaf sends Crimson back to her right to knock over the fourth. As she does so, she starts running to her left, eye on the upright pokedoll farther in the distance. She looks back and sees Crimson knock over his target, then blows a tune to bring him racing up behind her, and out toward the new target.
The next pokedoll grows closer in the distance, and she points a finger out and blows on her whistle. Crimson dives at it, but before he can reach, another burst of water shoots out from the waves and hits it.
Leaf curses and turns on her heel, blowing a retreat to Crimson and running even harder back the way she came. She passes by the original dolls and sees the last one in the distance. She must have gotten here first–a quick pair of notes on her flute and Crimson dives at it again.
This time the burst of water comes from farther back, and it doesn’t reach the doll until Crimson hits it. Leaf grins and turns toward the water, and a moment later Blue emerges, one hand on Maturin’s shell until he reaches the shallow part and begins to walk. The newly evolved wartortle follows him, long white tail swishing behind her as she squirts another shot of water at the already downed doll.
“Tied this time,” she says, hands on her hips. “Are you going easy, or did we just get faster?”
Blue takes the breather out of his mouth and lifts his water goggles, wiping a hand across his face. “You got faster. Do you still think bulbasaur would win, though?”
“Only one way to find out.” Leaf withdraws Crimson and brings Bulbasaur out. “We’ve been training his long distance attacks a lot lately, so he might actually do better than Crimson.”
Blue snorts. “We’ll see about that.”
Ever since Zephyr evolved, she and Blue started these competitive training sessions. They’re not quite battles, but also not quite simple training, and Leaf enjoys the mix of challenging and playful elements of them. Once Maturin evolved, Blue wanted practice battling with her from the water onto land, so they decided to try a race along the beach.
“So how confident are you feeling with Maturin in the water?”
“She’s fast,” he says, clearing water from his ear. “I don’t know if she’s fast enough for Misty, but it’s good to know that I can travel a bit by water now, if I need to. You need to get yourself a water pokemon.”
“I know,” Leaf says, staring wistfully at the bay.
Maybe I can take up fishing…
“First though, I want Crimson or Bulbasaur to evolve.”
Blue begins to move along the beach, putting pokedolls right side up. “Once Crimson does I can teach you guys Brave Bird, if you’d like. I think I’ve almost got the hang of it.”
Leaf’s smile fades a bit. “I don’t know. I appreciate these non-violent training sessions, but Brave Bird is a dangerous move for a pokemon to learn. Even more dangerous to use in battle.”
Blue shrugs. “Sure, but better to have it and not need it, right?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Leaf picks up a doll as Bulbasaur frolicks in the waves and Maturin dives back into them, following Leaf and Blue down the beach. “I wonder if–”
Leaf’s phone buzzes, and she checks it to see Professor Oak’s face pop up. “It’s your grandpa!”
Blue raises his brows and walks over while Leaf accepts the call and puts it on visual. A moment later Professor Oak shows up too, sitting in his office.
“Hi professor!”
“Hello there, Leaf, how is everything? Enjoying one of Cerulean’s many beaches, I see?”
“Yep, and doing some training. Blue’s here.” She tilts the phone.
“Heya gramps.”
“Oh, hello Blue. Well, I’m sorry to interrupt. We can speak later if–”
“No, not at all!” Leaf sits in the sand, and Blue crouches next to her a moment later. “You got my message?”
“I did, and I read your article on the dig site. I enjoyed it.”
“Thanks!”
“So?” Blue asks. “What do you think?”
The Professor sighs, face growing more somber. “I think it was surprising, and worrying. Giovanni is not a man who takes challenges to his will lightly, and yet it seems someone has gone out of their way to undermine him. Not to mention the potential trouble it would cause for Pewter and Cerulean as well.”
Leaf feels relief, but also some small note of disappointment. “So you believe him, then? You don’t think it’s suspicious or… or something others should know about?”
“Perhaps. Still, I trust the Ranger and Leader had their reasons for covering it up. And if I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t want you getting involved, Leaf. These are forces that wouldn’t hesitate to crush you if you get in their way, some more literally than others. Better if you stay out of it, and not just because I assured your mother that Kanto was as safe a place for a young trainer as anywhere.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Blue says as he leans down and frowns at the camera. “You wouldn’t say that to me, would you? Leaf is at least as tough and ambitious. Whatever the decision, she can deal with making it as well as anyone.”
Leaf looks at Blue in surprise, cheeks flushing. It’s flattering to hear that he thinks so highly of her, especially when she knows how often her anti-violent training views chafe. She sometimes worries that Blue wishes he had other travelling companions. Red warmed up to her a lot after their narrow escape in Viridian; she’s just now realizing how much Blue has too, after their encounter with the Renegade.
“I can assure you, I would say the same of you, Blue. It’s not a matter of will or maturity, but power. You’re not there yet, either of you. The fame and attention and influence you would gain for outing this is not worth the enemies you would make.”
“Giovanni–”
“Leader Giovanni is the least among them. He can be… overzealous, when acting how he feels best, but at least your life wouldn’t be in danger.”
“What, you think the person who killed Yuuta would come after me?” Leaf frowns. “But… why would they do that? I’d be doing them a favor if I published it.”
“So it might seem, but I believe the most rational route right now is to take their motives as completely opaque. Much as I trust Giovanni’s intentions, I have no doubt that he was less than completely forthcoming with you.” The professor puts his elbows on the desk and clasps his hands together. “Listen to me, the both of you. It was a great thing you did, helping to stop the Renegade, and it was good work uncovering the truth behind his death, Leaf. But trust me to take it from here. I’m grateful that you told me, and I promise to look into it and let you know if there’s anything more going on. Can you do that?”
Leaf wants to look at Blue, but resists the urge. “Of course, Professor.”
“Sure, gramps.”
“Thank you. Give my regards to Red, and good luck on your match, Blue.”
“Will you be watching?”
The Professor grins. “Of course. Daisy and I are hosting a watch party.”
“Aw, hell, you don’t have to do that.” Leaf can tell Blue is pleased anyway.
“Forget I said anything then. Pretend I’m not watching tomorrow, if it helps.”
“Thanks.”
Leaf nods. “Thank you, Professor.”
“Take care.” He waves, and ends the call.
Leaf lowers her phone, and the two sit in silence for awhile, watching their pokemon play. When Leaf finally comes to a resolution, she turns to Blue, who’s already looking at her. “You’re going to keep looking into it yourself, aren’t you?”
She smiles. “Do you think it’s a bad idea? I thought you were against me poking into it any further.”
“Nah, I just don’t think you should cross Giovanni.” He gets to his feet and offers her his hand which she takes, brushing the sand from her legs after getting pulled up. “But four eyes are better than two, and it’s like Brave Bird, right? Better to know than not to know, even if you’re not planning to do anything with the info. You never know when it might come in handy.”
“Challenger, Blue Oak, second badge.”
Blue begins his walk along the pier as the audience applauds, eyes straight ahead until he reaches the island. He climbs the steps to his trainer platform… and sees the smallest arena he’s ever fought in.
He spent a lot of time watching videos of Misty’s previous Challenge matches to prepare for whatever she might throw at him. Most of her Challenge matches are outdoors and she only does battles along the beach for first badge Challengers, so he expected an island arena. But the kind of island varies widely: some are larger than the one Blue fought Ariya on, while others take place on tiny archipelagos, or a ring of sand with spaces of open water in the middle of them.
This one is even smaller than a training room. A quick glance is enough to take it all in, and Blue knows he could withdraw a pokemon from practically any part of the arena below.
Which is, of course, the point.
Blue feels his pulse kick up, and he smiles in anticipation. There’s only one reason to fight in an arena this small. It’s almost unheard of for a second badge Challenger, but he’s not complaining: it sure won’t hurt his public profile.
“Blue! Hey, BLUE!”
He looks to the audience, expecting to see Red or Leaf waving at him from the stands… but no, the voice was too young. Then he spots the young boy that he met on his first day at Cerulean Gym, standing and cupping his hands around his mouth. What was his name? Daniel? Dennis, that was it.
Blue smiles and lifts a hand, which makes Dennis wave both arms and yell “Good luck!” Blue hopes the kid isn’t skipping again, but no, there’s an older man sitting next to him and urging him to sit down. If he’s missing school, at least he has an adult’s permission.
The audience continues to fill the floating bleachers around the island, though there’s nowhere near as much room for seats as Pewter Gym’s main coliseum. Still, there are cameras available to stream to anyone that wants to watch the match, and he’s confident he’ll have more viewers for this match.
“Leader Misty, of Wisteria Town, Indigo League Challenger and Savior of Cerulean North!”
The Ceruleans cheer for their Leader, who strides up to her platform in a white swimsuit one piece and a light blue jacket. Blue puts his earpiece in.
“Hello, Mister Oak. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Leader. We’re using Indigo League rules?”
Their platforms are close enough for him to see her smile. “Right.”
Excitement surges through him, and he grins back. “I don’t remember seeing a 2nd Badge Challenger get this kind of treatment.”
“You made quite an impression on the others. Anything else I try on you will be wasting both our times, and I like to force my Challengers outside their comfort zones.”
“If you think I can handle it, I’m honored.”
“Heh. If I thought you could handle it, I’d do something else. Brock beat you once, I can hardly let myself get shown up, now can I?” Misty switches to the public channel. “Good morning, Cerulean City! Today’s Challenge match is against one of the most skilled trainers our gym has seen all year, with an undefeated win streak! Blue Oak, Cerulean Gym honors your request. State the nature of your Challenge.”
“I challenge for Mastery,” Blue says, voice booming over the water from speakers set in his platform.
“Cerulean Gym accepts. You may use six pokemon to defeat my three, with standard Indigo League withdraw limitations. Prepare for battle!”
Indigo League withdraw limitations are meant to simulate intense battle conditions in the wild. No pauses to talk or rest or strategize, unless it’s for safety reasons. No more than 1.6 seconds can pass without a pokemon on the field. If a pokemon is knocked out or killed, it has to be replaced in 3 seconds, or else the trainer is presumed dead by the attacking pokemon, and forfeits. Same with whether his pokemon goes too far from the battlefield, so that it can’t protect its trainer if needed. A pokemon can’t be withdrawn and sent back out without a different pokemon going in first.
Blue spots the referees in the crowd, now that he knows to look for them. They have tools ready to monitor the battle and call out time if needed. He puts his hands over his belt, not quite hovering over any particular ball so as not to give away his impulse to send Maturin or Kemuri out first. A wartortle and shiftry should at least be neutrally useful against anything she throws out, and if he’s right about what her trump card would be…
“Ready… Set… Go, Swanna!”
Misty’s swanna erupts into being above the battlefield, and Blue’s hand shifts to Ion automatically, the ball already flying through the air before he recognizes the trap.
“Go, Ion!”
“Swanna, return!”
Blue’s shinx makes its debut just as Misty returns her Swanna and pulls her hand out of her jacket with the next ball in it. “Go, Marshtomp!”
“Ion, Bite!”
His pokemon streaks forward in a blue and black blur and sinks his teeth into the enemy marshtomp’s thick arm. It lets out a pained croak and swings its arm around to try and dislodge the shinx. Blue still has Ion’s ball pointed forward, and withdraws his pokemon just as Misty yells “Tara!”
Shit, custom commands too?
Blue has no time to consider what her attack might be, acting on instinct to reclip Kemuri to send out Maturin instead.
His wartortle materializes just in time to be nailed with an Ice Beam. Blue doesn’t have time to celebrate his choice, and orders a tackle as he watches for her next move. If Misty is expecting him to switch into counters, he just has to whittle her down with neutral pokemon and attacks. His pokemon might be weaker than hers on average, but he has twice as many.
Misty seems intent on testing his speed, however, and switches out again. As she continually swaps between the marshtomp and the swanna, Blue lets the battle calm surround him so he can keep up without fumbling. Most swaps happen so fast that neither gets an attack in, but Blue is content to wait until he has an opening before he gives a command.
“Go, Swanna!”
“Return! Go, Ion!”
“Return, go, Mars–”
“Return, Ion, go–”
“Epa!”
Misty’s marshtomp slams its arms forward just as Maturin materializes and knocks her across the sand. Blue yells “Bite!” as Misty swaps in her swanna, who stays out of reach as Maturin leaps up at it.
“Asa!”
“Withdraw!”
Maturin ducks into her shell just as the swanna dives and rakes at her. A Wing Attack? Memorizing Misty’s custom attacks is going to be rough, and Blue has only a brief moment to wonder if she’s using them on him just because he used one against Ariya.
That’s what I get for testing my limits.
“Maturin, Bai!”
Maturin’s Ice Beam hits the swanna dead on, dropping it to the sand as its feathers are covered in frost. Blue blinks in surprise, hands going still. He expected a switch. Misty looks calm, in control, and Blue feels a note of panic as he realizes he has no idea what’s coming.
“Swanna, alf!”
“Maturin, Withdraw!”
The swanna hops toward Maturin, jerks its neck back… its beak bobs, opens, emits a choking sound-
What the fu-
-and then a stream of purple goop pours out of its mouth.
-uuoh SHIT
“Maturin, return!”
Blue’s beam catches his wartortle just as the toxic bile covers her shell. He couldn’t tell how much she was directly exposed to, and there’s no time to think about it: he swaps his bellsprout in and yells “Sleep Powder!”
“Gust!”
The swanna has recovered enough to flap itself back into the air and send the blue spores away over the water. Blue sees some people flinch as the cloud hits the glass in front of their bleacher. Blue replaces his bellsprout with Ion and the dance continues, but now Blue knows better than to try and tank the swanna. Its Toxic would make this fight much harder.
One minute melts into the next, endless cycles of swapping, attacking, throwing, catching. Blue feels sweat drip down his neck, and his arms ache as he keeps them moving almost constantly.
Maturin to Ion to Bellsprout to Maturin to Ion to Maturin to Ion to Bellsprout–
“Vine Whip!” Blue yells as his pokemon materializes while the Marshtomp’s ball is still on its way back to her.
His pokemon’s vine stretches out and whips the marshtomp a heartbeat before it gets withdrawn, and Blue grins as he moves to withdraw his Bellsprout and send out Maturin. That has to have hurt. If he can do that cycle again…
Maturin to Ion to Bellsprout to Maturin–”Withdraw!”–to Ion to Maturin to Ion to Bellsprout to Maturin to Ion–”Bite!”–to Maturin to Ion to Bellsprout–
Blue opens his mouth to go for another Vine Whip, but Misty withdraws her pokemon blindingly fast. She’s watching for it now, which means he has to outspeed her. Blue pushes himself, barely looking at the balls as he throws and catches them again and again, cycling and attacking, trying to force her to send her marshtomp out and lure it into an attack on Ion, leaving the shinx out an extra second so she’ll overcommit,
now–
“Return, go, Bellsprout!”
Shinx get sucked away as Bellsprout replaces him, and Blue lifts his arm to catch its ball-
-and feels it brush his fingertips.
He whips around and leaps, catching the ball before it can spin past into the water.
“Ova!” Misty yells.
Blue turns just in time to see the marshtomp blast his bellsprout with an Ice Beam. It wilts in a second, and he quickly withdraws it, heart pounding as he sends Maturin out to resume the dance, barely clinging onto his battle calm.
He missed a catch. He, Blue Oak, almost
dropped his pokeball
just as his pokemon needed to be returned. That shouldn’t happen, ever, let alone in front of an audience.
“Withdraw!” Blue yells, and swallows against the dryness in his throat.
Five to three, now.
Maturin’s dive ball is slick under his sweaty fingers, and Blue’s pulse kicks up again. This is exactly what Misty wants. To test his endurance, see how he adapts to new things. He might be wearing down her pokemon, but
she’s
wearing
him
down. She fights like this all the time, is used to the open sunlight and endless movement. If he can’t find a way to break the cycle, he’s going to lose the fight long before his pokemon do.
The marshtomp or swanna, one of them has to go. But he has nothing that decisively beats both. Misty is fast. More than that, she’s predicting his moves like… well, a psychic. Being dark is useful, but she’s still used to being in a trainer’s head as she fights them. However good Blue is, and however proud, he knows better than to think his natural impulses are significantly less predictable than any other trainers that have studied competitive battles an extensive amount.
But unpredictable is exactly what he has to be. Which in this case means locking her into a decision and shifting the tempo of the fight, if only to give himself time to catch his breath and rest his arms.
Blue waits for her to send out her marshtomp again, then unclips a rear ball and throws. “Go, Zephyr!”
The pidgeotto gives a piercing cry as it materializes and spots its opponent. Misty immediately withdraws the marshtomp, and Blue’s first flute note sends Zephyr climbing up, up, up.
Misty’s movements are as smooth as ever, but he thinks there’s a moment’s hesitation as she unclips her Swanna. Not enough to disqualify her, but when the Swanna appears, she doesn’t immediately give it any instruction. She could threaten to disqualify him if his pokemon leaves the battlefield, but Zephyr is still above the island, within striking distance if the theoretical wild swanna were to go for him and leave itself exposed. Blue smiles around his mouthpiece as he carefully steers his pokemon just within the battleground limits, and takes deep breaths, arms and shoulders enjoying the rest.
Swanna are stronger than pidgeotto, and faster, but only at the start of a fight. And now that both Blue and his pokemon have a bit of breathing room…
He blows two notes, and Zephyr banks to the left, accelerating as he does so. The swanna turns to keep him in its sight, but Misty soon realizes what he’s doing, and rather than let Zephyr keep gaining agility, she starts to give chase.
As Blue feared, an Ice Beam lances out from the swanna, just barely missing Zephyr.
Two TMs on one pokemon… does that mean two on each of them?
He’ll have to watch out for another TM from marshtomp too, along with two from whatever her third is. There’s a limit to how much a pokemon’s body can be edited, so hopefully this is the last surprise from the swanna.
Blue keeps Zephyr on the move and lets him keep building speed until he’s just a tan blur in the sky. The small size of the arena keeps him from going even faster, but the swanna can’t land its attacks, and on its next miss, Blue finally sends it in for a Brave Bird.
The blow is almost too fast to see, but blood and feathers rain down from both of them. Misty withdraws her swanna as it makes a distressed honk, but Blue can’t tell how badly it’s injured. Blue tracks Zephyr with his ball as he stumbles about in the air for a second, but then his flapping grows stronger and he levels out.
“Go, Starmie!”
A jolt goes through Blue, and he withdraws Zephyr anyway, feeling simultaneously flattered and nervously irritated. An Indigo league match,
and
coded attacks,
and
two TMs,
and
she’s using a starmie? The gem in its center flashes red as its five rear arms spin lazily through the sand and lift its body up. As it begins to cartwheel around the battlefield, Blue throws. “Go, Kemuri!”
His shiftry appears on the sand and immediately gets blasted by an Ice Beam, because
of course
it has that move too. Kemuri shivers under the cold onslaught for a moment, but doesn’t go down. “Tal!” Blue yells.
His pokemon whips up a flurry of green particles and sends them out with a flap of its leaves. Blue expects Misty to replace the starmie with her swanna, but instead it takes the attack and just shoots another Ice Beam out.
“Dodge!” Blue yells, too late. One of Kemuri’s leaf hands is still up from its attack, and takes the brunt of the beam. When it finally leaps away and moves its arm down, two of its three broad leaves break off with a
snap.
“Dodge!” Blue yells again, and this time Kemuri avoids the attack. No time to wonder why Misty is keeping her starmie out, but her ability to give it commands instantly and silently means he has to play defensively. He keeps his gaze on her pokemon to predict its next move, and realizes that its wounds from his previous attack are closing. “Lar!”
His pokemon dashes forward and slashes with its remaining arm. The razor sharp leaves slice off a pair of the starmie’s arms as it spins away. It responds with an Ice Beam, which Kemuri manages to dodge without Blue’s warning, but it tries to counter attack on its own and only manages to chase the starmie around as it recharges for another shot.
Starmie are too fast for a shiftry to hope to get a hit in without the element of surprise. “Af!” Blue commands, and Kemuri leaps forward–only to land short and hit the sand face first. Blue winces as he imagines that long, thin nose slamming into the sand.
The starmie slows down and fires another Ice Beam, but Kemuri is already rolling out of the way and bounding forward for another strike, nose thankfully unbroken and white mane covered in sand. Misty sends her starmie spinning away again, but not before it’s struck by another deep gash.
Blue kept his code pretty simple: if an attack is two words, use the first letter of both, flip the order, and put a vowel between them if one isn’t a vowel. If it’s one word, use the first letter and a vowel. The vowel used can keep track of multiple attacks with the same letters. It’s not a hard code to break, but it’s easy to remember and implement, which is what he needed to get Kemuri ready for this match.
Both their pokemon seem a hit away from going down, but hers can regenerate. Blue has to get another hit in soon.
She won’t fall for the same thing twice…
“Starmie, return!”
Blue blinks, then lifts Ion’s ball and prepares to swap it into her swanna. He was paying so much attention to her pokemon he didn’t notice her prepare to switch, costing a chance to get an attack in.
He holds Kemuri’s ball out and cocks Ion’s back. “Kemuri, re–”
“Go, Marshtomp!”
–ckg!” Blue chokes on the word and tightens his grip on Ion’s ball.
Too close.
“Lor!”
“Ap!”
The shiftry strikes first, blades sinking deep into the marshtomp’s abdomen–only to have it belch a glob of poisonous sludge right into Kemuri’s face.
His pokemon reels back with a coughing bellow of pain that Blue feels like a stab in his gut. He quickly returns it to its ball, cursing at himself.
There’s that second surprise.
At the same time, the marshtomp falls back from its more literal stabbing, and is quickly withdrawn by Misty.
“Go, Io-”
“Pause,” Misty says over the loudspeakers.
Blue flinches, ball sailing forward and hitting the sand without opening. He stares at her, and slowly lowers his arm as his stomach turns to ice. Was he too late? No, her pokemon was down and hasn’t even been replaced yet, there’s no way he’s in violation…
Misty smiles. “Don’t worry, Trainer, you’re safe. I merely want to confirm our count.”
Right. Blue nods, letting his breath out. “I’ve retired my bellsprout.”
“And your shiftry?”
Blue stares at her, thinking fast. “I did think that Kemuri was another attack from going down, but that was from your starmie.”
“Do you intend to send it out again, then?”
Blue’s jaw clenches. He can’t retire Kemuri while she still has her starmie, it’s his only pokemon that’s immune to its psychic attacks. But… that sludge hit Kemuri directly. He was already badly hurt, and if he’s poisoned… he would faint within seconds of being sent out again.
Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
“No,” Blue says, and slowly transfers Kemuri’s ball to the rear of his belt, swapping it with Gon’s. “It’s too big a risk.”
Misty smiles. “A prudent choice, Trainer. In the same spirit, I will retire my marshtomp.”
Blue nods, only slightly relieved. It received what looked like a pretty critical hit: Kemuri is still his most unruly and vicious pokemon, and he’s lucky it hasn’t crippled or killed another trainer’s pokemon yet. He’ll have to keep working on that.
For now, he’s only glad that it took the marshtomp out. Ion can finally have free rein, but he doesn’t think the shinx will be able to stand up to a starmie. If only it had evolved too…
“Ready to continue, Challenger?”
Four to two. I can still do this.
Blue hops down from his platform and retrieves Ion’s ball, gaze lingering on the blood, feathers, and leaves that litter the sand. He feels surreal, standing on the tiny island in the middle of the bay, hundreds of silent eyes on him as the sun beats down and the smell of the water fills his nose. Like he’s in a painting, or a picture that will be shown in history books. Like everything around him is about to freeze in place, and if he looks to the side he’ll see a floating square that he can climb out of and back into “reality.”
Blue bends down and picks up Ion’s ball. The world is still very mobile, and all he’s coming out of is an adrenaline high. He smiles as he climbs back up onto his platform, then stretches his arms out and rotates his shoulders before moving his hands over his belt to disguise which balls he’s holding. “Ready.”
“Three… two… one… Go, Star-”
“Go, Ion!”
Shit.
He expected the Swanna. “Return, go, Maturin!”
His wartortle appears, one paw wiping poison off her face as she tries to open her eyes. Blue’s heart is in his throat as the starmie’s gem flashes, expecting a psychic attack… but it’s just healing itself again.
“Bite!” Blue yells as soon as Maturin can see, and his wartortle leaps forward. Basic as it is, an intense and invasive enough attack will mess with any psychic’s ability to concentrate.
Rather than let Maturin latch onto her starmie, however, Misty yells “Return, go, Swanna!” and Blue immediately aborts the Maturin’s charge with a “Return, go, Ion! Spark!”
The swanna
stays out
and belches another glob of toxic goop at Ion as the shinx tackles it, electricity buzzing around him. The swanna is jolted away, honking in agony as it rolls across the sand and lies still. Misty quickly withdraws her pokemon and sends the starmie back out.
Four to one!
“Spark!”
Ion charges forward again and hits the starmie, but his pokemon bounces off something in the air just ahead of the starmie: a Protection barrier
.
Almost impossible to pierce through, but very hard to maintain for more than a couple seconds. Its timing has to be precise, but combined with the ability to heal her pokemon, it’s an incredible stalling ability.
Blue’s grip on Maturin’s ball tightens. Even now, Misty is changing the rules. Her starmie is going to just tank and let the poison wear Ion down. The starmie starts to heal itself again, and Ion runs toward it for another Spark, which connects. But Misty’s pokemon barely seems to feel it, simply healing through the damage.
“Charge!” Blue says, and watches as his pokemon builds up electricity, its blue and black fur crackling with light. If he’s wrong and the starmie isn’t preparing another barrier, he can only hope Ion survives her next attack and takes her down in one hit.
As far as he can see however, the starmie just keeps regenerating, all of its lost limbs fully regrown now, its skin unblemished. Ion is beginning to tremble, whether from built up electricity or the wearing effects of the poison, he doesn’t know, but enough is enough. “Spark!”
The starmie leaps away as soon as Ion bolts forward, and the chase is on. Starmie are ridiculously fast considering their weird shape, and Ion is clearly feeling the growing effects of the poison, but eventually Misty runs out of island and has to turn.
Ion cuts across the intervening space and tackles it with a
crack
of discharging energy, almost sending it into the water. The starmie bounces and flounders on the sand, electricity running along its body as its skin smokes and blackens. But soon the burnt skin begins to slough off to reveal new flesh underneath.
Blue lets out a breath. If that wasn’t enough to take it down, it’s time for Plan B, now that Misty has no one to swap her pokemon with. “Return! Go, Gon! Leech Seed!”
His shroomish makes its first appearance in the battle and spits the seeds out. The starmie can heal itself at a frightening pace, but even it can’t shrug off the effects of that much electricity so quickly, and Gon has just enough time to release the Leech Seeds before the starmie sends out an Ice Beam.
Frost blooms over Gon’s whole body, and Blue withdraws him.
Three to one.
One of the seeds connected, however, and that’s all he needs. His path to victory is set: it’s a battle of attrition, and Blue begins a countdown for each of his poisoned pokemon, set to begin when he sends them back out. But first, the unpoisoned one: “Go, Zephyr!” He puts his flute to his lips as the pidgeotto appears and blows.
Zephyr dives at the starmie and strikes another barrier, only for Blue to follow up with a second set of notes that makes Zephyr hover in place to keep clawing and pecking. The leech seed is growing, its roots spreading through the starmie’s flesh and sucking its life up into its fruit, which crack out of their shells and drop to the sand. His pokemon occasionally dips to the side to snatch them up in its beak, then returns to attacking the starmie, who can only protect itself every few seconds, spending the rest of its time healing.
Misty has to attack to win. She’s waiting for something, but what? Not knowing makes Blue nervous, but he has her on the ropes and can’t let up now. His hands tighten on his pokeballs, watching without blinking as Zephyr tries to do more damage to the starmie than it can heal through… surely he’s wearing it down…
With a jolt, Blue realizes his mistake. While he’s here trying to guess and estimate how the fight is going, Misty can
feel
the status of her pokemon, intimately. She knows if her pokemon is getting worn down, out healing the damage, or even breaking even. If she’s not attacking, it’s because she’s getting an advantage by prolonging the fight. He only feels in control because it looks like she’s out of options, but if that were true, she would just forfeit. She’s a Gym Leader, not just some random trainer whose pride or prize money is on the line.
Blue opens his mouth to withdraw Zephyr, then stops himself. He looks at Misty and finds her studying him, having no need to look at the fight to respond to it. What if this is her plan? To make him doubt himself, give up the advantage?
Doubt sends cracks through his battle calm, and he feels it slipping away as the pressure of indecision grows stronger. He keeps thinking that he’s one bad decision away from losing his second badge, that any moment now he’ll make the wrong choice, or wait too long to make one at all. Is he enabling her plan by letting Zephyr keep attacking, or falling for a psych-out by switching? If he wasn’t dark, she would be much more capable of reading and manipulating him, but as he realized earlier, she’s had plenty of experience knowing what her opponents think and how to shape their decisions.
There’s only one way forward that feels right: he has to be unpredictable. Force
her
to adapt, for once.
“Return! Go, Maturin!”
His wartortle reappears on the sand, but the starmie bursts into action before Blue can give a command, and a wave of invisible force shoves Maturin up and slams her against Blue’s platform. “Bite!” Blue yells, and as soon as she lands Maturin dashes forward to try and reach the starmie. Again she’s flung away, skidding over the sand on the back of her shell. “Return, go, Zephyr!” His hands move in a blur, clip-Maturin-right-hand, catch-Zephyr-left-hand, lift-flute-right-hand,
tweet, twoot, twit twit!
Zephyr shoots up into the sky, flips itself in a tight half-loop and rockets down at the starmie. Blue tweets hard to make Zephyr flare his wings and slow enough for Blue to track him, then lets the flute drop from his lips and unclips Ion. “Return, go, Ion, Spark!”
If Blue is predicting properly, Zephyr dodged another burst of psychic force, then forced her to put a barrier up… and now it should be down, just in time for Ion to slam the starmie. Electricity arcs between its many limbs as it’s knocked away. “Spark, return, go, Maturin, Bite!”
His pokemon hits a wall again as Misty predicts the fake out, but Blue’s already swapping Zephyr back in and yelling out “Quick Attack,” no time to use his flute as his hands swap Ion back out a moment after the pidgeotto strikes.
His pokemon is clearly woozy from its poison by now, but it manages to eat one of the plump leech seeds as it dashes toward the starmie. It connects–then gets flung across the sand.
Misty is changing tactics again, and the timer in his head for his poisoned pokemon keeps narrowing his path to victory further and further, but Blue is already swapping Zephyr back into battle and bringing his flute to his lips for a quick command–
An Ice Beam hits Zephyr dead on, plunging him to the sand as one wing becomes too stiff to flap.
Should’ve switched in Maturin!
He moves to do it–but stops as he realizes she’s expecting
exactly that
, and blows a command for Zephyr to use a Sand Attack.
A gust of wind hits the ground and kicks up a cloud. Misty can aim through it with her starmie’s mental senses if he keeps Zephyr out, but swapping Ion in to the side of where Zephyr was lets him yell out “Spark!” before she can get in a preemptive attack.
Instead she tries a dodge, but that just gives Ion time to pick up more seeds as he chases the starmie around the island. When it finally hits the edge of the island again, Blue swaps Ion out rather than let it attack, sending Maturin instead and yelling “Bite!”
His pokemon leaps forward and locks her jaws onto the starmie just as a psychic wave ripples outward and kicks sand up, slamming Maturin’s body against the ground… but not breaking the grip of her jaws.
“Stop,” Misty says, again.
Blue is breathing hard, hands trembling as he points Maturin’s ball forward and has Zephyr’s ready at his side… but as her word registers, he quickly yells, “Maturin, back!”
Maturin’s jaws stay locked on the starmie, and Blue feels a note of panic. “Maturin, back!”
She opens her mouth and staggers away from the starmie, and Blue lets out a breath of relief as he withdraws her. Heart pounding, he looks up at Misty and feels his knees buckle at the smile on her face, hardly daring to trust his hopeful thoughts.
She withdraws her starmie and holds the ball in her right hand as her left leans against the railing on her platform. “Could you explain your last few thoughts on the battle for our audience, and what you were about to do?” she asks, tossing the ball up and down.
Blue’s mind is still caught up in the battle, evaluating how hurt his pokemon are and re-evaluating paths to victory, but his mouth moves on its own. “My last major insight was that I had to keep you not just on the defensive, but guessing what my next move would be. I just tried to catch you off guard, but I don’t think I would have succeeded if I hadn’t guessed that the second time starmie reached the edge of the island, it was a feint. You waited to move your pokemon that way only when you could put another shield up, so I swapped to Maturin and used her to get a decisive hit in.”
Misty nods. “Right throughout. You have demonstrated every major skill our gym seeks to impart to at least some degree. Blue Oak, I award you the Cascade Badge.”
Blue stares at her as the crowd finally breaks its silence, cheering and applauding. He lets his breath out and leans his hands on the railing, letting the noise wash over him. His legs are still trembling, his heart threatening to jump up into his throat, but a sense of triumph finally wins through, and he turns to the crowd and lifts his arms, fingers forming twin V’s.
Blue enjoys the heat of the sun on his hair and face as he basks in their praise, and more, the knowledge of having completed a perfect gym streak. His first of many, hopefully, but a crucial one, to re-establish his legend and allow it to grow.
Red sits at the table in one of Bill’s houses and stares at a flat, round stone in his hand, feeling every inch of it against his skin. He stares at it until he can picture it perfectly after closing his eyes, until he can barely tell when he’s looking at it with his real eyes or his mind’s eye. Its weight and texture are burned into his palm, the shape of it, the edges clearly delineated until he can’t imagine what it would feel like
not
to have this stone in his palm. It’s a part of him. Where his skin and its bottom meets, there is perfect awareness. Perfect connection. Perfect focus.
Red molds his will into an invisible, impossibly thin layer that cups the stone in its entirety, and
lifts…
…and opens his eyes to see the stone sitting stubbornly still, not having moved an inch.
Red groans and lets his head fall forward, cap pushing up as his forehead rests on the table. His pichu, who was lying curled up on the table, opens his eyes to look at Red, then steps onto the brim of his hat and over his head to nestle in the gap between his neck and collar.
The sound of Bill’s strange doors opening comes from behind him, then footsteps ascend the stairs. “Still with the rock, huh?” Bill asks. “How hard is floating something that heavy supposed to be, anyway?”
“Not this hard,” Red mumbles and lifts his head, slowly enough not to startle Pichu. He clings to Red’s collar, then relaxes as he stops moving and burrows deeper against his neck, tail sticking up to brush Red’s hair. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting to orbit pokeballs around my head after just a week, but I can’t even make it wobble.” He puts the stone down and rubs his palm on his jeans, enjoying the sensation of something besides the rock.
The inventor grabs a soda from the fridge and sits on the couch near the table, tilting his head back and resting his feet on a leg rest. “Isn’t there an easier task to start with?”
“Tried them. Coins, bits of paper, sand… I even tried moving stuff down a slope, so gravity could help, but my teacher, Psychic Ayane, said that my ‘feel’ for the objects aren’t established properly, and gave me this to try with.”
“Being familiar with the texture and weight of it is supposed to help?”
“Psychic training is weird.” Red sighs and rubs his eyes. “I’ve never learned something so subjective. When I asked Ayane when I’d know if I ‘feel’ it well enough, she said I would just know it when I do. I’ve been carrying this thing around for days, and feel like I know it as intimately I ever will. But whatever trick it takes to twist my powers into a tangible force, I can’t do it, even after inhabiting my teacher’s mind while she uses psychokinesis. And that usually works for me.” Red was more disappointed than he could express when it didn’t help. He thought that was his key to learning new psychic abilities, but for whatever reason it isn’t enough to just copy mental states to move things. “Meanwhile there’s a video online of some six year old in fancy robes marching an army of plastic cups across a kitchen counter.”
Bill takes a contemplative sip of his drink. “Reminds me of when I was learning to catch as a kid. Practice for pokeballs. I’d look at others, see their hands moving just where they were supposed to be, automatically, and wonder why my body didn’t work like that. Studied enough physics to calculate the trajectory and arc of every throw, but I could never catch them as easily as some others using no calculation, no trick, just some intuitive skill. I got so jealous I just started skipping those classes.”
“Huh. That’s actually kind of why I want to get this so bad. I’m not as good at catching balls on their return as Blue or Leaf, so I thought maybe I could use my powers to help a bit with it. When did it click for you?”
Bill smiles. “Who says it did? I may have mentioned that I’m not much of a trainer. That’s part of why: just never got the hang of the athletic aspects. It’s for the best though. I never would have spent so much time on programming if I didn’t give up on being a trainer. Hell, might have gotten myself killed off on a journey instead.”
Red frowns down at the rock. He supposes if he’s just no good at psychokinesis, he can focus on his other psychic gifts instead. But he’s not giving up yet. He puts the rock back in his palm. Blue and Leaf should be here soon for their second abra catching session, and he has nothing else to do in the meantime. “So did you get a chance to look at the results so far?”
“I did.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s promising.” Bill makes a gesture with his hand, and the wall across from them suddenly projects some monitor he must have been looking at recently. On it is Red’s preliminary data for the abra research, along with some notes and comments by Bill. Ayane is almost done with the original crop, and once the sample population is bolstered by the ones they catch today, Red should have over a hundred subjects in his study.
For now, only about fifty are represented. The graph shows the same X axis as his original research, a simple distribution of the % of the abra’s Other category when scanned into a pokedex. The Y axis this time is measured in kilograms, the numbers representing how heavy a weight each abra can lift after being taught the “Psychic” attack from a TM Bill let him use (Red doesn’t know why the attack was named “Psychic” instead of “Psychokinesis,” but chalks it up to the laziness or pragmatism of Battle Trainers not wanting to have to shout out five syllables for an attack).
Bill rolls his can between his palms. “It looks like the relationship is a lot stronger in abra than spinarak, but the variance is still all over the place. I see you’ve refined your hypothesis though.”
Red nods. The language of his original research paper was too focused on trying to support his hypothesis of a correlation between Other and psychic ability. He also feels like he misrepresented the meaning of his p-value, considering the lack of statistical significance. Small wonder it was so hard to find a publisher.
But from this data, the null isn’t looking good. Of the four quadrants, high Other, high Weight Lifted; high Other, low Weight Lifted; low Other, low Weight Lifted; and low Other and high Weight Lifted, there’s a clear gap in the top left: low Other, high Weight Lifted. The rest of the graph is filled with a loose curve of dots, but plenty of outliers. “So high Other doesn’t predict high psychokinetic ability,” Bill says, waving a hand to highlight some of the dots at the lower right of the graph that represent abra with high Other but weak pyschokinesis. “There are a number of high Other abra that are pretty weak at it.”
“Which makes sense, since we know individuals vary in strength between different psychic abilities. According to Ayane, I’m unusually good at psychic Reception, but moving things around…” He bounces the rock from one hand to the other. “Not so much. But–”
“–low Other does seem to impact it, right.” Bill circles the mostly empty quadrant in a different color. “Which also makes sense, if there’s a single particle responsible for overall psychic abilities, but not specific ones.”
“Yeah. Maybe as the technology gets better we can identify what this ‘mystery matter’ is, and whether there are actually two different types for different manifestations of psychic power. Or maybe even three, or four. A wide variability might explain those few spinarak outliers I had. Without those, that research would have been a lot more intriguing.”
“Well, if this pattern holds up, you won’t have to worry about that any more. It might take you a bit to convince a journal to pay attention, but their boards aren’t stupid enough to ignore something like this. I’d be surprised if you don’t get your Researcher license from this.”
Red smiles as he studies the graph. It’s been a rough couple weeks, all things considered. He’s still not sleeping well, and he spends a lot of time lying in bed with Pichu when he should be working on his paper, or facilitating the sale of the abra. Without Ayane’s psychic lessons, or Blue dragging him to secret training sessions for his shinx, Red would probably have spent most of his week in his room. But aside from watching Blue’s victory (and getting swept up in the crowd’s excitement again), the major bright spot has been seeing the data slowly accumulate and form a pattern. As long as his research is moving forward, he feels like he’s being productive.
Bill finishes off his soda and gets up to grab another one. He brings an extra for Red this time, who takes it and pops the tab for a long gulp. “Ahh, thanks.” Pichu stirs against his neck, then crawls over his collar and down his arm, nose sniffing at the can. “And thanks again for all your help,” Red says as he tilts the can just enough for some of the sugary liquid to spill into the inner rim. He rotates the can so it rolls away from the opening, then lets his pokemon lap at it. “I owe you big time.”
“Right,” Bill says, waving the display on the wall away and reaching into his pocket. “About that.”
Red looks up at him. “You need help with something?”
“I finally remembered what I called you guys here for in the first place,” Bill pulls an envelope out of his pocket and tosses it onto the table, causing Pichu to recoil back up Red’s shoulder. “Woops.”
“Really?” Red puts the can down and picks up the envelope. Pichu abandons his shoulder and hops onto the table, staring at the envelope in his hands warily. Red keeps an eye on his cheeks in case they start glowing. “What reminded you?”
“Well, I hadn’t checked my mailbox in a while. Eventually I got an alert that it was running out of space, and new items would have no Containers to materialize into. I had Eva list what was in there before I chucked it all, and there it was.” Bill scratches the back of his neck. “I was thinking about finding someone to send, but only when something reminded me.”
Red opens the envelope and stares at the pair of tickets that slide out. “The S.S. Anne? You’re giving us tickets to the
Cruise Convention?!
”
“Yeah. I get invited every year, so it’s no big deal for me.”
Red is still staring, turning the tickets this way and that to let their holographic seals catch the light. “But… will they even let us on? We’re not… well, obviously we’re not you, but we’re not
anyone
.”
“They’ll let you on, if only to avoid offending me,” Bill grins. “You’ll be going as my ‘assistants.’ I used to go to stuff like this by popping back and forth with abra, but since some idiots decided to put one on a cruise, I’d rather not spend a week out at sea. But there are a few presentations I want some 2nd hand accounts and notes from. Since they don’t allow recordings, I figured anyone Oak trusted to send out with a dex should be reliable.”
Red frowns at him. “You didn’t actually forget these, right? You just pretended to in order to meet me first, see if I was trustworthy.”
Bill rolls his eyes. “I’m not that sneaky. Inviting you into my lab would require way more trust than sending you on the cruise, and besides, you already proved yourself enough for me to let you catch abra on my land.” The inventor suddenly meets Red’s gaze. “Besides, you’re a smart kid. I don’t actually have to explain how hard I can make your life if you give me reason to, do I?”
Red swallows against the sudden dryness of his throat. He resists the urge to drink. “No.”
“Good.” Bill’s eyes move away, then go distant, the way they do when he’s looking at something on his personal monitor, and after a moment he “flicks” whatever it is onto the wall and begins to scroll down with one finger, muttering to himself.
Red waits a few moments, not wanting to interrupt. He finally takes another sip of soda, though he doesn’t really want it anymore. He knows that threat was hypothetical, but it’s hard not to realize that giving Bill “a reason to” ruin his life could apply just as easily to not doing something he asks. Is Red beholden to the inventor, now? Would he feel safe refusing any request? Professor Oak trusts him, at least…
Red waits until Bill seems done with whatever he’s looking at, then says, “I’m still not sure why you’d send us, though. Couldn’t you send, I don’t know, anyone else? Someone who could afford to pay you for these?” Red holds up the tickets, which are probably worth more than all the clefairy he sold put together.
“You weren’t far off, before, it
is
actually a matter of trust. I wouldn’t expect just anyone to keep quiet about what I’m interested in, not to mention report the info straight. Like you said: you’re no one special. Meaning you’re not a player. Not yet anyway. You’ll pass under most people’s radar, you’ll do your best, and most importantly, I know that if you
are
someone’s agent, it’s Oak, so that’s alright.”
“I’m not–” Red stops himself, remembering how he and Blue both recommended telling the professor about Leaf’s conversation with Giovanni. Maybe he is the professor’s agent, sort of. Beyond testing out the pokedex, of course. The thought makes him a bit uncomfortable.
Bill doesn’t seem interested in his denial anyway. “Whatever you say. In any case, it’s alright. If I can’t trust Oak then I’ve got bigger problems. So take the tickets, and bring your notebook, because you’re going to be my eyes and ears in there. The ship sets sail in three weeks, plenty of time for you guys to make it to Vermilion.”
Red takes out his wallet and carefully tucks the tickets away. He wonders how the others will take the news. Leaf will be excited, probably end up finding something to write about. And he’s pretty sure only having two tickets won’t be an issue, with Blue’s focus on training for his badges. Red just hopes Blue doesn’t mind going for the Thunder Badge next. “So what’s the theme for the convention this year?”
“New uses for storage tech. A lot of people trying to take what we can do with matter transformation and extend it in other areas. You can probably guess why I’m interested in it.”
Red thinks it over. “Better TM capabilities?”
“Nope.”
“True replication?”
“Would be nice, but no.”
“Then…” Red trails off, thinking. Bill lets him. What are some of the biggest problems that need to be solved? Not just minor stuff like upgrades to existing technology: what would Bill find
interesting?
Red remembers his own imaginings of what pokeball tech might allow. He said this was about storage tech and matter transformation… Red thinks back to the various projects he saw or heard Bill talking about, or heard others mention about the inventor. “Human storage?” he asks at last. “So we can fix the problems it causes and fully simulate human minds in virtual reality?”
“You’re looking forward to that too, huh?”
Red grins. “I
knew
it. I knew someone, somewhere would be trying to figure that out.”
Bill shrugs. “Still not the main goal. Close though. I want to figure out the source of the error in the first place, so it can be perfectly reversed.”
Red’s stares at him, eyes growing wide. “Reversed? You mean to fix people that went into a ball and came back out?”
“Or just went in and haven’t come out yet.”
“Is that possible? Sorry, is it
probable
?”
“Over a long enough timeline? What do you think?”
“Over a long enough timeline, it doesn’t even matter,” Red says, speaking slowly as realization dawns. “Whether it’s figured out ten years from now or a hundred, time doesn’t matter once you’re in the ball! We could send people into the future
right now!
” His imagination races ahead, wondering what it would be like, to go into a ball and wake up a century later,
five
centuries later, and see how much things have changed-
“Could we?” Bill asks, brow raised as he studies Red.
Red blinks, brought slightly back to earth. “It might not work,” he admits. “And people would be leaving behind all their family and friends. But… some people would still want to do that, wouldn’t they? Besides, what if they’re dying? They’ll have better medicine in the future, they might be saved.” Red’s voice is rising again, and Pichu looks at him in alarm. He forces himself to take a deep breath, though on the inside his stomach and chest are stewing with heat. “Why aren’t we putting
everyone
who’s dying into a ball?” he demands.
“Why not put them in
after
they die?” Bill counters. “Moments after, where better medicine might be able to revive them?”
“Argh!” Red clutches his head. “We have to… I’ve gotta tell my mom… and Blue and Leaf, and others, everyone…”
“What would you tell them?”
“That no one has to die anymore! There are people in hospitals now, dying of something we can’t cure or lying in a field somewhere, bleeding out–”
a flash of a forest clearing, and a body lying beneath a swarm of beedrill
“–with the means to save themselves right in their pocket! People could just zap themselves into a ball and wait for a future generation to figure it all out and bring them back!”
“Pokeballs that can capture humans are illegal-”
“
Fuck
illegal,” Red yells, and Pichu leaps away. He stands and starts to pace the room. “Why isn’t
everyone
doing this? If it cost a lot of money that would be one thing, but this is practically free. People are dying all over the place, just letting it happen, and
no one
is thinking, hey, we have a perfectly good time machine right on our belts! I even thought about using pokeballs to teach people things in simulations, or adjust human biology, and
I
didn’t think of it!
Dammit!
”
“As amusing as it is reliving the same reaction I had upon thinking of this,” Bill says, “You’re not thinking it through.”
Red is still remembering the boy in Viridian, all the people that died in the fire, and at the dig site… that woman, the one who was caught in the spore cloud… if she’d just been able to put herself in a ball, she’d be alive right now… Waiting, suspended in time, to wake up in a better future… His
dad
would be in one, waiting for him to… to…
“Breathe, Red. Calm down.”
Red wipes his eyes with his sleeve, anger doused by the wave of despair. He sinks back into his chair, and when Pichu cautiously pads over, Red picks him up and lets him nuzzle against his neck. “How are you so calm about this?”
“Mostly just numb to it now,” Bill says. “Too much trouble trying to convince people. I used to offer perpetual storage of anyone’s body if they wanted it, but you can imagine the rumors that spread around.” Red vaguely remembers people mentioning that. Blue brought it up recently, as evidence of how being a hermit makes Bill less influential. “Then there are those like my dad, who’s just uncomfortable with the whole idea of not dying and living in the future, potentially forever.”
Red goes cold at the thought of his mom.
I have to convince her
… he would, somehow, he can’t lose her too. “You said there were things I’m not considering. Like there being no actual guarantee that it’s possible? So what? Even if technology just stops advancing at some point, it’s not murder if they’re already dying, and–”
“No, not that. I mean like how you can’t just use any ball you pick up at the store.”
Red nods, thoughts racing. Possessing pokeballs without the failsafes against capturing humans is treated almost as harshly as being a Renegade. “And someone would need to be there to capture you anyway. Would a container ball work? Just… lie in the box and have someone else withdraw it? Like in that movie where the Renegade does it to hide the body?”
“Yes, that would work, and that’s exactly what I recommended people do. Of course, it’s illegal while they’re still alive, and would raise a lot of questions even if they’re dead. Their family and friends would want to know where the body is, why it’s not being buried.”
Red doesn’t care about any of that right now. Even if he convinces his mom, what if no one’s around her that will do it when she’s dying? “Could you make a pokeball that works on its own? Maybe on a timer or something?”
“Sure, I could. Again, illegally. But then, once it’s triggered, someone else still has to find and retrieve it, knowing what’s inside so they can safely store it, before anyone else finds it and figures out what’s inside.”
Red takes his hat off and runs his hands through his hair. Pichu leaps from his shoulder into his hat and curls up in a ball of yellow fuzz, making Red smile and stroke his fur. “So it’s not feasible, is what you’re saying. People won’t go for it, and if they do, it’s risky to do it, and if you try, you still have to figure out the logistics.”
“Right. It’ll take a huge public awareness campaign and some rather different social shifts before people are ready for something like this.”
“But if you make some for Blue and Leaf and I, and we all agree to it, we can look out for each other, bring each other here if…” It suddenly occurs to Red what he’s saying, what kind of scenario would require that. But he doesn’t shy away from the thought: they’re all living a dangerous path, and this is the best safety net they’re ever going to get.
Bill is silent for a moment, then shakes his head. “Sorry Red. It’s too big a risk if you’re found with them.”
“Ha! A bigger risk than
dying?”
“Not just a risk to you.”
Red stares at him, smile fading. “You… you seriously won’t…”
Bill looks away, gaze unfocused. “I’m sorry. Really. Like I said, if you can get it done and get a container to me, I’ll be happy to store it for as long as possible. But I can’t put myself at risk like that. I trust you more than a random stranger, but I don’t trust
anyone
that much.”
Red sits in shock as he realizes what Bill is saying. He won’t do it. He won’t help Red save himself and his loved ones, will just let them… let them all…
Red feels a black, hot rage searing up his chest and throat. His hands tighten on the table’s edge until his knuckles are white, words stuck in his throat as he looks away from Bill and tries to organize some kind of argument, some plea, some threat…
His eyes fall on Pichu, resting peacefully in his hat. Next to it are the tickets that Bill gave him, and next to that is his rock. The rock he’s supposed to be practicing with as he waits for Blue and Leaf to meet him for abra hunting, on the land Bill allowed him to use.
Red’s anger and gratitude mix into a confusing swirl, and under it all is the deep, bitter sadness of his dad’s loss, and the panicked fear of losing his mom.
Red closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, orienting himself with the sensation of the air rushing into his lungs, then touching on his mental markers one at a time, until the sensations of his body are all he can feel, and his mind is releasing thoughts as quickly as they come.
He planned to tip into many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room, to mute his anger and fear and sadness by brute force. But they’ve been reduced a little now, and he can think clearer… and instead he reaches out with his mind, trying to
understand
, stretches his senses out the way Ayane taught him, the way he felt her doing while he was in her mind, and feels-
–
regretresolutionfearshame-
Red’s eyes snap open. He stares at his hands on the table, relaxing his fingers as he breathes out.
Shame?
“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“It’s fine.” Bill says.
“It’s just, my mom–”
“I get it.”
And Red knows that he does. Regardless, his tone makes it clear that Bill just wants to move on. Wants
him
to move on.
Shame…?
“Bill… When did you last leave your house?” Red asks.
The inventor stares at him, but doesn’t answer. Red searches his gaze, trying to piece together what he felt.
“Eva has a protocol in case something happens to you, doesn’t she? To keep you stored. But if you leave–”
“I thought you couldn’t read minds yet.”
Red flinches at Bill’s flat tone. “I can’t. Not really.”
“But you can read what, emotions? Enough to try to infer things about others’ private thoughts?”
“I’m sorry, it’s the first time I did it. I just wanted to… understand.”
“And do you?”
Red swallows. “Yes.”
“Good.” Bill gets to his feet, and Red feels cold. Did he fuck everything up? Is Bill going to ask him to leave, take the tickets back?
“Your friends pulled up a minute ago,” he says instead as he heads toward the stairs. “Good luck with the catches. I’ll message you with details about the convention.”
Red wets his lips, trying to speak past his dry throat. By the time he remembers the soda and takes a drink, the door to the lab closes before he can thank him, apologize again, or say goodbye.
The second abra hunt went off without a hitch, much to Red’s relief. Blue was frustrated with the smaller haul, but Leaf pointed out that even after moving to a new location, the population of abra in the area was largely depleted. On the plus side, they managed to catch more pokemon while clearing the field ahead of time: an oddish and whismur for Red, a buneary for Blue, and another venonat for Leaf, which she traded to Blue for his buneary.
Their final count ended up higher than Red predicted: 13 abra for Red, 14 for Leaf and 16 for Blue, giving them a grand total of 32, 38 and 47 when combined with the first expedition.
“This means 31 sold wholesale from each of us, after I keep one, right?” Red says as he scans each abra into his pokedex. He has a roll of blank white stickers next to him, and puts one on each ball after jotting down a number so he can pair them with the ones in his notebook, where he records who caught them and each one’s Other metric.
“Seems unfair for you to just keep one,” Leaf says. “Since it was your idea and all. Make it an even 30 each?”
Red hesitates, tempted. Even after their sales depress the market, each abra would still be worth hundreds. “I guess 90 makes as good a headline as 93…”
“You know what makes a better one?” Blue says. “99. I’ll throw in an extra 3 of mine into each of ours. Still leaves me with 8 to sell, which is going to take a while anyway.”
Red’s eyebrows shoot up. “Huh. That’s unusually generous of you.”
Leaf kicks him below the table. “That’s really good of you, Blue!”
Blue smiles and shrugs, hands on the back of his head in a way that lifts his jacket a bit, exposing the two badges pinned to his shirt. “Yeah, I’ve been in a good mood lately, for some reason.”
Red rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling too. “Thanks, Blue. In that case, you should be the one to speak during the press release.”
“What? No way, it was your idea. You do it.”
Red stares. “No, seriously, who are you and what did you do with Blue?”
“He’s right, Red, you deserve the spotlight on this.”
“But you guys both need the fame for your goals more than I do. This research and the recognition for the method is enough for me.”
“Nah, I’ll pass,” Blue says. “I don’t like talking to reporters anyway.” He looks at Leaf. “No offense.”
“Keep calling me a real reporter, and I’ll forgive any offense. But you’ll have to get over that at some point, you know.”
Blue grins. “Sure. Just not now, while I can keep having you two to talk to them for me.” He turns to Red. “This one’s all you, bud.”
Red looks back and forth between them. “You guys decided this already without me, didn’t you?”
Leaf smiles. “We’re both the children of Professors, and we got a huge bump from the Renegade thing, even though you did more to actually defend Mt. Moon. This was your brainchild, Red. Take center stage for it.”
Red tries to think of something to say.
Just take it,
Future Red says.
Our job will be hard enough as it is.
“Thanks, guys. Speaking of media attention though, there’s something else that might boost me. What’s your plan for the next badge, Blue?”
Blue raises a brow. “I figured I’d head down and get Sabrina’s. Why?”
“Weeell…” He pulls the envelope with the tickets out of his pocket. “How do you feel about going a bit farther south…?”
Blue spends his last day in Cerulean saying goodbye to the various Gym members and instructors he trained with. He enjoyed his time here more than the month he spent in Pewter, though that was probably because he didn’t feel under as much pressure this time around. Mary congratulates him on his badge win, and bemoans having to find a new training partner for her totodile: it’s gotten big, and would soon evolve to be a match for Maturin again. Blue assures her that she’ll probably get her badge soon anyway, and lets her know that if she chooses to head to Vermillion next he’d be happy to train together again. The two part on good terms, which he’s glad of.
He spends his lunch at the gym’s cafeteria with Amy, who just finished teaching a class. “Where are you headed next?” she asks.
“Thunder Badge.”
She whistles. “With a wartortle and pidgeotto as two of your strongest?”
“Wasn’t my first choice, but I think I can swing it. My shiftry will take point, and if my shinx can evolve I’ll have two resistant pokemon. All I need then is to visit Diglett Cave and grab a couple and I should have a solid core.”
Amy rolls her eyes. “
Everyone
who challenges Surge stops by Diglett Cave first, so I hope you have a better plan than that. I haven’t fought him yet, but Donovan says he was tougher than Brock.”
Blue smiles. “I’m actually planning on evolving my shroomish by then too. I’ve seen how fast his pokemon are, so I’ll have some surprises in store for him.”
She snorts. “Well, you beat Misty in half the time I did, so I’ll try to reserve my skepticism.”
“Appreciated. How’s Donovan doing at the plateau? Last I saw he was still working his way through Victory Road. He’s what, six wins up?”
“Yeah, he’s feeling pretty confident, but Reza hasn’t lost a single match there yet, so he’s pushing himself to train harder.”
Blue nods. Rivalries are rarely advertised on trainer feeds, but if he were Donovan he’d feel pretty nervous about going up against the famous dragon tamer. “Well, tell him I say hi. How long are you going to stay in Cerulean?”
“I was originally planning to move on after I got my badge, but… this city really speaks to me. Something about it makes me reluctant to leave.”
Blue raises his brow. “Are you thinking of staying for good, then?” A lot of trainers give up on their League aspirations somewhere along the way, but Blue didn’t think Amy was the type.
“You know, I’m not sure,” She shakes her head and gives a little laugh. “To be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit disheartened since you arrived.”
Blue looks up from his food. “Me? Why?”
She leans forward, elbows on the table as her fork twirls in her noodles. “Your run through the Pewter matches was impressive, but you were clearly not a normal first badge challenger, and Brock slapped you down before you beat him. But then you came to Cerulean and hit the ground running, not only beating every single challenger, but doing it twice as fast as I did. You beat Misty with three pokemon left!”
More like two, Zephyr wasn’t really in any condition to go back out, but Blue’s been congratulated on it before, and he’s not about to correct the record himself. He just shrugs. “So?”
“When I first met you in Viridian, you seemed like a hothead. Of course I expected you to be a good trainer, raised by the Professor and all, but you’re more than good. And honestly, it’s a bit demoralizing. This is what, your third month on your journey?”
“Two and a half, really,” Blue says.
Amy rolls her eyes and spreads her hands, fork held loosely in one. “You see? It’s ridiculous. For now, I’m a better trainer than you. For now, my pokemon are stronger. But what about in another two and a half months? My brother has a shot at being Champion, and I thought I could catch up to him and beat him someday, but if we keep going at our current rates you’ll get there before I do! So why even bother?”
Blue feels… strange. Any other time, having his skill acknowledged like this would make him feel good. But this outcome is one that he doesn’t want, never even thought was possible. Amy’s a good trainer. She
has
to keep going, to reach her full potential.
He tries to find words to reassure her, and finds himself doing something he’s not used to: playing down his accomplishments. “Look, you can’t go by just badges. I have two already because Pewter and Cerulean are so close to each other. And I’ve been kind of lucky, my traveling partners… they’re great, they’ve helped me a lot—”
“
Kind of
lucky isn’t how I’d describe someone who started with the resources and upbringing of an Oak,” she says, smiling. Blue feels indignation at that, but her next words distract him completely. “But you’re more than that. If I didn’t know you better I’d believe the rumors that you’re using pre-trained pokemon.”
“
What?
That’s bullshit, I nev—”
“I
know
Blue, calm down. I said if I didn’t know better, right?”
Blue relaxes, still frowning. He makes an effort to smooth his features as he realizes that some others are glancing at their table. “Is that what people are saying?”
She shrugs. “A few, but no one I know that’s fought or taught you. Take it as a compliment. Besides, that thing on the mountain took serious guts, so it’s clear to anyone with eyes that you’re something special. But that’s the problem. When there are trainers like you going for Champion, a lot of others realize that we’re probably not going to make it.”
Something like horror makes Blue’s skin run cold. “‘Others?’ You mean you’re not the only one thinking of giving up?”
“Relatively speaking, if some 9 year old you met today started their journey tomorrow and beat you next week, would
you
still go for Champion?”
Blue thinks of his fan, Dennis. Would he be upset if the kid turned out to be some super-prodigy, a new Giovanni who smashes Blue’s accomplishments to pieces? “Of course it would bother me, but I wouldn’t give up! If anything I’d work twice as hard. Besides, you must have known… I mean, not
you
specifically, but you all,
we
all, trainers in general, we can’t
all
become Champion. That’s not the point.” This isn’t supposed to be happening, he’s supposed to be
inspiring
people. “We still have to push ourselves as far as we can, get stronger, learn about ourselves, and do what we can to help others, where we can. Even if we don’t become Champion, there are still other things we can accomplish, other dreams to fulfill.”
“Sure, and I’m not saying I’m giving up on that, necessarily. But when part of the motivation is that dream of reaching the top, it does take the wind out of the sails a bit, seeing the gap between ourselves and some others going for it.”
Blue stares at his food, heart thudding. Leading Indigo into a new era means more to him than just becoming Champion. To do it, he needs people to believe in him, but he also needs them to be stronger, bolder. He needs them to push themselves to their limits, not give up and accept mediocrity just because they won’t be the best there ever was, but because they want something better for themselves, and are willing to fight for it.
How can he do both at once? It has to be possible, right?
Or is his dream just that, and he’ll find himself alone at the top, with no one to lead?
“Don’t stay, Amy.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and he looks up to see her studying him curiously. “Why not?”
He chews noodles to give himself time to find the words, and finally swallows. “You’re a good trainer. A
great
trainer. You can go farther than this. If you like Cerulean so much, at least challenge the League, then come back. Become its new Second, or even Leader.”
Her eyes narrow, though the edge of her lip curves slightly. “I appreciate the compliment, but I’ve never seen you this complimentary. Why is it so important to you? And don’t tell me I’m just
that
good, my ego is pretty solid despite what I said earlier.”
“I just… I’d be sad, if I knew that my dream caused you to give up on yours.”
Blue blinks, then glances over his shoulder in case she’s looking at someone behind him. “Are you okay?” he asks before he lifts the last of his noodles to his mouth.
“Blue… I’m flattered, really, but—”
Blue chokes, and quickly coughs the trapped noodles out of his throat before washing them down with some water. “I didn’t mean—
anyone,
I don’t want
anyone
to give up on—”
“It’s just, you’re only eleven, and I’m not thinking—”
“—their dreams, I’m turning twelve next week, but that’s not—”
“—of romance now, but you’re a cute kid—”
Panic rises as Blue tries not to raise his voice. “—what I meant, I just want you to be strong!”
“
Oh,
” she says again, and he relaxes until she leans forward and whispers, “Is pokemon battling your love language?”
Blue stands. “Welp, gotta go!” He checks the time without seeing it. “Thanks for all the help, hope to see you around!”
Amy is grinning. “You too, Blue. And don’t worry; I won’t stay long.”
Blue pauses. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I figure I’ll wait until my poliwhirl evolves, then head to Pewter at least, see if I can get the Boulder Badge in less time than you did.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
“And next time we meet, I won’t have to hold back.”
He grins. “I’m counting on it. If I’m going to become Champion, I want to fight everyone I encounter for real at least once, to know for sure that I can beat them at their best.”
“It’s a date.” Amy winks, then laughs as he sputters something, throws some money on the table, and flees.
“Here’s the last five.” Psychic Ayane hands Red a trainer belt with all but the last slot filled. “That’s it, right? You haven’t gone and caught more today?”
Red grins. “Nope, that’s it.” He places the belt aside for later storage. “Thanks again for all your help.” Ayane worked overtime over the past couple days to test all the new abra they caught. Red taps an amount out on his banking app and transfers it over to her. He’s down to his last hundred dollars from the clefairy sales; he’ll have to watch his money again until they can finalize the abra deals.
Ayane’s phone chimes in her pocket to let her know the transfer went through, and she bows. “You’re quite welcome. I’ve never participated in research before, and wiping my memory of specific events so often was an interesting experience. When will I get to hear how it turned out?”
“Hopefully soon. If the newest data matches the rest, I should finish writing my paper today. Then it’s just a matter of getting a journal to look at it.”
“Well, I look forward to finding out what it was all about, and how you got so many abra.” She looks at Red for a beat, as if hoping that he’ll reveal it now that the experiment is over.
Red smiles. “You’ll find out the answer to that second part even sooner, if all goes well.”
“Really?” Ayane perks up, then her face falls. “Ah, you mean you’re going to announce it in some way.” She sighs. “I suppose some secrets are too good to keep.”
“Would you keep it to yourself, if it was yours?” Red asks, curious.
“It’s hard to say. My current goals don’t really require large amounts of money, but perhaps my priorities would shift if I had realistic access to it. In any case.” She settles into the chair and smoothes the creases in her pants. “What would you like our final lesson to be about? Still struggling with the stone?”
“Yes, but I’ve got something else in mind.”
“Teleportation.”
Red smiles. “I guess it doesn’t take a psychic to figure that out.”
“I’ve been expecting it ever since you caught the initial batch of abra.”
The basic method of using a pokemon to teleport is simple: just use the command “Register Teleport” when your pokemon is where you want them to go, then whenever you’re somewhere else, touch the pokemon and say “Teleport.” But a psychic is capable of “true” teleportation, or “free” teleportation: linking their mind with their pokemon’s and returning to any location they’ve been to with the pokemon before. Some even claim that strong enough psychics can go with their pokemon to places only they have been to, but if so none have made themselves available for testing.
It’s the most useful practical advantage that nearly every psychic is capable of, and Red has been imagining the uses he could have for it ever since he discovered his gift. “So, can you teach me in the time we have?”
“Not fully, but I can give you the basics, so that you can work on developing it along your journey.” She gets to her feet. “Let’s go to the roof. We can use these for practice.” She gestures to the five abra she brought, and he slings the extra belt over his shoulder before following her out the door and toward the elevators.
“As you’ve probably picked up from various TV shows and movies, teleportation has to be done outside,” she says along the way. “Do you know why?”
“I used to think it had to do with walls. That teleporting needs open space to move through, however quickly or invisibly, and walls or a roof might interfere with that. But what I read about it recently seemed to say that the pokemon wouldn’t be able to even register an area that’s indoors as a teleport site in the first place.”
Ayane nods. “Incidentally, both appear to be true. If you register a teleportation site in an open field, and someone builds a house there afterward, or even a shack, the pokemon won’t go.”
“What about putting up just walls with no roof? Or three walls and a roof?”
“Still no.”
Red frowns. “That doesn’t—”
“—make sense,” she finishes with him, and they both smile as they enter the elevator. “I wonder, my precocious pupil, whether you will ever experience enough surprises that you stop expecting the world to ‘make sense.'”
“Oh, I don’t say it because I’m upset with the world. It’s just my way of signalling confusion. So, does the direction matter? Like if I build three walls, but leave the shack open to the east, then ask an abra to teleport there from due east, would that work?”
“I don’t recall that experiment being done. But a pokemon can teleport
from
inside a building, so surely it cannot be a case of being simply unable to pass through walls?”
“Hm. Good point. Still, worth trying to make sure.”
They reach the roof, which is occupied by a pair of trainers flying a noctowl and a fearow around in some kind of maneuver test. Red feels a stab of envy and grief. He still doesn’t have a flying pokemon, and the reminder of his lost hoothoot threatens to open a crack of grief in him.
He focuses instead on early afternoon sunshine warming his skin, and closes his eyes to take a deep breath, then another. Ayane quietly waits for him to orient himself back into a more cheerful mental state. When he opens his eyes, mood placid again, Ayane is smiling. “You’ve come a long way, Red.”
Red bows. “I had a great teacher. And it was just a mild one, this time.”
“Two things to be thankful for, then.” She leads him to the teleport landing zone and they find an LED pad with a blue circle on it. “Go ahead and scan your trainer ID.” Red does so, and the circle turns into a red X. “Now, summon an abra onto the pad, and prepare yourself for the connection.”
Red takes an abra from the belt over his shoulder, then puts the belt down on the roof. He’s about to brace his arm, then decides he can use the accuracy and catching practice.
But first, he purposefully stretches his mind into the false-state of mental connection that brings his partition down. It’s not nearly as strong as it used to be, so the sudden flood of grief and loneliness and fear doesn’t provide as sharp a contrast. He focuses on his breathing again, imagining himself on the stone in the river, with the sun and wind against his face. The water is dark and violent, washing up against his legs as the memories of his father and the finality of death makes his heart pound and tears threaten.
But on the next exhale, he forces himself to think of Bill and his goals. People are out there, fighting for life. He breathes in deep again, the pain laced with anger at his own helplessness, and on the exhale he reminds himself of Ayane’s praise, of how much stronger he’s gotten. He inhales fear at leaving the city again and risking wild pokemon encounters, and on the exhale imagines Pichu on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck.
We’ll keep each other safe,
he promises his pokemon, then Blue and Leaf, Professor Oak and his mom, the whole world.
Together, we can work to keep everyone safe.
“Go, Abra!”
His pokemon appears about where he wants it, and he manages to catch the ball on its return. Its mind instantly connects with his, and the
real
partition falls as their minds enmesh, drawing all his psychic power in feeding him his pokemon’s mood and senses. Red gasps, and a tear rolls down his cheek. He feels the urge to retreat, to bring up his mental shield and disconnect, but forces himself to bear it, one breath at a time, going over his positive thoughts over and over, exhale after exhale, and focusing on just living in the moment, experiencing his senses, until he at least feels like things won’t get worse.
“Well done,” Ayane murmurs. “Now, slowly focus more on your abra’s senses, starting with its physical touch.”
Red does so, using that focus as the new distraction from his grief. He feels the warm sun on his skin, the cool wind blowing his hair and against his ears. He feels a drop of sweat going down his neck as he sits on the warm, smooth platform. Wait, he’s standing, the
abra
is sitting while the sweat goes down
his
neck. Or is it the abra’s neck?
A sudden rush of vertigo makes Red step back, then put both feet to the sides, steadying himself as he concentrates on nothing but the sensation of both their bodies. There’s an itch on his ear, and he lifts his hand up to scratch it before realizing that it’s the abra’s ear. The abra’s ears are also the ones feeling the wind on them, much more sharply than his. A moment later the abra raises its arm and scratches the itch, and Red feels vertigo again as they both lower their arms at the same time.
He wonders vaguely how all this feels for the abra. It’s probably more used to it, and for far more different minds and bodies, considering some of the other pokemon in its habitat. At least Red
has
arms and ears.
“Good, Red, very good. Now as I’m talking, stop focusing on touch and begin focusing on sound. Focus on my voice until you can hear it through both sets of ears.” By the end of the sentence he’s listening in stereo, once from close by and again from a bit farther, the sound distorted and meaningless.
That’s how abra hears human language,
Red thinks, so fascinated that for a moment the swirl of dark emotions threatening to suck him in are totally muted. One of the trainers with the birds blows into their whistle, and he feels the abra’s ear flick up at the sharp sound, then its body twitch at the sound of the pidgeotto’s cry. He knows that if it were still wild, the abra would have teleported away.
“Alright, that’s enough for now. Withdraw your mind, then open your eyes.”
Red begins withdrawing on his next exhale, until he finally feels grounded in himself again. He opens his eyes, then wipes at them, the wind cold against the tear tracks on his face. He feels the grief and loneliness ease as the partition finally rebuilds.
“That was amazing,” he gasps, breathing hard at the usual post-psychic wobbliness in his mind. It’s just a shadow of what he felt when he first met Ayane however, and easily ignored as he smiles at his abra.
“So.” Ayane lowers herself to sit on the roof, legs crossed. “Tell me what you experienced.”
Red does the same, then goes into as much detail as he can as he takes a berry out of his pocket and tosses it to his abra, who snatches it out of the air with one claw and brings it to its snout. Ayane raises her brow when he describes the strength of the connection, and nods when he explains the sense of vertigo.
“Even given your proximity to the abra, your link is very thorough for your first time, as I suspected. But that physical confusion is why it takes so much practice to be a psychic trainer. You got very little of the abra’s thoughts or emotions, if any, because you were so grounded in your physical sensations, both as a method of concentration and to manage your particular… handicap. That also made it a bit easier to tune into its body. But you missed a lot of the experience as a result.”
“Really? Wow. To me it felt incredibly rich.”
She smiles. “Even the smallest of marvels is still a marvel. But tell me, did you feel the abra’s tail at all?”
Red blinks. He casts his memory back into the experience, to the feel of the warm rooftop under his—the abra’s—legs and rear. “No. Was it raised up?”
“No, it lay behind it, just as it does now. Why do you think you couldn’t feel it?”
“Because I don’t have a tail?”
“Because you don’t know what having a tail
feels like.
Your mind is not used to processing that stimulus. This is why a psychic trainer requires hundreds of hours of practice, just to begin to use their gift in battle. Your mind, your very brain itself, will change as a result of this process. The more time you spend in another pokemon’s mind, the more your brain will adapt to understanding stimuli unique to that pokemon.”
The hair on Red’s neck stands on end as he imagines his brain shifting and changing from what just happened. He knows he’s being silly, that it’s probably just growing extra cells and new connections. His hand rises to rub at the nape of his neck. “Does that have side effects?”
“Some. This is partially why learning Amnesia will also be an integral part of your psychic skill set.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Red lowers his hand and takes a deep breath. “So, what do I do next?”
“Your development of this skill will require prolonged immersion in the mind of the type of pokemon you’re training with. First focus on the physical sensations, one at a time, then coupled, and so on, until you can fully inhabit either body at will, and then both together.”
Red tries to imagine feeling two bodies at the same time. “And all the practice will prevent me from being overwhelmed by that, I take it?”
“Yes. It’s easier with pokemon that are smaller and have simpler bodies, and even easier the more similar their anatomy is to yours. But the true difficulty is in the lack of guideposts. Only you can know if you are fully joined, and you must be wary of assuming you are prematurely. For example, there are more than just the traditionally identified five senses. You must also learn to feel pressure, pain, balance, motion, hunger, temperature, and so on. The more you can naturally inhabit the senses you are familiar with, the more you will become aware of the senses you are not. This can be an incredibly powerful tool, as many pokemon experience the world in ways we do not, and borrowing their senses can often help you survive dangerous situations.”
Red is nearly giddy with excitement as he imagines the possibilities, but after a moment he remembers what they came up here for in the first place. “So, what does all this have to do with teleportation?”
“Merging with the body and feeling the senses is the first step. Once that occurs you will better be able to sense the pokemon’s moods and thoughts, and eventually even its psychic connections. When you can fully inhabit a pokemon’s mind as it registers a teleportation site, you will understand how to recall that experience. I believe this will be less difficult for you than others.”
Red nods. “It sounds right up my alley.”
Ayane smiles and tucks some hair behind her ear as the wind blows it. “I believe you will go far in this field, Red. More important than the particular strengths of your gift, your dedication and effort have been all a teacher could ask for. It has been a pleasure guiding you in the first steps of your journey.”
Red’s heart sinks as he realizes that his time must almost be up, and that this would be goodbye. He gets to his feet, and she does the same. “It’s been an honor learning from you, Ayane-sensei.” He bows. “I don’t know how I’m going to find someone to replace you.”
Ayane smiles and bows back. “I think you’ll manage. And if you ever pass through Saffron City, be sure to request a meeting with Leader Sabrina. If anyone in Kanto will know what to make of your unique mental shield, it’s she.”
Leaf spent most of her final day in Cerulean monitoring the comments on her new article, and occasionally responding to them or private messages. A pop-science website of middling fame offered her the most for it, and she’s happy with the reception it’s getting. Her following continues to grow, slowly but steadily, until she has about as many as the average 4-badge trainer.
It feels good having the article done and out there, so she can focus on the next thing. Laura was right, it’s better to move from one project to the next and follow what interests her. And luckily, she doesn’t even have to search for a new article idea: the S.S. Anne ticket is going to open a whole new world of topics for her to write on, and she can’t wait to start looking into them.
Still, Leaf can’t shake the lingering questions she has about the Renegade’s murder. While she lets Professor Oak look into it from his end, she figures there’s no harm in reaching out to Zoey and seeing if there’s anything else she learned. Leaf doesn’t want to get scooped, but maybe she can point Zoey in another direction and see if they can both get a story out of it, if it turns out to be something sinister after all.
Unfortunately, Leaf can’t seem to get in contact with the reporter. All her calls go unanswered, her messages unreturned. As the day goes on, Leaf sits on her bed and tries not to freak out. Maybe she’s really busy. Or irritated with Leaf and ignoring her. Or somewhere without internet access.
Not poisoned to death the way Yuuta, was, surely. That’s just her being paranoid, right?
But if she’s not being paranoid in believing that an unknown psychic dug around in her head, it seems sensible to be even more paranoid about what they might have gotten out of her. After confirming that Zoey hasn’t published anything or done any interviews in the past few days, Leaf finally tries checking in with the news sites and organizations Zoey most often works with, in case any of them know where she is or have heard from her recently.
When that doesn’t work, Leaf finally just finds her address from their correspondence and heads out of the Trainer House, summoning Bulbasaur to accompany her. The sun is starting to set, and she enjoys walking through the crowds of pedestrians and tourists going in and out of brightly lit stores as she makes her way through the city. She’ll have to remember to ask the others if they want to grab dinner together tonight, so they can all enjoy the city one last time before they hit the road. She passes an ice cream parlor with people sitting out front, and stops to get a cone of mint chocolate chip for herself and a cold poffin for Bulbasaur.
It’s all a pleasant distraction, but she keeps imagining what she’ll do if Zoey doesn’t answer her door, and what it might mean.
When she finally arrives at the apartment building, she types in Zoey’s apartment number and waits for her to pick up. The ringing eventually ends without answer however, and Leaf bites her lower lip, wondering what to do now. Bulbasaur wanders over to the glass door and tries to walk through it, only to bump his nose. He extends his vines and presses them against the glass, moving them up and around as if trying to find a way through, and Leaf withdraws her pokemon before he decides to start whipping it.
She takes her phone out and pretends to read something off the screen as she paces back and forth, waiting for someone to open the door. About five minutes later she spots someone coming out, and pivots to head toward the door so she can reach it just as they do. She keeps her eyes on her screen as they open it and holds the door open for them, then slips in and puts her phone away.
The lobby is clean and upscale, but not enough for a front desk, thankfully. She finds the elevators and rides up to Zoey’s floor, then finds her apartment in the maze of hallways. The indoor quiet after walking the streets is suddenly oppressive, and her steps slow as she approaches the door, heart thumping. She wishes she’d asked Red or Blue to come. Her hand itches to rest on Bulbasaur’s pokeball, but that’s silly, even if Zoey is lying dead in her apartment
(Stop that, you’re being ridiculous)
there’s no reason for there to still be any present danger.
Throat dry, Leaf lifts her arm and presses the doorbell. She looks left and right in the hallway, unable to keep herself from checking for any watching parties. Maybe there’s a camera in the light overhead.
The door stays closed. Leaf leans forward and presses her ear to it.
Silence.
Leaf presses the doorbell again, listening to it chime through the door. How long should she wait here? She can entertain herself on her phone for awhile, but she should be packing, preparing for their morning departure…
Hope has already fled by the time she presses the doorbell a third time, and she turns around and slides her back against the door, head resting against it. She takes her phone out and begins typing a message to Blue to let him know where she is when the door opens behind her, spilling her backward with a yelp.
Her body freezes as she stares upward in shock at… Zoey, who stares down at her with a face carved of stone.
“Miss Juniper. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Leaf is already scrambling to her feet as she stuffs her phone in her pocket. “Hi, Miss Palmer. I’m sorry for coming uninvited, I was worried about you.”
“Worried? I’m fine. Why would you be worried about me?”
Leaf stares at the reporter, who stands in her doorway in casual home attire. Zoey looks softer with her hair loose around her shoulders and no makeup on, but her eyes are as clear and focused as ever. There’s no sign of sickness or injury, she just looks… normal.
Leaf begins to feel very foolish.
“I just haven’t seen you around in awhile, that’s all.”
“I’ve been working. I just got back from Cerulean South this afternoon after looking into the home invasion there.”
“Ah. Good.” Leaf wants to ask her if she got her messages, then decides against it. Busy or not, the reporter could have responded if she wanted to. Clearly she didn’t, and Leaf just feels like she’s imposing now. All she wanted was to make sure Zoey was okay, and she’s done that. “Well, I’m heading out of town, so, I just thought I’d say goodbye. Have a good night.” Leaf raises a hand in a wave and turns away.
“I thought you were planning on writing something about the city?”
Leaf turns back. “I was, but the article on the dig site kind of took the place of that.” Leaf smiles. “It’s not exactly the eye-opening investigative piece I was hoping for, but I’m still grateful that your tip led me to a story. Now I’ve got a new opportunity in Vermillion, so I’m heading down there.”
Zoey studies Leaf, and something in her face shifts, the polite blankness leaving her features. Leaf fidgets, smile fading. She’s about to say goodbye again, when the reporter suddenly says. “You’re the reason my sources on the mountain have all dried up, aren’t you?”
Leaf’s head jerks back. “What?”
“That fluff piece on the dig site. You were looking into the tip on the Renegade and cluelessly bumbled around until someone important noticed. Potential leaks were cracked down on, my sources were all confronted or scared quiet, and now I’m out of a story.”
Shock slowly turns to simmering anger as the reporter’s accusation registers. “That’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen?” Zoey leans against her doorframe. “You tell someone about who gave you the tip, so they could freeze me out?”
Leaf clenches her jaw shut before a response can come out, realizing at the last second that this kind of blunt accusation is an effective way to bully someone into spilling their secrets. “My investigation is still ongoing,” she says, words clipped, “and I didn’t tell anyone about you.”
Though Giovanni may have figured it out, with that psychic…
Zoey doesn’t appear phased by her glare. “Well, seems you have it all in hand then. So what did you want with me?”
“I told you, to say goodbye. I don’t know why I bothered. See ya.”
“You said you were worried about me before,” Zoey says as Leaf turns away again. “Why? Did something happen? Were you threatened?”
Leaf should just start walking, she knows she should, but anger makes her look over her shoulder. “Why would someone threaten me? I was just cluelessly bumbling around.”
Zoey passes a hand over her eyes, fingers massaging her temples. “Look, I’m sorry I said that. I’ve had a frustrating week, and I blamed you. I can be a bitch when I lose a story I’ve spent a lot of time on.” Zoey steps back and holds the door open. “Come inside, let’s talk about it. Maybe we can work together to figure out what happened.”
Guilt rises to war with Leaf’s anger. Even if Giovanni didn’t explicitly figure out about Zoey from Leaf, her investigation
did
probably lead to the reporter losing her sources, through no fault of her own.
But the apology does little to soothe her pride, especially when she knows Zoey is just hungry to get back on the story again. “If your sources aren’t talking to you anymore, we don’t have anything to discuss. And I really do have to leave Cerulean. Thanks for the interview and tips.” Leaf forces herself to head for the elevators.
“Wait, Juniper! You’re in over your head! Leaf!”
Leaf rounds the corner without looking back.
Red’s last night in Cerulean feels bittersweet. Pewter had a relaxing calm to it, and a growing restlessness made leaving exciting, but Cerulean feels beautiful and vibrant and… safe.
Leaving that safety has extra impact. Where before he was eager to continue his journey, make new discoveries and catch new pokemon, it’s the dangers of the road that keep Red occupied now. The more he thinks about it, the more he thinks he was lucky to survive the fire in Viridian and the paras rampage on Mt. Moon. And surely someday his luck would run out. After his conversation with Bill, the chance at a real safeguard against death makes the fear of risking it that much worse.
As the anxiety rises however, he reminds himself of the second day of their journey, when he met Donovan’s skarmory on the rooftop. He was paralyzed by fear then, but his priorities helped him get past it. And those priorities haven’t changed: Learn about pokemon, become a good trainer, help people, gain fame/funds, so he could someday be a Professor with his own lab to help discover the origin of pokemon species.
And he’s on his way with each of them, made more progress than he would have imagined when he started out. But all that stops if he lets the knowledge of Bill’s potential solution to immortality make him fear death even more.
As he and Leaf decided after they met the reclusive inventor, the wide view should only motivate them to work harder.
Such are Red’s thoughts as he makes his final trip around the city with Blue and Leaf. They do some last minute shopping and enjoy a post-apocalyptic movie where some mythical pokemon awakens from the depths of the planet and sends an electromagnetic pulse through the atmosphere, shutting down all technology and returning humanity to the dark ages. Afterward they enjoy one last meal at their favorite teppanyaki grill, then head back to the Trainer House. Along the way, Red only half listens to Blue and Leaf argue over the movie protagonist’s decision to give up on people in outlying towns so he could focus on just saving those in his, and uses the rest of his attention to reach out with his psychic abilities to sense the minds of those they pass by.
Entering a meditative state and increasing his inner awareness is easy for him to do now, even while walking, but the sensation of the other minds is a confusing mess. He feels them in echoed reflections upon his own mental landscape, as if his mind is a core of “immediate” emotions with others only touching the edges and imprinting briefly on it. As soon as he identifies the abstract sensation, he tries metaphors out until he finds one that fits: his mind as a deep lake, with dark depths of depression lying mostly out of sight, buried for now under some happiness and companionship, and above them at the very top, a calm and curious surface. But that surface isn’t quite placid; dozens of rain drops plink down and send out ripples, rain drops of excitement, joy, annoyance, pleasure, worry, and more—
(—
except raindrops isn’t right, raindrops are intermittent, these are continuous like thin streams, but they feel intermittent because my attention can’t hold them all at once and most of them are moving all around me
—
)
—until over time he can isolate the feelings of Leaf, who’s consistent in clarity and strength. Her “stream” falls with more force than the other raindrops, and spreads its ripples farther and with more effect. Blue, of course, emits nothing that Red can detect, while the rest of his mind-lake is peppered chaotically by the drops of everyone around them, like small, quick rain clouds zipping overhead, a blur that he can barely distinguish from his own emotions when he—
“Red?”
Red blinks. They’re in the Trainer House lobby, between the elevators. He turns and sees Blue and Leaf staring at him. “Sorry,” he tells Leaf. “Zoned out a bit.”
She smiles. “Was just saying goodnight.”
“Right! Hope you sleep well, and see you tomorrow.”
“You too. Sweet dreams.” She waves and enters the elevator to the girls’ rooms.
A moment later the other elevator opens, and Blue and Red step in and head to their room. “I know we have an early morning, but I’m not really tired yet,” Blue says as he sits on his bed and starts to take off his shoes.
“Well, hang on, I’m actually not either. Wanna go downstairs and have a match first?”
Blue blinks. “What, really?” He grins. “
You’re
asking
me
to train for once?” He gets up, grabs his bag, and slings an arm around Red’s shoulder as he heads for the training rooms. “My dear Red, I thought you’d never ask. All our sessions are finally rubbing off, huh? You’ve been missing them?”
“Something like that,” Red says, struggling out from under Blue’s arm to grab his own bag.
Another good reason to keep Pichu on my shoulder at all times: deterrence.
“I just want to make sure I’m prepared for the road again. After what happened when we left Pewter…”
Blue nods. “Good plan. You’ve just barely managed to keep up while training our weaker pokemon, a couple weeks off and you’ll fall way behind.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Blue hits the elevator button, then raises his hands. “Not judging, just saying. I’ll be glad to have a consistent partner on the road. Even Leaf is coming around, I think.”
“Really? Should we invite her?”
“Nah, she still doesn’t want to do any actual combat. But maybe soon.”
They reach a standard battle room and go to either side of the arena sketched out on the floor. “Actual combat sounds good. I want some pokemon to evolve soon,” Red says, unhooking his starter’s ball. “So give me your best shot.”
Blue raises a brow. “You sure? Because my best shot is Kemuri or Maturin. Which is fine by me, since I need to practice reining them in better.”
“I’m sure. Make it Maturin.”
“Alright then. I’ll stick to her least damaging moves.”
“So, what’s a fair matchup for me, given that?”
Blue crosses his arms and cocks his head to the side. “Ask yourself that. Who do you think you can beat her with, if you use a minimum amount of pokemon?”
Red kneels down and opens his bag as he considers, taking out the extra pokemon that he doesn’t carry on his belt. He mentally goes over all he knows of Blue’s wartortle from their matches together and the battles he watched against Ariya and Misty. Maturin’s tough shell means his nidoran’s attacks would be less effective than he’d like, and she has Ice Beam, which means his bellsprout and his new oddish won’t last long in a straight fight. Pichu is fast enough to get at least one strong hit in, but is so frail that a single return attack would make Red fear for his safety even without a super effective attack.
Brute force could work. Just keep throwing attacks out until he wears Maturin down. But he’d rather win with a strategy in mind, and as he considers his spinarak and charmander, an idea comes to mind. Psychic and Ghost attacks work by strange rules: some need line of sight, others work like projectiles or area of effect attacks. Night Shade emits a mental attack in a cone, affecting anyone in its path… but while the spinarak displays the pattern on its back when it uses it, the pattern itself doesn’t have to be seen, nor does the spinarak have to see its target.
Another minute of thought, and Red looks up. “Oddish, Spinarak, Caterpie, Charmander.”
Blue looks at the ceiling and rubs his chin. Red waits for Blue to try and figure out his strategy, going over his own in his mind and trying not to let his nerves take over. He feels the urge to reach out with his mind the way he did at Bill’s, see if he could get an idea of Blue’s feelings, give him some clue as to what his plan is. He’ll have to get used to fighting that instinct, or he’ll accidentally do it at the wrong time and get someone else upset with him. Either that or get used to pretending not to know how others feel, like Ayane does. Lucky that Blue is Dark, really, so Red doesn’t have to worry about it with him.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Blue says. The two put their facemasks on, and Blue widens his stance, then unclips his diveball. “Ready? Set… Go, Maturin!”
“Go, Caterpie! String Shot!”
“Tackle!”
Maturin hits his caterpie and sends it bouncing across the floor, but it flips itself while in the air so that it’s still facing the wartortle when it lands. Long strands of sticky filament shoot out and latch onto the wartortle.
“Bubble!” Blue yells, and Maturin sends a stream of shimmering orbs out.
“String Shot!”
The bubbles reach his caterpie and explode, knocking it around and cutting off its attack. Red’s heart leaps into his throat as he watches his pokemon tumble and roll along the ground. He considers trying again, but doesn’t want to risk the bug any further.
“Caterpie, return! Go, Oddish!”
“Bai!”
“Dodge!”
His pokemon leaps away on its short legs, barely avoiding the ice beam that spreads a sheen of frost on the ground where it was standing. “I thought you were going easy! Poison Powder!”
“Bai, then Dodge! Going easy is one thing, surrendering is another!”
The beam of ice connects this time, and Red quickly withdraws his oddish, heart pounding as he watches Maturin try and avoid the cloud of spores that were sent out. The sticky string attaching it to the ground slows Maturin long enough for her to get coated however, and Red feels a small surge of hope. Time is on his side now.
“Go, Charmander! Smokescreen!”
“Bubble!”
“Dodge!”
Charmander flings a glob of black goo at Maturin, the projectile billowing smoke outward. About half a dozen large bubbles float toward him in return, and Charmander leaps and scurries around them, managing to avoid all but one. It touches his shoulder and gives an explosive pop, knocking him to the side and drenching him in a fine mist.
“Bubble!”
“Smokescreen!”
Again the bubbles are sent out, and again Charmander sticks a glob of sludge to Maturin. Charmander is hit by another bubble, and the resulting pop knocks him head over tail. Red begins to consider withdrawing him, but the wartortle is now the center of a haze of smoke. Her aim should be way off.
One more should do it.
“Smokescreen!”
“Tackle!”
“Dodge!” Red yells, heart sinking as Maturin runs fast enough to emerge from the smoke and avoid the third glob. Charmander tries to run, but Maturin cuts him off with a full-body tackle that knocks him out of the arena’s lines and against the wall. Smoke begins to surround Maturin again, though she’s batting at the burning globs on her shell, knocking some of it away.
“Smokescreen!”
“Bubble!”
The black blob hits Maturin straight in the belly, and she coughs as the smoke billows up directly in her face. The bubbles go wide this time, and Blue yells “Tackle!” again.
“Dodge!”
Charmander easily evades the smoke covered wartortle, but Blue yells for another tackle and Red is forced to keep his pokemon moving. Smoke is starting to fill the room, and the fans overhead turn on automatically to suck it away.
Red watches their pokemon run around until Charmander has a solid lead, then risks another Smokescreen. But though it lands, Maturin’s return Bubble attack is so wide that Charmander is nearly hit again. Even with her sight obscured, Red can’t risk another Bubble landing, and he quickly extends Charmander’s ball.
“Return, Charmander! Go, Spinarak! Night Shade!”
“Gaw!”
Spinarak raises its abdomen, only to get blasted by a jet of water. “Night Shade!” Red calls out again, and this time Maturin misses. The stream of water abruptly cuts off as Maturin takes an unsteady step backward, then falls to all fours, shaking her head.
“Gaw!”
“Night Shade!”
The water misses again, and Red’s spinarak continues its mental assault. Red’s so caught up in the battle he almost misses Blue walking along the side of the arena so that he’s closer to his pokemon.
“Hey!” Red yells. “Stop, you’ll get caught up in the attack!”
Blue ignores him, face completely calm as he keeps moving until he’s directly behind his pokemon from Spinarak’s position, and Maturin is right between them. “Gaw!”
Maturin shoots water again, and this time it nails Spinarak directly, knocking Red’s pokemon back and to the side.
“Oh bullshit,” Red mutters.
Did Blue just…?
“Night Shade!”
“Gaw!”
Maturin shakes her head again, water dripping from her mouth as the mental attack hits her, and Red can see Blue flinch. But his Dark nature protects him (
Sure, NOW he’s okay with being hit by it)
and he steps to the side to line Maturin up between him and Spinarak’s new position again. “Gaw!”
Maturin shoots straight out, and though some of it strikes the ground in front of Spinarak, the rest hits Red’s pokemon again. His fists clench.
I was right, he can aim her by his position.
Still, the poison and mental attacks combined should be wearing Maturin down. He just has to wait a little longer. “Night Shade!”
“Gaw!”
The two pokemon continue to exchange attacks, and Blue keeps shifting his position to ensure that Maturin can aim through the smoke around her. She still occasionally shoots the water too high or low, but enough hit for Red to see his spinarak visibly weakening, its movements slowing down until it can barely raise its abdomen.
To make things worse, the same smoke that lowers Maturin’s accuracy makes it hard to judge its health. Blue is familiar with his pokemon and probably has an internal clock ticking down, but Red doesn’t know how quickly a wartortle will succumb to an oddish’s poison, or how many mental attacks it can take before it passes out.
He should have used an Ember attack or two with Charmander, tried to burn Maturin. As it is, he feels his hope dwindling. As always, Blue looks calm and sure, giving nothing away, and Red finds himself frustrated by the inability to check his mental state. He finally decides that his only hope is to try for Maturin’s.
Red ignores the battle for a moment, focuses on his breathing, and extends his psychic sense. He feels the echoes of minds through the walls and ceiling around them, but ignores everything but those in the same room. He focuses past the alien, unreadable noise of his spinarak and toward the mind just beyond it.
Weakness floods through Red, every breath painful as his stomach (
no not the stomach something else)
churns and jets water through his throat and out his mouth in a spray—
“Red!”
Red is on his hands and knees, vomit on the floor. He gives his head a brisk shake, then looks up to find Blue staring at him in shock as their pokemon continue battling.
Red fumbles for Spinarak’s ball and aims it forward. “Spinarak, return!”
“Maturin, stop!” Blue dashes toward him and unhooks an antidote from his belt. He sprays it into the smoke cloud around Maturin as he runs past, leaping around and over puddles of water and poisonous spores until he kneels beside Red. “You okay?”
Red leans back until he’s sitting on his haunches, breathing deep and grimacing at the taste in his mouth. “Fine,” he says, and clears his throat before spitting. “Water?”
“Sure, yeah.” Blue grabs Red’s canteen from his bag and brings it to him. He waits for Red to take a deep drink, then asks, “Is it your stomach? Think some of the meat was undercooked?”
“No, nothing like that,” Red says, laughing a little as he wipes at his eyes. His body feels completely fine, the borrowed sensations fading moments after he disconnected from Maturin. The only lingering effects are from his body’s reaction, and the usual upwelling of grief that he quickly confronts with his positive emotions and reminders, with some success. It helps having Blue beside him, obvious worry on his face. “I thought I was going to lose, so I tried sensing how hurt Maturin was.”
Blue looks at him with a mix of alarm and fascination. “You can do that now?”
“Not well, apparently. But yeah, it’s a new thing I’m practicing.”
“Red, you idiot! You poisoned her and hit her with half a dozen mental attacks!” Blue looks up to check on Maturin, who’s still somewhat obscured by the smoke cloud, but appears to be sitting down and resting now. “No wonder you threw up.”
“Actually, I think it was in sympathy with her Water Gun.” Red grimaces as he remembers the sensation of liquid traveling up his throat with powerful force, and his stomach heaves again. Thankfully it calms down after. “But yeah, there might have been some carry over from the rest too. Blue, she’s in pain. A lot. I think it was the poison, which you cured, but you should heal her more.” Red rubs his arms as he remembers the sensation of pain that radiated over her skin.
“She’s taken worse, but yeah, now that I know you’re not dying…” Blue stands and goes to his pokemon, spraying her with a full potion bottle and feeding her some berries as the last of the smoke fades away.
Red takes deep breaths until he feels normal again, mind lingering on the sensations he shared. It’s one thing to see how badly hurt pokemon get, and another to feel it… especially for effects that aren’t visible.
“Hey, so, how much longer were you going to keep Maturin out?” Red asks, getting to his feet and taking his pokemon out one at a time to heal them up. He brings Spinarak out first and sprays some potion on its bruised and cracked carapace. “Was I close to beating you?”
“Another twenty seconds, probably. Were you going to keep Spinarak out that long?”
Red considers it as he withdraws the bug. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on how many more times Maturin scored a hit. I’d like to think I’d have won if I stuck to it, but maybe not: I only tried using my g—the psychic thing because I was desperate.” Red almost called his powers his “gift,” a phrase that always struck him as pretentious before he started training with Ayane. It still seems that way now, but he’s clearly more used to it. Still, he’d rather not use the phrase in front of Blue. He doesn’t know how jealous his friend might still be, and would rather not risk rubbing it in.
“You know what your problem is?” Blue takes a spray and a towel from his bag and starts cleaning Maturin’s shell. “You don’t take enough risks. Your plan was good, but you had a lot of chances to lock that up earlier. If you kept your caterpie out for another String Shot, or let Charmander fire off a couple Embers—”
“Caterpie could have probably stayed out a bit longer,” Red admits as he sends his Charmander out. The fire lizard looks around frantically until it finds Maturin, but a quick command brings it out of battle mode. Once it’s relaxed, Red takes his towel out too and begins drying him off between a few sprays of potion. “But I was worried about Charmander. I regretted not attacking with him too, but I didn’t want to risk him getting hit with another Bubble. And he accomplished his objective anyway.”
“You’re focusing too much on your strategy. Tactics have to adapt in the middle of battle, and you need to grab every advantage you see. Let your pokemon fight as long as they can: that’s what potions and pokemon centers are for. I told you I was going easy anyway, remember?”
Red frowns at the idea of purposefully fighting his pokemon until they pass out, especially after feeling what Maturin did for just a few seconds. But Blue is right that Red would have probably won if he let his pokemon fight longer, and he needs to get used to letting his pokemon take the same risks they will in the wild. “You’re right. I guess I’m still a bit overcautious after losing Spearow and Rattata.”
“I get it. Losing my pokemon in Viridian sucked too. But you’re not doing them any favors by being soft on them during training.”
Red nods as he feeds Charmander. His pokemon is nearly as tall as his waist now, and Red smiles as the fire lizard butts its head against his thigh and nuzzles it. Red strokes the warm scales on his head, then withdraws him and brings Oddish out for a quick defrosting and healing, followed by Caterpie.
As soon as the bug sees Maturin again however, it bursts into light, causing Red to leap back in surprise and stare as his first pokemon evolves.
“Woah! ‘Grats on your first evo, Red! I mean, it’s a caterpie, they evolve if you blow on them hard enough, but still.”
Red grins, voice wry. “Thanks, Blue.” He watches the light fade to reveal his new metapod, its hard carapace gleaming in the overhead lights. After it seems to realize it’s not in battle, it waddles over to the berries he laid out, and Red kneels down to feed a few into the slot-like mouth on its front. “I guess I should go for a butterfree soon.” He wonders how close to evolving his other pokemon are, and feels a surge of confidence. He may have lost the battle, and the mid-battle psychic experiment didn’t go so well, but he still feels more prepared for leaving the city than he did before.
“Yeah, then you’ll finally have a flier,” Blue says as he withdraws Maturin and goes to the wall to hit the button marking the training room as in need of a clean up. “Sort of. I mean, it’s a
butterfree—”
“Shut up, Blue.”
On the morning of their departure, Red wakes up extra early and grabs a cab out of Cerulean North. He spends the ride drinking tea to chase away his lingering sleepiness and looking over his paper for final edits. Ayane’s final batch of abra confirmed the trend, and the correlation is clear as ever.
At the lower bounds, no abra with an Other of less than 21% could lift more than 28 kg. The empty space in the top left quadrant extends rightward until Other climbs over 25%, and then data points begin to track upward to 28% and 34 kg, after which the dots become a seemingly random cloud. But in that empty space, the null hypothesis seems clearly defeated.
Which means there seems to be
something
in the abra that the pokedex doesn’t understand, the same thing it didn’t understand in the spinarak. And that something is
probably
related, at least a little, to the abra’s psychokinetic strength.
Red works his way down the document, fixing typos and doing some final edits while ignoring his car sickness as best he can. He also does his best to restrain the excitement coursing through him. He’s too used to disappointment to assume that this would be as big a deal as he thinks it will. But reserved optimism or not, the depression that’s weighed him down over the past two weeks is at its weakest when he considers the results. It’s nice to bask in that feeling, awhile.
When Red considers the potential implications of this research, he can’t help but feel a bit like a fraud. It was the Professor and the rest of Pallet Lab’s hard work that made this new pokedex, after all, and without it he never would have had the idea to try and measure his spinarak’s psychic ability. When he brought it up to Professor Oak, his mentor laughed.
“
And what, you think luck had no part of my career? If I had been born just a couple years earlier or later, someone else would have been the first trainer with all the new technology available to make the discoveries I did. But it still took a lot of work to make them, and then follow through with the rest of what made me a Professor.”
“
I still feel like I’m cheating. You’re the one who developed this pokedex, you and Dr. Madi and the rest of Pallet Labs.”
“
Red, you
are
part of Pallet Labs. Whatever you accomplish with what we taught and provided for you is an extension of our work. We paved the roads for those like you to have the opportunities you do, and make new discoveries. To be the next ones to teach us all something new.”
Red makes a final edit in his Conclusion, then sends it off to Dr. Madi to check over and leans his head back against the seat. He closes his eyes for the rest of the trip to let the mild nausea pass, smiling slightly. If everything goes well, anything Red has to teach will be soon outstripped by how much more there will be to learn. What the physical substance that correlates with psychic powers is, whether it’s the same between species, whether there’s a cutoff point between species labeled Psychic Type and those that merely have access to some psychic abilities… There will be a lot to study, and a lot of others besides him studying them. It won’t just be his project anymore, but a collaboration. One that Red will have to keep working hard in to stay at the forefront.
And as much attention as Red gets for it, he’ll always know who he has to thank… one of whom he also needs to apologize to.
The cab pulls up to Bill’s house, and Red thanks the driver, then tells them to go back without him. Red goes over to the front of one of Bill’s houses and stands in front of the door. He looks for the camera lens, then waves to it.
“Hey, Bill. I don’t know if you’re up or not this early, so I didn’t call ahead, but we’re heading south today and I just wanted to say goodbye. And to say thank you. You’ve been a lot of help to me, more than anyone but Professor Oak, and I appreciate it more than I can say.”
He takes a deep breath. “I also wanted to apologize. I’m still new at the whole psychic thing, but that’s no excuse for letting my emotions get the better of me. I’m sorry for violating your trust and privacy, and I hope I can make it up to you by going to the Cruise Convention. More than that, though, I wanted to offer you something in return.”
He unclips his abra’s ball, the strongest one he caught and thus one of those he’ll be keeping for himself. “I understand your reasons for what you said, and your offer to store others who are already suspended is really generous. So I’m going to set your house as a teleport point, just in case I need to get someone to you. I won’t pretend it’s not also in case something happens to me. But I’m also doing it so that if you ever need something, I can come to you right away.” Red smiles. “Even if it’s just to bring you a soda.”
Red wonders if Bill would say something if he’s awake. Red’s pretty sure the house records its surroundings, but whether it would tell Bill that he came by is a different story. He’ll send Bill a message after to let him know, but just in case…
“If you’re awake and okay with that, make the clefairy appear again. If not, the arbok.”
Red waits another few moments, tensely preparing his nervous system for a realistic arbok to suddenly appear beside him. Instead a clefairy appears pops up beside him instead, which makes him jump anyway.
Red grins at the clefairy, which disappears a moment later. He brings up his mental shield, then summons his abra in the grassy field by the house and says, “Register Teleport.” Then he returns it to its ball and brings out his
other
abra.
“Thanks again, Bill. Talk to you soon.”
He puts a hand on the smooth fur of its head and says “Teleport,” and with a wrenching, shuddering
twist,
the grassy fields and houses around him are replaced by the rooftop of the Trainer House. He feeds his abra a pokepuff, then withdraws it and heads down to collect his bag and meet Blue and Leaf.
“Okay,” Red says as he takes out his notebook. “From the top… bags, phones, and wallets?”
“Check,” Leaf says cheerfully. Blue echoes her, with decidedly less cheer.
Red ensures he has his for what’s probably the third time, then puts a checkmark. “Restocked rations?”
“Check.”
“Clean clothes?”
“Check.”
“Pouch of pokeballs?”
Leaf giggles. “Check.”
“Energized electronics?”
Blue makes a sound of disgust and leans over to peer at the notebook. “You didn’t actually write them all like that, did you?”
Red shows him the page with a grin. “It helps keep things memorable even when I’m not looking at it.”
“Twenty-six parts! Red, we don’t need a specific reminder for whether our clothes fit ‘comfy!'”
“Oh, right.” Red stops walking and kneels down to adjust his shoe and tighten the laces. “This has been bothering me since we left, but I was ignoring it. See, it was handy.”
“Well we’re not—” Blue stops as he sees Leaf pause to adjust her backpack straps, then shakes his head and keeps walking without them… but a few steps later he adjusts one of his straps too.
Red winks at Leaf, then checks off 17 and goes back up to 4 as he catches up. “Crammed canteens?” Blue groans and walks faster. “Checklists save lives, Blue. Giovanni just blogged about it a couple days ago. So, crammed canteens?”
“My ‘canteens’ are full, yes. I refilled them last night.”
“Great!”
The trio makes their way through Cerulean North’s streets, the sidewalks still mostly empty as the sun continues to climb past the horizon. Pichu sits on Red’s shoulder, napping in the soft morning light, while Bulbasaur dutifully follows Leaf, only wandering off occasionally to examine a light post or mailbox with his vines. Eventually they find a bus that takes them to Cerulean South, and Red finishes his checklist on their way before he tucks it back in his bag, content that they’re as prepared for the road as they can be.
Cerulean South is much less touristy than North: its storefronts are less flashy, the busses are filled with kids and adults on their way to school or work, and it has far more residential streets. They pass each of these by, one bus stop at a time, until they finally reach the last stop, far into the southern suburbs. They get off the bus and follow Blue’s GPS toward a nearby pokemon center and Trainer House, there to welcome any travelers coming north.
To the side of the Trainer House is their destination: a bike shop. A bell chimes overhead as the three enter and find themselves surrounded by a colorful variety of bikes in all shapes and sizes.
“Good morning,” an older man with a woolen cap and half-specs says. “How can I help you today?”
Red spots a sign that says POKEMON MUST REMAIN IN THEIR BALLS WHILE IN STORE THANK YOU and pops the collar of his jacket to hide Pichu, who’s currently cuddled up behind his neck. “Hi!” Leaf says. “We’re trainers, so we’re looking for—”
“-all terrain bikes, got ya, got ya.” The man sidles around the counter, eyes bright with the prospect of three purchases. “Got a number of models right here.” He walks to a line of bikes near the far wall, where Blue is already looking some over.
“These are a bit pricey,” he says. “Last bike I had was like, a hundred bucks at most?”
“Well, sure, that’s fine if you’re just riding around your neighborhood or city. Take a cheap thing like that on the road and it’ll last you till Saffron before breaking down. These are top of the line models, each made for hard travel.” The salesman puts a hand on one of the bike seats. “Comfortable too. You’re planning on riding for hours at a time, right? That can make for a mighty sore behind.”
Red presses his fingers into the seat, testing the cushion, then goes over to another one. He feels a bit of a difference, but he has no idea how that difference translates over hours of riding. He hasn’t ridden a bike in years, and was so busy recently he never managed to fit in any time to research prices.
The bell above the door rings, and Red turns to see a young girl about their age enter the shop. Her black hair is cut short, falling just beneath her jaw, and she has an angular, impish face that takes in the room all at once, then goes over to a set of bikes near the counter and studies them thoughtfully. She’s wearing a full pokeball belt and a protective jacket zipped up the front, with a traveler’s pack slung over her shoulder. Red wonders if she’s leaving the city too.
“A comfortable seat shouldn’t make a huge difference in the cost of the bike,” Blue points out.
“If you’re looking for affordable, I understand, of course.” The store owner’s tone remains cheerful as he pats the handlebars of one of the sleeker and more expensive-looking bikes. “Just remember, your life may depend on this piece of equipment one day. In other areas you can afford to be prudent, but surely not this one.”
“What!” Leaf says upon spotting the price tag. “$10,000?! For a
bike
?”
The man straightens to his not-inconsiderable full height. “As I said, ma’am, these aren’t bicycles for just heading down to the store. That, in particular, is a competitive mountain bike used by top athletes, and able to achieve high speeds over rugged terrain. It’s not even our most expensive model.”
Leaf stares at him through this explanation. “I can buy a ponyta to ride for half the price. And it shoots fire out of its mouth.”
Red covers his grin as the man frowns. Before he can respond, the girl who walked in says, “Hey, I’m ready to purchase. Mind unlocking this one?”
“Of course. Just a moment, please,” he tells the three of them, and goes over to the newcomer. “Find everything okay? Have you had a chance to look around? I can answer any questions you might—”
“No thanks,” the girl says. “This is the one I want.”
He nods and bends down to unlock the bike. “As you say.”
“Hey.” Leaf walks over. “What made you choose that bike, if you don’t mind my asking?”
The girl glances at Leaf’s pokeball belt. “I’m just looking for the best deal.”
“Right, but how did you decide that? We’re not really sure ourselves.” Leaf gestures to Red and Blue, who’ve come by to join her. The store owner frowns at this, but continues undoing the restraints on the bike before taking it over to the register.
The girl’s gaze lingers on Blue, probably recognizing him. She shrugs. “I looked at all the ones in my price range and found the least expensive bike with the majority of the features and specs compared to those above it. The value of each dollar spent above this one starts to drop off pretty sharp.”
“There is a premium for getting the best of the best,” the man agrees. “But I’d say this is still only an average bike.”
She shrugs again. “An average bike for a way below average cost seems like a good deal to me. In any case, it’s what I can afford. If you guys have more cash, check out those two. They’re a bit better, for about a hundred extra.”
Blue examines the bikes she pointed to, then puts his hands on a silver one. “Alright, I think I’ll take this one,” he tells the shop owner, then looks back at the girl. “Thanks.”
“Make it two, please,” Leaf says, standing beside a bronze one.
Red checks the prices out and considers his options. He’s low on funds again, but when the abra sales finalize he’ll have more money than ever. Of course, it’s money he’ll have plenty of other uses for… and besides, he has the ability to teleport now. As soon as he masters free teleportation, he’ll just pay someone to fly him to every major city, and travel will be much easier.
That said, he doesn’t know how long that will take, and he’s worried about slowing the other two down in the meantime. “Is there much of a speed difference for these?” Red asks the girl.
“Nah, not really. Both have three gears, main difference is some better shock absorption and a more sturdy frame.”
The store owner seemed irritated by the cross-talk at first, but now he smiles as he finishes unlocking the bikes for Blue and Leaf. “Well, you certainly know your stuff. You work with bikes, miss?”
“No, I just did some studying up. Big purchase and all.” She glances at the trio, and Red fights the urge to defend his lack of preparation.
“I’ll take the same one she’s getting,” Red says. He looks at the bikes and picks out a dark green one.
“Alrighty.” The man unlocks the last one, then goes around the counter. “Can I interest you all in a cyclist starter pack?” He points to some container balls along the counter, placed above a glass display with a bunch of items under it. “Extra $140, comes with knee and elbow pads, helmet, basic repair and maintenance gear, and an extra tire. I’ll even throw in a watch: nothing fancy, but it can set alarms and do countdowns and whatnot. Comes with the container too, of course, which holds an extra large box with room for your bikes.”
The trio immediately turns to the girl. She seems taken aback, but nods. “Yeah, that’s a good deal.”
“I’ll take one, then,” Red says, and the others agree. The store owner tells them to pick out their helmets and pads while he rings everything up, looking much more cheerful. Red goes over to the wall of gear and stares at the variety of colors and styles available.
“Come on,” Blue says as he steps up beside him. “You know what we have to do.”
Red puts on a theatrical sigh as he watches Blue pick out a blue helmet and pads. “Do we, though?”
“You guys do,” Leaf says, picking out some bronze ones. “Mine are matching my bike.”
“See? She’s breaking the pattern.”
“Hey, some leaves look bronzeish, in the fall,” she says.
“Well, fire can burn green, depending on what’s being burned.” Red picks up the dark green helmet and takes his hat off to test the size.
“Hmm.” Leaf absently adjusts his jawstrap, then looks him over. “It looks okay. You know, I never actually asked, what’s your favorite color? I feel bad for assuming, but…”
Red smiles. “Yeah, okay, it’s red.”
“Well, there you go then. Besides, they’ll make your eyes even more striking.”
Red is glad she turns away before his blush becomes evident, and after a moment he puts the green away and takes the red helmet and pads. He sees her grin out of the corner of his eyes, and goes to join Blue and the girl, who already have their purchases. Hers are black, which matches her jacket and hair.
They all finish buying their gear and thank the clerk, then go outside to put everything into the storage containers and put their pads on. Red feels Pichu shift restlessly at all the movement, and carefully transfers the napping pokemon onto the ground, where he wakes and stretches, looking curiously up at Red as he returns the pokemon to its ball, “Thanks for the advice,” Red says, sitting to take his shoes off and slipping the knee pads on. He takes care to ensure the shoes are fit snug again when he puts them back on.
“No problem,” she says after the others echo him. “Happy all my research was able to help others too.”
“You caught us on a bad day, normally we’re more prepared than this,” Blue says. “You leaving the city too?”
“Yeah, heading south.”
“Same here,” Leaf says. “We should travel together, if it’s okay with your companions.”
The girl looks down, then lifts her chin a bit, as if bracing herself. “I’m on my own, actually.”
Red blinks, and studies the girl’s face again. He tries to re-estimate her age, maybe put her up to 13 or 14, but surely no more than that. Blue’s brow is raised too, and he exchanges a look with Red, who can tell that he’s also curious to know why someone as young as them is on their trainer journey alone.
The girl finishes putting her shoes back on and straps her helmet on, then sits on her bike and begins adjusting the seat and handles. She doesn’t elaborate, and the silence continues through everyone else doing the same. “Well,” Leaf says as she finishes getting her seat to the right height. “You’re all the more welcome to join us then, if you want.”
The girl looks at her, expression guarded. “Really?” She glances at Red and Blue. “Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” Blue says, and Red nods. “Safer for everyone.”
She smiles, and bows from the waist. “I’d love to. I’m Aiko Sakai. Nice to meet you all.”
They make introductions as they go, pedaling slowly at first down the main straight out of town to get used to their bikes. Aiko knew who Blue was, of course, and not just because of his name: she unzipped her jacket while riding and lifted it to the side to reveal a Cascade Badge.
“Nice!” Blue grins. “When did you get it?”
“Last night. I saw you a few times at the gym, but we never fought.”
“I thought you looked familiar. Sorry I missed your battle, I’ll have to check it out.”
“It was just my first badge, so I know she went easy on me. Not sure it was even recorded.”
“Hey, don’t downplay it. Was last night your first try? Then your gym record is better than mine so far.”
Red smiles as he listens to them talk shop. It’s strange hearing Blue be so supportive, but then, Red never really watched him interact with other battle trainers, so he doesn’t know if it’s common for him, or part of the other changes he’s observed in his friend lately.
The suburbs begin to thin out until the horizon opens ahead of them at last, revealing fields of green as far as the eye can see. Red feels a tremor of the old excitement again, the urge to run forward to the next adventure, even tempered by his experiences and fears. He wonders if he’ll ever lose it completely, and a small, quiet part of him knows he likely will, and pre-mourns its eventual loss even as he lets the sensation fill him, pedaling faster.
The others are at least as eager, and soon their bikes are flying over the winding road, eating miles until the outlying fields shift to ranch land, similar to the ones owned by Pallet Labs, but much bigger: acres of fenced off cultivated habitats, everything from tree groves to small lakes to artificial rugged mountainous terrain for rock and fire types.
But the majority are simple open grasslands where caretakers, trainers, and breeders watch, feed, play with, and train a wide variety of pokemon. At one point they spot a herd of ponyta running alongside a rapidash, and slow down as a group to watch their fiery manes and tails stream behind them. The rancher riding the rapidash waves to them, and they wave back.
“That’s Jona,” Aiko says. “He’s good with Fire types, so he regularly takes them into the mixed habitats.”
“You know him?” Leaf asks.
“I was raised around here. My dad runs a nursery on ranching land down south.”
“You grew up on a pokemon ranch? Did you help take care of them?”
“Some of the younger ones, yeah.”
“Damn, really?” Blue says. “I was only allowed to interact with Gramps’ pokemon. He wouldn’t even let me near the lab’s pokemon unless it was with supervision for a school assignment.”
Leaf nods. “Same, my mom and grandpa specially trained some of their pokemon for me to interact with, but that was it. All that early exposure must have given you a leg-up when you started your journey.”
Aiko seems about to say something, but then just shrugs and begins pedaling faster again. The trio speed up to match her, and Red catches the look of confusion between Blue and Leaf.
The land around them continues to change as they go further south, buildings spaced out farther apart as some of the ranch plots grow incredibly large, and not visibly occupied. The grass grows tall in many of these, and the group is careful to stick to the roads that keep some distance from any pokemon that might be wandering by. Before they left the Trainer House they discussed the pokemon found wild here, mostly pidgey, bellsprout and meowth, and agreed that rather than hunting for rarer pokemon in the area, their time would be better spent reaching Vermillion faster.
The one exception is pineco, which Blue was adamant about catching. They’re sometimes found in trees along the route, so every so often as they ride, Blue swerves to check under branches of any trees they pass by. So far he hasn’t had any luck, which leads to them riding for a few hours without incident.
Red is happy with the peaceful journey, but he can tell Blue is getting restless. He eventually steers closer to Red as they pass by a particularly wide open field. “Hey, this area looks totally unused,” he says, voice raised into a half-shout to be heard over the sound of their wheels and the wind. “Think we should try the abra trick here?”
“Abra trick?” Aiko shouts back.
Blue looks chagrined for a second, but Red sees no harm in explaining, since the sales will be finalized by the time they reach Vermillion, with the press waiting for a statement.
So he goes over what the three of them did while in Cerulean, then says, “We can’t do it here though, too big a risk of pokemon being driven into nearby fields! Besides, I’d want at least a day to scope out the area, like last time!”
Aiko seems excited. It’s hard to tell while they’re biking, and he doesn’t exactly know her that well. But then she asks what made him think of the technique, and Red is happy to go over the research and planning, though his throat is starting to hurt from all the yelling.
“Did you ever come up with something like that before?”
“Sort of!” Red says. “I’ve been trying to incorporate sound since we started our journey!” The near loss of his pokedex when his spinarak mistook it for a caterpie and nearly carried it away through the trees makes him shudder. “It has its risks, but it also saved Leaf and I during the Viridian Fire!”
“You guys were there too?”
“Oh, yeah, Blue actually went and helped stop the fire. I mostly just broke my arm and used my pokedex to scare off a couple dozen pikachu!”
She stares at him for a moment, keeping her bike straight without looking. “You chased off a horde of pikachu with just your pokedex?!”
“It sounds a lot more impressive than it was! I was mostly just terrified!”
“I was there!” Leaf yells back from ahead of them. “It was terrifying, but also impressive!”
Aiko laughs. “Forget taking care of pokemon, I wanna know what you grew up doing!”
“Uhh. Not much?” Red thinks. “I mean my dad was a Ranger, and he taught me a lot! Also I worked in Pallet Labs—”
“What! You worked with Professor Oak, and you’re jealous that I grew up in a nursery?” She shakes her head. “He’s one of my idols, I would
kill
to have a ten minute conversation with him!”
That can be arranged
, Red thinks, but holds back from saying. Maybe better to surprise her, after making sure he can actually get it to happen. “I mostly worked with others in the lab, but yeah, I’ve been pretty lucky,” he says. “The pokedex software he gave me is amazing though! Without it I wouldn’t have started my research!”
“That’s awesome!”
“What about you, what model ‘dex do you have?”
Aiko doesn’t respond, staring ahead as she rides, and Red wonders if she didn’t hear him. Or maybe her throat is tired too. It’s the second or third time she’s gone quiet at odd moments in conversation, but Red tries not to read too much into it, because he knows if he does he’ll be tempted to use his powers. Instead he just enjoys the wind on his face, the physical exertion (though he’s about ready for a rest), and the variety of natural smells surrounding him. After spending a long time in a city Red always feels like he’s rediscovering his sense of smell.
Speaking of which…
“Do you guys smell that?”
They look around until they spot the source of the sweet, sugary scent: a lone tree off to the side of the road up ahead, not in any of the enclosures. As the wind pushes its branches toward them, the smell becomes stronger. Blue veers toward it, and they follow until they can hear the buzzing, each of them drawing up hard to avoid getting any closer.
“Combee hive,” Aiko says, breathing hard and wiping sweat from her eye. She points to the big yellow structure attached to the tree, each side of it riddled with triple-hexagon openings. “In their harvesting phase, seems like.”
Blue takes out some binoculars. “Yep. There are a few of them around it. More inside I bet… and… pineco! Five or six of them, near the bottom branches. Must be safe for them here, with the hive nearby.”
“Blue, maybe we should keep looking,” Red says. “There’s got to be some pineco around that we can catch without the risk of pissing off a vespiquen, not to mention all those combee.”
“Oh come on, there are four of us. Zephyr and Crimson can take care of the vespiquen, and between Charmander and…” He pauses and looks at Aiko. “Sorry, I just realized I don’t know what pokemon you have.”
“Against these, my best bet would be my spearow.” She examines the tree critically. “I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot, if I could get a pineco too—”
“Of course!”
“-but we shouldn’t hurt them. Hives help pollinate the area, and combee are peaceful creatures. It’s not their fault we want the pineco next to them.”
Leaf smiles. “Plus one to all that.”
“So we need to do it without hurting them,” Blue says without missing a beat. “No problem, we’ve got a bunch of non-lethal options.”
Red and Leaf look at each other. “Does using my charmander to fill the hive with smoke count as harming them?”
Aiko holds a hand out and teeters it side to side. “Depends what’s being burned to create the smoke. It might not be poisonous, but it could cause them to take the hive apart and relocate if they think there’s a fire coming.”
“I’ll keep it as an emergency measure then. Maybe a sleep powder and gust?” he suggests. “Or we could use Joy. How’s their hearing?” He asks Aiko. “Leaf has a wigglytuff.”
“Not great, and their buzzing would interfere unless you got super close.”
“I think I have a better idea.” Leaf slings her bag off one shoulder and around her side, unzipping a pocket and taking a container ball out.
Inside its box she reveals the jar of combee honey that Professor Oak gave her. “The genuine article, and high potency according to your grandpa. If I smear some on a rock and throw it far off, they might all go for it. That way we don’t have to risk fighting any of them.”
“Brilliant!” Blue lowers his bike’s kickstand and climbs off it, then puts his bag down and cracks his knuckles. “Okay, so we’ll get our fliers out, Leaf will set the bait and throw it as hard as she can, then—”
“Hang on, why not just ride away with it?” Red asks. “Like the ranger in Viridian. And unlike him you can just drop the bait if they get close.”
Leaf frowns. “Maybe. What’s their top speed?”
Aiko is about to respond when Blue says, “They’re about as fast as skarmory and honchkrow.”
“…Which means what, in terms of actual speed?” Red asks. Blue shrugs, and Red smiles. “Super useful, thanks.”
“Their max is about 3 kilometers per minute,” Aiko says. “And they turn almost instantly.”
Red blinks, then takes out his ‘dex to check. “Huh. She’s right.”
Leaf whistles as she looks up at the combees, who are still flying slowly around in a lazy swarm. “That’s fast. Faster than me on a bike, in any case.”
“They can’t sustain it long, but yeah, it’s pretty much all they have, combat-wise,” Aiko says. “Their attacks are individually very weak, so they rely on a swarm to take care of any predators. As long as they can strike first all at once, they stand a chance. Otherwise they need to just overwhelm you with numbers, or have their vespiquen join and direct them. They communicate mostly by scent, so other odors can confuse or distract them. Most won’t go farther than about 8 kilometers from their hive, so any bait we use would be a bit short lived. They often lock the segments of their bodies together to face bigger opponents, and can drag them out of the air by sheer weight if needed.”
“Wow,” Blue says. “You swallow your pokedex or something? You sound like a bigger nerd than him.” He jerks a thumb at Red.
She looks away. “I just read a lot.”
“Don’t worry, that was actually mostly a compliment coming from him,” Red assures her.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Blue smiles. “It’s good to meet other competent trainers. So what about the vespiquen? I know it’s powerful, way stronger than a beedrill even without its hive to back it up, but not its nesting habits.”
“It’s at the center of the hive with a small reserve of female combee that stay with it at all times, and won’t come out unless it believes it’s under threat. All the other combee leaving won’t be enough to make it expose itself.”
“So, the bait idea could work,” Blue says. “We just need to get it farther, faster. Pidgeotto are quicker than skarmory, barely. I can tie the bait to Zephyr and fly it around in circles.”
There’s a pause as everyone considers this. “Yeah, that should work,” Aiko says. “Get some distance before you set the bait though, they’ll be on you almost immediately.”
“Right. So you three go up—”
“Uh,” Red raises his hand. “I have bad luck with trees.”
Blue rolls his eyes. “What, you’ll never climb a tree again?”
“You say that like it’s going to come up a lot.”
“What if there’s a super rare pokemon for you to research in one?”
“I’ll work on it, but now might not be the time to—”
“Don’t worry, I can do it.” Aiko has already dismounted and taken her bag off. “You each want one?”
“I’ll go too,” Leaf says. “We can be done in half the time. But we have to be careful. They coat the ground under them in spikes of hard chitin to keep predators from climbing up the tree. Red, you think you can boost us up somehow?”
He thinks about it. “Yeah, I’ll summon a container box and toss the lid by the tree’s base. Just jump onto it and climb from there.”
Aiko smiles. “Sounds good.”
“And don’t take any risks for mine,” Red says. “If there are extra in easy reach great, if not just get back down. I’ll be ready with Charmander if we need the smoke.”
Blue summons Zephyr. “Alright, let’s do it.”
“Hang on.” Red takes his bag off and lays it on the ground, then drops into lotus position. “Let’s not rush. They’re not going anywhere, and no one’s life is in danger. Five minutes of thinking about any problems with the plan, no conversation. If we can’t come up with a better plan or have no other changes to suggest, we go forward. Agreed?”
Leaf sits, legs folded beneath her. “Agreed.” Blue remains standing, but nods.
Aiko looks at the three of them as they think silently, and blinks. Eventually a slow smile spreads over her face. “Do you read Giovanni’s blog, by any chance?”
Red grins. “Yes! You too?”
“What self-respecting trainer doesn’t?”
Red coughs and looks at Blue, who folds his arms. “Hey, I’ve read a few!”
“And I’m not from Kanto, so that’s my excuse,” Leaf says. “I did read a couple after meeting him though.”
Aiko’s mouth drops open. “You met Leader Giovanni?”
Leaf grimaces. “It’s not… whatever you’re thinking. Ask me about it later. Anyway, what about his blog?”
“Oh, it’s just that he made a post about this yesterday. Isn’t that what you’re doing, a premortem?”
“Damn, I didn’t get a chance to read yesterday’s yet actually,” Red admits. “The last one I read was about the—”
“-checklists?”
“Yes!”
“Wasn’t it good?”
“
So
good! I had no idea he was the one that pushed to make checklists mandatory in hospitals—”
“Oh sweet Arceus there are two of them now,” Blue puts his hands over his face.
“He’s just upset because I made a checklist for our trip,” Red explains, which makes Aiko laugh. “Anyway, premortems?”
“Right, yeah. So a postmortem is when you look at something that’s dead and examine how it died, right? Premortems are a way of visualizing a task before you begin and focusing on what could go wrong. No, sorry, not just what could go wrong: imagine things
have gone wrong
and then figure out why. The psychologist who came up with the term suggested it for teams that might normally have trouble with groupthink or have other reasons to avoid mentioning problems. Giovanni gave a bunch of examples where trainers would benefit from it too.”
“Huh. Okay, so what else do we do?”
“Everyone visualizes that the plan has gone wrong, then writes down reasons why. Then we take turns listing what we thought of, and change our plans accordingly.”
For once Leaf beats Red to taking out a notebook, and she tears a sheet out and hands it to each of them, along with extra pencils. Blue joins them on the ground so he can press the paper against his leg to write on it. “Okay. Five minutes, right?”
Red sets a timer on his new watch. “Five minutes, starting… now.” Red centers his breathing first, then closes his eyes and pictures the plan from start to finish. He flags a concern immediately in putting honey on something for Zephyr to fly around with, so he opens his eyes to write that down and keeps thinking. They get to the tree, Red sets up beneath it, the two climb up… the pineco are passive, when hanging, and if they can lock on and catch them without too much noise or vibration to the tree they should be easy to get without a fight.
No, stop thinking of how things can go right, focus on what goes wrong. The plan has already failed, totally. What probably happened to cause that?
The first thing that comes to mind is the honey dripping as it’s whipped about in the air and falling on Blue, so that the combee converge on him. In that case Red would trigger a smokescreen while Blue gets whatever the honey sticks to off and runs. After they abort they can reassess.
So how to stop that? An umbrella at least prevents it from getting somewhere he can’t easily wipe it off. Is there any container the honey could be in that would keep it from falling out, while still letting it emit its scent? There’s nothing Red is carrying that would do that, but maybe the others have something.
Next, the tree. Aiko says the vespiquen won’t come out unless the hive itself is threatened, but assuming she’s wrong, or them climbing the tree shakes the hive enough for her to come out, again, smokescreen and run for it. Alternatively, the three of them can stand and fight. If they capture it fast enough the swarm might not have time to identify them as a threat and attack, though he’s pretty sure Leaf and Aiko would be upset by that outcome.
Last, the pineco. If the tree vibrates enough with them climbing it to wake them up, the two should have their pidgey and spearow on standby to defend them. Pineco can’t do much when threatened, but they are capable of blowing themselves up if they think they’re going to die, so in either case a quick capture or a quick escape is best.
Eventually his watch vibrates, and Red opens his eyes and resets it. “Everyone ready? Who wants to go first?”
“Ready… set… now!” Leaf uncaps the honey, and Aiko dips the sponge into it, then lifts it out and dangles it to the side by the rope tied around it as Leaf caps the honey and puts it away.
“Ice Beam!” Maturin shoots a freezing ray at the sponge, crystallizing the viscous liquid being absorbed into it before any can drip off onto the towel they prepared. They’re downwind of the tree and Red doesn’t know how fast scent travels, but it sounds like the buzzing of the combee is already louder.
Blue lifts his flute to his lips with one hand and his umbrella with the other, then sends a piercing note through it, followed by a few more. Zephyr takes off, clutching the length of rope in his talon so that it yanks the frozen sponge into the air.
When he gets high enough another series of notes causes him to bank in the air toward the tree in a looping circle. It’s not just Red’s imagination now, the combee are louder, and they’re moving. More of them pour out of the hive and zip toward Zephyr as he wings past, and soon there’s a whole swarm of them chasing the pidgeotto around in the sky.
Red waits until no more come out of the hive, then yells “Go!” and dashes with Leaf and Aiko to near the base of the tree. He can just barely see the dark teal shards of chitin that are littered around the grass, sharp and large enough to punch through their shoes if they step on them. He summons a container onto the grass while the girls summon pokemon, then quickly grabs the lid off and tosses it to form a plank. Aiko runs across it first, then Leaf, and soon both are climbing while he brings Charmander out and waits beneath the hive as the girls carefully start climbing, with Bulbasaur and Aiko’s venonat, Winter, stationed below with him.
Red takes the extending bug catcher net he’d clipped to the back of his collar and extends it as he keeps his eyes on the massive hive, breath audible in his facemask as he watches for the slightest sign of the vespiquen. He feels the urge to use his powers and see if he can get a sense of her mood, perhaps even an early warning of whether she’s coming out… but he forces himself to remember what happened with Maturin, and quickly dismisses the idea. He’s never tried connecting with a Bug type’s mind before, and even if he didn’t know they were infamously harder for psychics to read, now is not the time to try out experimental psychic abilities.
The fact that the urge came to mind is worrying in itself, though. He’s been tempted to use his powers more and more as his control has improved, and he’s starting to wonder if it’s simple curiosity or something else. Are psychic powers addictive, in some way? Beyond the normal addictive qualities of any new experience or power trip?
Not the time to think about this.
He focuses on the task at hand, glancing occasionally to the others to check their progress. Leaf and Aiko reach the bottom branches and successfully capture a couple pineco, the pokeballs dropping to the grass. Red quickly walks onto the container lid and uses his net to roll the pokeballs toward him, then grab them and clips them to his belt, which he emptied except for Charmander’s ball. Leaf tests the branch above her, but it’s too thin for her to climb up without the whole thing shaking. As she looks for another path up, Aiko nabs a third pineco, drops it too, then goes for a higher branch.
Red claps his palms once, causing her to look down. He makes an X with his hands, and points to Leaf, who has found another branch with two more on it. He flashes six fingers, then makes a ring with his thumb and forefinger.
She nods and starts climbing down just as Leaf finishes catching the two and lowers herself to join them.
Behind them, Blue’s notes have changed pace, causing them all to turn and look. The swarm isn’t following Zephyr anymore: they’re all buzzing around something on the ground.
Uh oh.
Either some honey melted and fell, or, more likely since all the combee are there, the sponge fell. They quickly withdraw their pokemon, and Leaf grabs the net from Red as he puts the lid of his container box back on and withdraws it. Leaf clips the sixth ball that Red didn’t have space for onto her belt, then collapses the net and hands it to him as they run for the bikes.
Blue already brought Zephyr down beside him, and as soon as he sees them run for the bikes, he heads for them too, commanding Zephyr to follow. Leaf and Aiko bring out their pidgey and spearow to follow too, and Red has a moment to miss his own spearow again.
How do I
still
not have a flyer!
He glances at all the combee flying nearby, but keeps running. They’re not particularly useful or interesting to him, and it’s not worth going near the swarm.
They all make it to their bikes, grab their bags, and mount up. The cloud of combee is dispersing in all directions, and a few come toward them.
“Gust!” Leaf and Blue both yell, and Zephyr and Crimson send bursts of air out that knock the combee away, sending them flying off in other directions. Within moments the four pedal away as fast as they can, and soon they leave the buzzing behind completely.
By the time they stop for a rest, everyone is tired and sweaty and more than happy to sit on the grass beside the road, or in Red’s case, flop onto it and gasp like a fish. He spent little time in Cerulean doing physical training compared to the other two, and he makes a mental note to not make the same mistake in Vermillion. He’d make a physical note, but his arms are stiff and he’s too tired.
“Nice job, everyone,” Blue says after he catches his breath. Zephyr has landed beside him, and Blue feeds him some berries before withdrawing the pidgeotto. “How many did we get?”
“Six,” Red says. He rolls onto his stomach and unclips the five pineco and puts them in a pile along with the one Leaf carried, while the girls feed and withdraw their own pokemon. “How are we dividing them? One for Blue and I, two for Leaf and Aiko?” He takes an empty ball out of his pouch and offers it to Leaf.
“One is fine for me,” she says as she takes the ball.
“I’ll take two, then,” Blue says, and hands a ball to Leaf and Aiko. “You okay with that?”
“Sure, I’ll sell my extra.” Aiko says.
They all start registering their pokemon… all but Aiko, who just admires the two pokeballs in her hands. Red catches her glancing at the trio’s dexes, but she stops after she sees him noticing.
Before he can ask about it, Blue finishes and puts the ball away, then brings Maturin out. He points to his face and says “Soak!” Red rolls away in time to avoid getting splashed by the gush of water that hits Blue’s face.
“Gross,” Aiko says, but she’s smiling. “You know that’s not pure water, right?”
Blue shakes his head, sending droplets all over and causing the others to cry out in disgust. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t stick like sweat does, so it’s a step up.”
Leaf shakes her head and brings Bulbasaur out too, feeding him a pokepuff. “Hundreds of virtual hours spent training pokemon to learn the difference between attacks they can use on humans and those they can’t, just so you can get a quick bath in the field.”
“Why not just use your water bottles?” Red takes out Pichu and Charmander’s balls and summons both so they can enjoy some time in the wild. Charmander sniffs along the ground and crawls off, tail held high, while Pichu goes over to Leaf, who smiles and splits off a piece of pokepuff for him as well.
“Too cold. Besides, Mr. ‘Crammed Canteens’ wants me to waste drinking water now?”
“You’re right. Hey Leaf, what alliterates with ‘washcloths?'”
“Don’t you dare,” Blue warns a grinning Leaf, who sticks her tongue out at him and mouths “wet” after Blue turns his back. “I don’t know what the fuss is about, Maturin will replenish her water soon enough.”
“Yeah, and if we’re attacked meanwhile and she runs out of water, we can die happy that at least your face isn’t sticky.”
Aiko’s giggles cut off Blue’s response. She holds a hand up to cover her mouth. “Sorry, it’s just… you guys are strange.” She watches them care for their pokemon for a bit, then summons a sandshrew and takes a snack bar out, breaking pieces off for it.
“Nice get,” Blue says. “Catch it near Mt. Moon?”
“Yeah, on the eastern slopes.”
“I wanted one for Surge, but never encountered any.”
“Who are you going to use for your Challenge then?”
“Still deciding on my lineup. Maturin helped me get the last two badges, but she’ll have to be benched for this round. What about you? Who’s your starter, anyway?”
Aiko doesn’t respond right away. She’s looking down at her sandshrew with a small frown, and Red’s about to say something when she sighs and unclips another ball. “Go, Sneaker!”
A small raticate appears. It looks around in alarm at all the pokemon, then relaxes when Aiko opens her palm and offers it a handful of berries. “Say hi, Sneaker.” She runs her fingers through its fur as it eats. “I caught him a few years ago, as a rattata.”
“Oh. Neat.” Blue’s face is carefully expressionless, but Red can guess his thoughts.
Leaf’s the one to ask the question. “If you don’t mind telling us, how old are you, Aiko?”
“Thirteen.”
“So… you’re about our age. You started your journey when you were… what, ten?”
“No.” She’s quiet again, stroking her sandshrew, then speaks without looking up, “Actually, I’m not on a journey. I’ve been training my pokemon for a few years, but mostly around home. I got my Trainer License just last week.”
The three stare at her as she continues to feed and play with her pokemon. The wind blows her hair against her face, and when she tucks it behind her ear Red can see the slight flush in her cheeks.
“So that’s why you’re traveling alone?”
“Yes. The farthest from home I’ve been are the areas around Cerulean and Saffron. My dad thinks I was in Cerulean to visit my aunt. I was, but she didn’t know what I was up to most days.” She looks up at them. “Neither of them knows I have a license now. He wouldn’t let me get one when I was young enough to need permission, so I saved up money for pokeballs and potions and trained whatever I caught in secret. The money for this bike was my birthday present from both of them, and I spent so much time researching so I could get a good price and still have some left over for trainer supplies. I would have bought a used one, but I think he’d notice.”
The trio listens in silence. “Why doesn’t your dad want you to be a trainer?” Red asks quietly.
“My mom was killed in a pokemon attack a few years ago, and he thinks I’m too young to do it alone. Wants me to wait until I’m older, since I don’t know any other kids who are ready for their journeys.”
“So… you don’t have a pokedex? How do you train your new captures?”
“My mom’s old dex. It’s at home. I learned to reprogram it.”
Red winces. Pokedex technology has grown in leaps and bounds over the years… even if her mom’s pokedex is just ten years old, it would be considered ancient by today’s standards. Each pokemon’s virtual training would take, what, three hours to transfer to their ball? Maybe more? “That sounds tedious,” Red says as Pichu climbs up his arm and settles in her familiar spot around his neck.
“I can’t believe you’ve been training for years on your own,” Blue says. “That’s really… well, reckless for one thing.”
Aiko’s head snaps up. “Easy for you to say! Your grandfather is Professor Oak, you were just handed a rare and powerful starter and have two friends you can travel with—”
“It’s also really brave,” Blue says, smiling.
She blinks, then lowers her head so that her hair swings forward and hides her eyes. “I’m sorry. You’ve all been nice to me, and I’m just struggling with some jealousy. It’s not your fault.”
“Why not come with us?” Everyone turns to Leaf, who shrugs. “I mean, I haven’t asked Red or Blue about it yet obviously, but it would be okay with me. You seem smart and competent and nice enough. And like Blue said, the more the safer.”
Aiko stares at Leaf like she’s a pokemon that learned to talk, then slowly turns to Red and Blue, eyes wide.
Blue smiles. “I guess I did say that. What do you think, Red?”
Aiko looks at Red alone now, and the intensity of her gaze is unsettling. It’s just full of such… hope. He feels like saying no would crush her, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like a decision that should be made lightly or under pressure.
“Give me a minute?”
“I’ll give you an hour!” Aiko says, then dips her head again, biting her lip. “I mean, yeah, take your time.”
Red nods seriously, and closes his eyes again. It’s not a plan, exactly, but he still visualizes his agreement going wrong somehow. Despite liking Aiko so far, he imagines himself a couple months from now regretting the decision. Why?
She could be a thief. We don’t even know if it’s her real name, she might grab our stuff tonight and just run. She could be a bad trainer. Maybe she gets one of us hurt, or our pokemon get killed trying to help cover for her.
He feels like he’s not going deep enough. It feels wrong somehow, trying to imagine why you might regret befriending someone, but he slips his mind deeper into the free-flow of thoughts and lets himself consider everything he just learned about her.
Her dad doesn’t want her to be a trainer, maybe she’s concealing something from us. She’s poor, maybe she can’t afford the same tools or gear as us and we’ll keep having to buy her things to not feel guilty. She admitted to being jealous, it might get worse over time and cause arguments and bitterness.
There are a lot of potential negatives, but they’re all just that: potential. He can’t really plan around them the way he could the results of the pineco plan premortem. At best he can be more aware of them in case they pop up and address them quickly if they do.
Because the benefits really seem to outweigh the negatives. A fourth companion means a safer team, through her extra pokemon and a new complement of skills. She seems to be smart and intellectual, like him, care about not harming pokemon, like Leaf, and is going for badges, like Blue. Red briefly wonders if she’s too perfect, but he can’t imagine why someone who knows the three that well would want to mess with them. To steal Professor Oak’s pokedex software, maybe? Best to keep an extra eye on his tonight just in case.
But beyond that, she said she grew up nearby, and she should get her dad’s permission before leaving with them anyway, so he can put some of that paranoia to rest if he really needs to. Red checks the list of pros and potential cons against each other again, then opens his eyes. Blue and Leaf are waiting with an air of curious patience that Aiko is failing miserably to imitate. If she’s a spy, she’s either very good or very bad.
“I vote yes.”
Aiko lets her breath out, grinning from ear to ear, until Blue says, “Then I have just two questions for you, to get my vote.”
“Yes?” she asks, back to nervously twisting her fingers together.
Blue’s gaze fixes unwavering on hers. “Two of us here have made a very solemn promise: to fight against the Stormbringers, if ever they attack somewhere near enough for us to reach. You don’t have to join us, but I have to know if you’re okay with that. Don’t just say yes: whatever we’re doing, we drop it and go. You may have to wait a long time for us to come back. We might not come back. Understand?”
Aiko’s nervousness seems to have faded, and to her credit she appears to be giving the question serious consideration. Finally, she nods. “I think so. And yeah, I’m okay with that.”
“Good. Then my second question is this: will you have trainer battles with me?”
Aiko blinks. Blue asked the question with the same intensity he did the previous one. “I… right now?”
“I mean at all.”
“Of course! How else will we get better?”
Blue grins, all seriousness dropping away. “Okay, you’re in.”
Aiko takes a moment to react, but when she does it’s to simply bow until her forehead touches the grass.
The first night out, everyone jokes about how excited they are to be roughing it again, without the luxuries of beds or showers, but they make better time than expected, and as the sun begins to set they’re almost halfway to Saffron City. Aiko says her house is on a ranch near the express tunnel that goes under Saffron city, and they should reach it tomorrow.
“Do you think your dad will be okay with you coming with us?” Leaf asks as they set up camp.
“I’ve been tempted to message or call him about it, but I think it’ll be better to ask in person.” It’s clear that she’s nervous, but she does her best to hide it as she brings her sleeping bag out of its container and sets a lamp up beside it. “I can take first shift, if you guys are tired. Or last shift. Or one of the middle ones. Whatever.”
Red smiles. “Relax, we’re probably not going to sleep right away. And it’s appreciated, but don’t feel like you have to constantly try to please us, you know?”
“Besides, sleeping less than three hours is kind of a waste anyway, right?” Leaf says.
“Is it three hours or two?” Blue asks.
“Either way, having two people get middle shifts sounds terrible. Might as well let one person get a full night’s sleep and alternate.”
Red lets them talk it out as he sits on his bedroll and begins meditating. He cycles through his mental states quickly and practices fighting down the surges of sadness that envelop him. It’s hard, so he switches to sensing nearby minds to distract himself and make sure there aren’t any pokemon nearby or underground.
He senses nothing but Leaf and Aiko’s minds, and realizes that this is the first time he has tried his powers in a place that’s guaranteed to have no others around to distract him. He smiles as he concentrates on nothing but their two steady-stream-of-raindrop-impressions on his mind, grief momentarily forgotten. He doesn’t extend his mind out to feel what they’re feeling, but it’s strange how even without doing so he can tell the two apart. Aiko’s is… quicker? No, more energetic. No that’s not the word, it’s frenetic compared to Leaf’s calm…
Red maintains the sensory field as long as he can without tearing up, then drops it and tunes back into the conversation. Aiko is talking about how she usually sleeps at Ranger Outposts while traveling alone. Leaf describes some of those they’ve visited while Red takes the rock Psychic Ayane gave him out and puts it in his palm.
Round, solid, slightly rough. Lift.
They start describing their various catches, and Aiko mentions that besides her raticate, venonat, spearow and sandshrew, she also has an oddish and krabby.
Feel the texture, the weight, the wholeness of it… slip between… and lift.
“I think I’ll sell one of the pineco, but the other I’m definitely keeping. They make amazing tanks and trap setters.”
Blue lets out a breath. “You have no idea how nice it is to be traveling with someone that speaks my language. Yes, I’m going to teach mine to trap the shit out of the battlefield, and as long as I take out any fire types they have…”
Feel the rock. BECOME the rock. LIFT THE GODDAMN ROCK.
“Is there an advantage to using two?” Leaf asks.
“Might sell one too, after I check which is stronger, but I might also keep both and train them differently. It’ll work well for faking others out too, when people know my teams well enough and expect one. I’ll have to be careful with nicknames…”
Okay, change of tactics. Do not try to lift the rock. Instead realize the truth: there IS no rock.
“Red?” Leaf asks.
“Hm?” He opens his eyes to find them looking at him. “Sorry, what?”
“Oh you’re practicing,” Leaf says. “I thought you dozed off, sorry, go back to it.”
He sighs and drops the rock. “Nah it’s fine. What’d I miss?”
(“Practicing what?” Aiko whispers to Blue.)
“I was just asking if you’ve decided on any nicknames for your pokemon yet.”
(“He’s psychic, trying to lift the rock.”)
“Ah, no. Not really. I mean, technically I’ve named my abra—”
(“Oh! Cool! But don’t they practice by bending spoons?”)
“That’s great!” Leaf grins. “What did you name them?”
“My sensei said I’m not advanced enough for spoons yet,” he tells a surprised Aiko. “They’re for practicing moving parts of things you’re not directly touching.” He turns to Leaf with an embarrassed smile. “Uhh, I named one Bill and the other Cerulean.”
(“Did he use his powers to tell what we’re talking about?”)
Leaf covers her eyes with one hand. “Red, you can’t name your pokemon after the locations they teleport to! That’s not a nickname, that’s just labeling!”
(“No, you’re just whispering really loud.”)
“Look, I’m trying okay? I don’t really…” He trails off as he hears something. “What was—”
Blue leaps to his feet, followed quickly by the others as everyone summons their starters, eyes scanning the darkness around them. Leaf’s head snaps up as her hand swaps Bulbasaur out. “It’s wings! Above us!”
Blue and Aiko also swap their pokemon out while Red grabs the lantern and puts it in the middle of the camp. “Everyone back to back, four points!”
They set up around the lantern with Charmander, Zephyr, Crimson and Aiko’s spearow at the ready, the light no longer ruining their night vision as they scan the starry sky. There are clouds over the moon, but still there’s enough light for them to spot the pokemon winging down toward them.
“There are two, and they’re big,” Blue murmurs, and Red feels his pulse redouble in speed. “I’ll send Zephyr up when they-”
“Hellooooo the camp!”
Red blinks. He knows that voice…
Blue curses and rubs his eyes, withdrawing Zephyr with his other hand. “Gramps! You scared the shit out of us! Why!”
Relieved laughter escapes Leaf as she returns Crimson too, and Red smiles at Aiko’s shocked expression. “It’s okay, we know them.”
“‘Gramps?’ As in…?”
With a few final, mighty whumps of displaced air, the pidgeot lands in the grass just outside the lamplight. From its back slides Professor Oak, in all his lab-coated glory, and a moment later a second massive bird lands behind it, which Red recognizes as Daisy’s swellow by its bright white and red breast.
“Oh, come on, you can’t expect me to miss your birthday just because you’re out wandering the world!”
“It’s not until next week!”
“Yeah, but where’s the surprise if I came then? Hello Red, hello Leaf!”
“Hello professor,” they chorus. “How did you find—ah, the pokedexes, right?”
“Yep. And who might this be?”
Red smiles and turns to the dumbfounded Aiko. “Professor Oak, this is Aiko, a new friend of ours. Aiko, I believe you said something about killing to talk with your ‘idol?’ At least now that won’t be necessary.” He sees Daisy dismount from her swellow, and then… help someone else down? Oh. Red suddenly realizes what’s about to happen and flushes slightly. They’re only a few days apart, after all…
“It’s… such an honor, Professor,” Aiko stammers as she bows low.
“Hiya kids!” Daisy says as she walks into the lamplight, followed by—
“Laura!” Leaf rushes forward to hug her.
Red’s mom looks surprised but pleased as she returns the hug. “Hello, Leaf. It’s good to see you again.” She looks up at Red. “Hi hon. Happy early birthday surprise!”
Once everyone gets over their surprise and has a chance to properly greet each other, Daisy brings out a container full of fold-out chairs and a picnic basket. The professor releases a couple of his pokemon to watch their surroundings, freeing the rest of them to bring theirs out for socializing. Blue’s shinx plays with Red’s pichu and Aiko’s oddish, while Daisy introduces her ivysaur to Leaf’s bulbasaur.
Food is served, two separate cakes are revealed, songs are sung, and only after Blue has started on his second piece does he lean back and fix Professor Oak with a pointed look.
“Okay Gramps, spill. What really brought you and Aunt Laura out here so early?”
“What about me?” Daisy asks. “Aren’t you going to ask what hidden scheme I’m running?”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure you wanted to personally congratulate me on my perfect gym run.”
“You just know me so well, bro.”
“Hey,” Professor Oak objects, looking between them. “Can’t I just be impatient to celebrate my grandson and pupil’s birthdays?”
“No,” Blue and Daisy say together.
“Well personally, I’m a little miffed,” Red’s mom says. “What if I’m the one with the secret motive for coming?”
The others chuckle, but Red’s feels a bit forced. Truth is, the thought crossed his mind that she
had
actually come to discuss something with him… and he’s not looking forward to it if he’s right.
“Well, now that I’m here I suppose there
is
something I wanted to speak with you all about…” Professor Oak’s tone slowly goes from jocular to serious, and the trainers’ smiles all fade by the time he speaks again. “This abra sale you’re coordinating is amazing, and I’m very proud of all of you, both for catching them and what you decided to do with them. But the attention you get from it is likely to change things for all three of you. Namely, you’re going to start getting headhunted.”
Red leans forward. “Has someone approached you about us already?” There are a dozen ways his carefully planned sales and Leaf’s coordination of the press release might have gotten leaked, and Red feels excitement stir at the idea that he might have gotten some offers, even if he doesn’t plan on taking them.
“No, nothing yet. But this might be our last chance to offer some guidance to the three of you.” Professor Oak turns to Aiko. “I’m sorry to make you feel left out, Miss Sakai, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. But I’d be happy to talk about your own aspirations afterward, if you’d like.”
Aiko is already shaking her head, eyes wide. “No, I’m okay, thank you! I mean, I would love to, but… go ahead with whatever you were planning, please!”
He beams at her, then turns back to the trio. “Let’s start with you, Blue, because I expect you’re going to be the fastest. I don’t think anyone has a chance to persuade you to delay your gym circuit, but it’s still worth bringing up again now that the invitations are going to come pouring in. Would you turn down
any
gym’s recruitment offer?”
Red expects his friend to say yes right away, but Blue just frowns, leaning back in his chair and watching Aiko’s oddish follow the sparking tip of Ion’s tail as the shinx walks over to the other Plant Types. “Yeah. I don’t think that’s changed, or is likely to. Giovanni himself could offer me the Second position at Viridian, and I’d still think my journey is more important.”
“Good to know. So how about you, Leaf?”
“Me? I don’t really see why I might get anyone’s attention from this.”
Daisy smiles. “From what Red said, you got abra to not teleport away from you by just thinking positive thoughts. Is that true?”
Leaf blinks. “Yeah, sort of. It was a bit more complicated than that, but-”
“And are you going to mention that in the press release?”
“I wasn’t planning on it?”
“You should,” Red says. “Others are going to try hunting abra the same way, and some of them might be able to learn from what helped you.”
“Right. Yeah, okay.”
“Well then, expect some coordinator academies to extend an invitation,” Daisy says.
“What? But I’ve only been a trainer for a few months!”
“They’ve been known to scout new talent early, and get pretty competitive in trying to entice people. Think about it, because my guess is you’re going to have to soon.”
Red feels a hollowness in his chest as he considers the idea of Leaf leaving to train at an academy. He knows Blue well enough to be fairly sure he won’t join a gym, but… “You said you wanted to be a coordinator at some point, right?” Red asks, forcing himself to speak. “It would be a great start for you.”
“Yeah,” Leaf says, but she looks troubled, and Red feels a sudden panic.
“Not that I want you to go!” he blurts out. “I just meant that your relationship with pokemon is pretty unique. I think you’d make a great coordinator.”
Leaf smiles at him, and the tension in his chest eases. “As an alternative,” Laura says. “If you’re thinking of continuing a non-pokemon related career, I’d be happy to have you come work with me.”
Leaf turns to her with wide eyes. “Really?”
“Absolutely. I think you’ve shown that you can be a great journalist in time, and I’ve grown rather fond of you.” Red’s mom smiles. “Like Daisy said, think about it.”
“While she does so,” Professor Oak says, turning to Red. “I assume you still have the same objection to working for Pallet Labs?”
Red nods. “Yeah. I won’t pretend I’m not tempted, but I still want to make sure no one can say that I didn’t start my career on my own merits.”
“Well then, you should consider some of the lab invitations you’re going to get. They may not be as prestigious as Pallet, but I don’t want you to turn them down just for that. They’d have more flexibility than us, might even offer you your own small team and resources, and help you build more notability so that you can feel better about working with us in an official capacity whenever you’re ready for that.”
“Already? But…” He realizes he’s just repeating Leaf’s incredulity, and stops to consider. Is he underestimating how big a deal all this was? The part of him that he’s trying to train as the voice against Optimism Bias laughs, but if the
Professor
is saying it…
Professor Oak seems to understand. “Think about it in financial terms. Even with selling the abra at a steep discount, you each made how much, $130,000?”
“About $150,000, for me,” Red admits. “More for Blue and Leaf.” Daisy whistles, and he’s aware of Aiko’s open-mouthed stare. He feels slightly uncomfortable admitting the size of their windfall in front of her, after learning how financially difficult her life has been, but admitting it out loud does put things into perspective.
“Quite a sum,” his mom says. “More money that you can freely spend than you’ve ever even had before. Any organization would be happy to have someone who could come up with ideas that profitable. Which means it’s about time for your financial emancipation, don’t you think?”
Red and Blue look at each other in surprise. “Aren’t you worried we’ll go on a shopping spree?” Red asks after a moment.
“Or blow it all gambling in Celadon?” Blue rubs his chin. “We are pretty close…”
“Last year, maybe.” Laura says. “If you had this much money to spend, say, three years ago, what would the three of you have bought with it?”
Red frowns. “Uh. A pokemon, probably, and maybe some candy and books.”
“A new computer,” Leaf says. “And an emolga or zorua. Maybe both.”
“A growlithe and dratini.”
“Would any of you regret those choices now?”
They look at each other, and after a moment shake their heads.
“That’s something we realized recently,” Laura says. “You’re all still young, but you’ve matured past that kind of oversight. And you’ve proven that you can earn your own money either way.”
She’s looking at Red in particular as she speaks. Part of him thinks it’s innocuous, but another part begins to grow worried again. Leaf is asking something about her mom, and Professor Oak assures her he’s spoken to her as well.
Afterward the professor begins talking to Aiko about her own history and goals. Red can tell the others are only listening with half an ear, having heard it before and being preoccupied with what they heard.
“Is it okay to say I feel conflicted?” Leaf asks, voice low.
“Yeah,” Red says. “At least, I know what you mean.”
Blue frowns at them. “You know you guys don’t have to stick around for me, right? I’ll be okay. I’ve got a new training partner anyway, assuming her dad isn’t a massive jerk.”
“I have other reasons for wanting to continue our journey,” Leaf says. “But I would miss the two of you a lot.”
Red nods. “Same. It would be great to keep the band together if we can. That said, we should make sure we’re actually making the right choices.”
“Do you guys know what goal factoring is?” Leaf asks. Red and Blue stare in confusion. “It’s a little like a pro and con list, but way better. I used to do them all the time, when I had trouble deciding what career choice to try preparing for next. Mind if I borrow some paper, Red?”
“Sure.” He takes it out and tears out a sheet, then hands her his pencil. She scribbles on the paper, then turns it to show them.
“First you draw a circle, then write inside it the action you’re currently doing or planning to do. Then, you draw lines downward from it. At the end of each, draw another circle and write out the goals that action will fulfill for you. So I put Traveling as my action, and the goals I put are ‘Seeing more of Kanto,’ ‘Meeting new people,’ ‘Catching new pokemon,’ ‘Finding new stories to write,’ and ‘Spending time with Red and Blue.'”
“Aww, shucks, Leaf,” Blue says with a grin.
“Hang on, there’s more.” She writes more, then turns the page again. “On top you write out the negatives. ‘Dangerous’ is definitely one.” Red nods. He’s pretty sure his mom would be ecstatic if he decides that he’d rather study at a lab than continue his journey. “‘Expensive’ is another, though that reminds me to add a new positive: occasional riches, if Red figures out more genius catching techniques.”
Red feels his cheeks flush, and Blue claps him on the shoulder. “Speaking of which, start putting that brain to work on chansey so we can do the same thing when we reach the Safari Zone.”
“Uhhh. Yeah, I’ll look into it.” Red can’t tell if Blue is serious, but it’s flattering to think that he’d be able to catch dozens of one of the rarest pokemon in Kanto. Then he remembers that abra are among the top ten hardest to catch, and smiles. “Definitely.”
Leaf is still drawing and writing on the paper. “So we’ve got ‘Dangerous,’ ‘Expensive,’ and ‘Unpredictable.’ So, now that we’ve got our goals and negatives, let’s make sure we’re not missing any. First I’ll imagine something granted me a wish that achieved all of these for me. Is there any other reason I’d want to still do it?” She closes her eyes a minute, then opens them. “Turns out there is. I’d still want to get better as a trainer. To get stronger, so I can help others in future crises.”
She adds that to the bottom, then closes her eyes again briefly. “Okay, I think that’s it. Those are all the goals this action helps me achieve. Now, let me make sure I’m not missing any of the negatives by simulating myself going through it, day to day… Um… traveling in the wild isn’t always comfortable, but it’s not really that big an issue for me… I guess that’s it.”
Red hands a sheet to Blue, and takes out another pencil for him. Blue gives him a surprised look, but after a moment starts to copy Red as he draws the middle circle too.
“So, once I’ve got my goals and my negatives, I can start checking new actions against this one to see if they either fulfill all the same goals but have fewer negatives,
or
have the same amount of negatives but fulfill more goals. Alternatively, I can start searching for more actions that fulfill my goals, starting with focusing on my most important goal and listing actions that fulfill it. In this case, I’m going to compare going to a coordinator academy and learning from Laura against continuing my journey.” She focuses on the page and begins.
Red lists his own goals that the journey accomplishes: ‘Learning.’ ‘Help others.’ ‘Respect.’ ‘New pokemon.’ ‘Fun.’ ‘Friends’… By the time he finishes, Blue is already trying to match his goals against those that Join a Gym would grant him. Daisy has taken an interest in what they’re doing, and she smiles as she sees Red start matching up goals from Research at Lab, then stop at ‘Help others.’
“That’s a subjective thing, isn’t it?” she says. “Is it more meaningful to help others in person, with your pokemon, or do research that might help many more?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I think I’d still feel… unsatisfied, if I just stayed in a lab all day.” He’s thinking of the way his depression felt worse on the days he stayed in the Trainer House. “I can do research for a few weeks at a time in a city, but if I didn’t know I’d be leaving at some point to continue our journey I might go nuts. Maybe it’ll be different when I’m older, but…”
“Satisfaction is kind of important for this,” Leaf says. “But if that’s the only thing bothering you, you can also resolve to take up another action, one that uses less of your time, to capture any extra goals that are left over.”
“And research isn’t your only option,” Daisy says. “Capture companies are going to be flooding you with messages, and they’ll keep you on your feet and moving from place to place for sure.”
“Huh.” Red hadn’t considered that… getting jobs to catch specific pokemon, particularly rare or difficult ones, would be an interesting ongoing challenge…
“Yeah, I think I’m done,” Blue says. “Journeying is still the clear winner for me, as I figured.”
Leaf nods. “Same here. I appreciate the offer, Laura,” she tells Red’s mom, who is listening to their conversation now too. “But I’m enjoying travelling with Red and Blue too much, and finding new things to write about, and I think it’ll grow my following faster to mix new articles and helping people, which is another reason to stay on the move too.
“That’s quite alright, Leaf. Just know the offer is open whenever.” Laura looks at Red, then says, “Would you mind taking a walk with me, Red?”
Uh oh.
“Sure.” He stands up and stuffs the goal factoring paper into his pocket, then picks up a lantern and places Pichu on his shoulder before leading his mom out of the camplight. They walk for about a minute into the peaceful night, staying well away from the tall grass on either side of the road. Red waits for his mom to drop the hammer, but when she remains silent, he takes a deep breath. “So what’s up?”
His mom looks at him with a slight frown. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay, Red. I’ve been trying not to pry, after you told me what you were going through in Cerulean, but… are you alright, really?”
Red blinks, then feels both a flood of relief, and a twang of renewed guilt.
Right. That.
“I’m fine, Mom, yeah. My teacher, Ayane, she helped me get a handle on things.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, hon,” his mother says, voice soft. She gives him a brief hug, then begins walking again. “Was it… bad?”
Red flashes back to the field they caught the abra in, the sucking, empty hole in his chest, and shudders. “For a little bit. But like I said, I learned to manage things. And I feel… better, now. Like, even better than I did before, sometimes? I’m not sure, it’s hard to tell. And I still have down moments. But Pichu helps with that,” he says, giving his pokemon an affectionate rub on his head. “And so do my lessons.”
“What’s it like, being a psychic?” she asks. “I remember how disappointed you were when you failed the test. Is it all you hoped for?”
Red smiles ruefully. “It’s pretty amazing. Like… I don’t know, getting a hearing implant must be, for someone born deaf. But it’s a lot of hard work too, and I still can’t do a lot of things I thought I’d be able to. I can’t even lift a stupid rock.”
She smiles. “It was strange, hearing that you were psychic all this time without us knowing. I used to wonder, you know, about myself. I failed all the tests, but every so often I would feel something, when I was younger and in crowds…”
Red blinks. “What, really? How come you never mentioned this before!”
Laura laughs. “It was just a random thought, Red. Most people have them.”
“Well, hang on, we might be able to test it. Maybe you’re like me, and just haven’t realized it!” He stops walking and closes his eyes. “Just hold on a moment…”
Red slips into a trance within a few moments, shoving the rising sadness into the back of his awareness so he can focus on the minds he feels, a small group of them gathered in the distance, a small one right next to him, and beside it the stronger ripples of his mother’s thoughts.
“Okay… do you feel anything?” he asks, voice calm and slow between deep breaths.
“I… no? What would it feel like?” His mother sounds curious and a bit flustered. “I appreciate you trying, Red, but-”
“Wait, wait, I think I have to… ” What was it he read about sensitives? They don’t have enough power to do much of anything, but they could sense other psychics that enmeshed with them. “Okay, I’m going to try connecting our minds for just a few seconds. It will only give me a brief look at your mood, and shouldn’t hurt at all. Is that okay?”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
Red cautiously enmeshes his mind with his mother’s until he starts to feel
cautious worry anticipation hurtdisappointmentanger
“Oh!”
Red’s eyes snap open to see his mother staring at him in wonder. “You know, I think I felt something! It was… very strange, and very faint. Maybe I imagined it…”
Red stares at her quietly for a moment. His heart is still hammering from the sensation of deep, complex anger that was under his mother’s thoughts. It was hard to untangle it from the other emotions, but he’s pretty sure he felt it… yet she doesn’t seem angry at all, to him. Was it unconscious, perhaps? No, he’s not strong enough to pick up emotions that subtle.
“We can try again,” he says, and takes a deep breath as a particularly sharp stab of grief makes him wonder what his dad would say if he were here to also learn of his son’s abilities. “We should have done this first, actually…” He holds out his hand. “Squeeze when you think you feel something, relax when it goes away.”
“Alright.”
Her hand is warm and soft in his, and he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, preparing to feel those emotions again… maybe he misinterpreted them…
anticipation apprehension wonder
Her hand squeezes his, and he’s filled with her amazement. He holds onto the enmeshment as long as he can before the grief starts to overwhelm even that, then lets it go. She releases his hand less than a second later.
“I felt it, Red,” she says, voice soft. “It was… so strange, like… someone standing in a room with you, but who you can’t see…”
Red kneels down and pretends to tighten his shoelace, wiping at his eyes and hoping she doesn’t notice. Thankfully she seems too amazed by the revelation.
Pichu nuzzles Red’s neck, and Red rubs his pokemon’s fuzzy body briefly before standing up again and forcing a smile. In truth he’s happy and excited for her, but it’s hard to feel anything positive right now. “I know, it’s pretty cool.” He starts walking again, and after a moment she follows.
“Does this mean I…?”
“I don’t know. You’re probably just a psychic sensitive. But it might be worth checking out, if you have some time and money to spare for a session with a professional. If you swing by Cerulean you can see my sensei, Psychic Ayane. She was very professional, and one of the nicer psychics I met.”
His mother’s expression changes, and Red feels a sudden premonition that has nothing to do with his powers. Whatever was bothering her, he just reminded her of it…
“How much did she charge?” Laura asks.
“What do you mean? You insisted on splitting the bills, just double that.”
His mother stops walking. “Red. Please don’t treat me like an idiot. What you asked for was a pittance.”
He turns to her, stomach leaden. “Mom, I-”
“The clefairy I bought you, do you have it?”
Red flushes. He was sure of his decision at the time, despite his guilt, and he’s still sure of it now, but being confronted with it is still painful. He briefly considers stalling, saying it’s in storage and buying one when he gets to town, but discards the idea. “No.”
“You sold it.”
“Yes.”
“The clefairy I bought for you-”
“-with my money-”
“-that I monitored for you, that you promised me you wouldn’t sell. You
promised,
Red.”
Red feels the urge to protest that he didn’t actually use that word, but he doesn’t remember if he did or not. That’s a bad sign, and he realizes that the truth is he just doesn’t want to admit to being the kind of person who breaks a promise to his mother. Not just admit it to her, admit it to himself. It doesn’t fit the image of himself as someone who keeps his promises.
But, clearly, he’s not. Whether he used the word promise or not—no, he
did
use that word, she wouldn’t have agreed otherwise, he has to accept that rather than let his mind keep trying to weasel around it—he convinced her to act in his interest through a commitment, then broke that commitment. He needs to face that, change if he doesn’t like it… or admit that it’s who he is, and decide if he can live with it.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” There’s not just disappointment in her voice, but anger, as he sensed. “Are you actually sorry? Will you buy a clefairy again, to show your remorse? I know you have a lot more money now, but the inflated price will offset that.”
Red feels his own angry response bubble up, and with an effort manages to suppress it, breathing deep and focusing on the sensation of air rushing out. “If it will make you happier, I’ll do it. But I did it at the time because it was necessary. Mom, I’m out here risking my life to make a difference in the world. Some of the things I’ve seen, the stuff I learned… ” He thinks of the forest, lying crippled and surrounded by electricity, and of Bill, the genius’s certainty of coming calamity. “This isn’t a game to me. If I don’t take advantages where I find them, I could die.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re telling me that?
Me?
”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have to!” He’s keeping his voice low, but can’t help the heat that’s filled it. “I told you not to hold me to Dad’s standard, and this is why! If this is the kind of thing he wouldn’t have done… m-maybe he…” Red can’t finish, tears sliding down his face before he covers it with both hands and turns away. Pichu crawls around the back of Red’s neck and up to his head to perch on the top of his bill. He wipes his eyes and stifles a sob, looking up and to see his pokemon peering at him upside down. Red’s lips twitch upward, and he takes a deep breath.
His mom reaches around to hug him from behind, and he sinks into her for a moment until he gets control of himself again. When he feels a bit better, he steps away, and she lets him. “I’m sorry… using my powers makes me, uh, leaky.”
“It’s alright.” His mother sighs. “I know what you did wasn’t that bad, Red. I still love you and care about you. I know life is hard, and yours will be harder than most, with what you’re doing and trying to accomplish. But I think small moral compromises lead to bigger ones, and I was hoping you could keep from them for at least a little while longer. Or maybe for when it was something really important, and not just extra spending money.”
Red turns to her. “That’s not fair. I used that money for my research. I couldn’t afford it and the psychic lessons at the same time, not unless I wanted to empty your bank account too.”
“I would have preferred you did.”
“Then you’re still not taking this seriously.” He shakes his head, feeling hollow and angry and sad. “You said in Pewter that you just wanted me to be safe. I’m doing the best I can. I’m sorry I used you, Mom. I won’t do it again.”
“That’s part of the reason I’m emancipating your finances,” she says. “So you won’t feel the need to. But it’s not just that you hurt my feelings in using me, Red. I lost my trust in you. I don’t know how or when I’ll get it back.” She runs a hand over her face. “I suppose some part of me still thought of you as a child. And it’s not fair of me to make that your problem, but… at least now we’re on the same page.”
She turns toward the camp and starts to head back. Red stares after her a moment, then follows before she can leave the lamplight.
Blue eats his third slice of cake slowly, enjoying the murmur of conversation around him. Red and his mom came back a while ago and were quiet for a bit, causing Blue to wonder if he should ask his friend about it after they left. Red livens up eventually, however, and Blue is satisfied that it probably wasn’t too serious.
Gramps, Aunt Laura, Red, and Leaf are discussing their upcoming trip on the SS Anne to see if there’s anything she should keep an eye out to write about, and Daisy is asking Aiko about her solo training habits. Eventually Gramps seems to notice Blue sitting quietly on his own, and excuses himself to lift his chair and sit beside him.
“How are you, Blue? It’s been a while since we talked.”
“Pretty great. Don’t think I’ll be joining a gym though.”
“I thought not. It’s good to know that your conviction has remained as strong as ever.”
Blue smirks. “Did you think I’d give up by now?”
“Give up completely? No. But there was always a chance you weren’t as good as you thought you were, and would decide on a longer path.”
Gramps has a mischievous look in his eye, and Blue chuckles. “Pewter was a wake-up call, I’ll tell you that.”
“How are you really, then? Under the surface.”
Blue chews slowly, then puts the plate down on his lap, voice lowering. “I was told that I was disheartening some people, in Cerulean. Making them give up on their dreams.”
“Ah. Yes.”
That’s all he says. Just that. Blue glances at the professor, who’s watching the pokemon play with a slight smile on his face. After a moment Blue speaks up again. “It made me worried. I know it sounds like a joke, but what if I’m
too
good? What if I do more harm excelling and dissuading others from reaching their potential?”
“It’s a distinct possibility. What will you do about it?”
Blue frowns slightly. “I was kind of hoping you’d have some advice.”
The professor chuckles. “I can’t see the future, Blue. You’re trying to do something that’s never been done before, and so you have no map to guide your way. That said, have you started reading
Nobunaga’s Ambition?”
“Ah, no,” he says, ducking his head. “I got really distracted right after you gave it to me, training to beat Brock, and it just kind of slipped my mind.”
“It’s alright, it probably held little relevance to you before. But maybe now it will.”
“I’ll try to read some before we reach Vermilion. If
you
have any advice, though…”
Gramps sighs and leans back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Not much, I’m afraid. I’ve done a lot of things… trained pokemon, became a Champion, started a family, researched pokemon, became a Professor, started a lab, dabbled in politics… I run Pallet Labs, but I’m not a leader of men and women, just their boss. I’ve never had to win their loyalty: they gave it to me from what I’ve accomplished, from my legend. If I was discouraging others along the way, it never registered to me as a problem.”
Blue listens in quiet fascination. Gramps is often humble, but it’s the kind of humble that only amplifies his accomplishments. He admits ignorance often, but always with a zeal that makes it clear he’s motivated, not discouraged. This is the first time he can remember the professor speaking about himself in such a clearly limiting way… though he did include quite a long list of achievements first, of course.
“I guess I’m really on my own, then,” Blue murmurs. It’s a strange feeling. He imagined himself walking a tightwire before, with a different failure on either side, but he recognizes now that he always felt a hand on his shoulder to help balance him one way or the other. Without it, he feels himself wobble.
“While I appreciate your sense of finality in my
personal
inability to contribute, just because I can’t offer you any wisdom on this particular topic doesn’t mean no one can.”
Blue looks up at him. “Who else should I ask?”
Gramps cocks an eyebrow, smiling slightly. “What exactly do you think I suggested you joining a Gym for, Blue?”
“You… think I should be a Gym Leader first?”
“It certainly wouldn’t hurt to develop some skills in that area before you try and achieve it at a region-wide level.”
Blue frowns. “I guess I didn’t think of it that way. I’ll add it to my goal thingy.” He sees the professor’s curious look and waves it off. “Couldn’t I just talk to a Leader about it instead though?”
“Sure, if you think the advice will substitute for experience.”
“At least a little, yeah. I’ll figure out the rest on my own. I’ve already started trying to be more supportive with a couple trainers, like Aiko, and I think it’s working.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Who should I ask? Brock? I got along pretty well with him, I think. Or Giovanni, he’s in charge of so many projects—”
“No,” the professor says.
Blue stares. His grandpa’s face is placid, but there was a note of iron in that word.
“Oookay,” Blue says. “Gonna tell me what that’s about? Is it because of what he did to Leaf?”
Gramps smiles slightly. “Leader Giovanni is a very talented man, in many ways. Perhaps none more so than in binding people together, and drawing them toward a cause guided by his will. In a way he would be a perfect mentor for your goal… but in another I think he would be disastrous for you to emulate.”
Blue sits up. This is the first time he’s ever heard his grandfather speak a bad word about the Viridian Leader. “What’s up, Gramps? I thought you and he got along great.”
“We’ve collaborated many times,” Professor Oak says, speaking slowly. “I would be surprised if a man such as he has anyone he truly gets along with.”
“But he’s good at working with others?”
“I said he is good at binding people together. It’s not quite the same thing.”
“Come on Gramps, you gotta give me more than that. It sounds like you’ve got a juicy story on him. Spill.”
The professor’s grins is wry. “I wish I did. There’s nothing singular he’s done that I can tell you to make you understand… it’s more of a pattern I’ve glimpsed. I guess my best sense of the man is that if Giovanni Sakaki was capable of guiding you to be exactly who you wish to be, he would have become that person himself already.”
Blue absorbs this quietly, debating whether he should try and get more out of him. In the end he decides against it… maybe Daisy will know, and if not he can try asking again later. “So who, then?”
“Well, you
are
heading to Vermilion. Leader Surge was a lieutenant in the Unovan military before he came to our shores and took his gym by storm, if you’ll excuse the pun. He can be… odd, at times, but his instincts and experiences in this area are probably better than mine.”
Blue nods. “Okay, I’ll check with him then, if I can. Thanks, Gramps.”
“Of course, Blue.”
“Gramps?”
“Yes?”
“How do you think I’m doing? Really, I mean?”
His grandpa smiles and goes quiet for a moment, and Blue is happy to let him. There’s some apprehension in him, some idea that the professor will say something he didn’t realize, or point out some story about himself he missed. As he waits, he takes out some pokepuffs and begins to feed them to Ion, watching the shinx leap up and catch them out of the air. Soon Red’s pichu comes to compete for them, causing Red to look over and smile at his pokemon before returning to his conversation.
Eventually Gramps says, “I’ll be honest, Blue, I think you’re doing pretty fantastic,” and Blue feels a rush of relief.
“Yeah? I’ve made some mistakes…” Rather than dwell over his loss to Brock, he thinks back to the way he acted in the forest at first, and how Maturin hurt Mary’s totodile.
Blue blinks as his grandpa puts a hand on his shoulder. “Absolutely. But everyone does. Your two gym victories were both entertaining and skillful, without being so perfect that people might mutter about them being staged. Your various adventures along your journey have gained you a wide following, and the way you’ve comported yourself has shown that you’re not just a strong trainer, but one who will put himself at risk to do the right thing.”
The professor is smiling at him, the full, warm smile that only he seems to to be able to beam straight into Blue’s heart. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wish your parents were still with us, but I particularly miss them at times like this. They’d be so proud of you, Blue. As I am.” He squeezes Blue’s shoulder, then lets his hand fall.
Blue turns to their pokemon as he tosses out another piece of pokepuff. There’s a lump in his throat, but eventually he’s able to speak past it, voice low. “Thanks, Gramps.”
The two watch the pokemon play on the grass as the others chatter and laugh, and the stars wheel overhead.
Red lies in his bedroll, hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. He just finished his watch, but he’s not tired in the least. His mind keeps going over the conversation with his mother, her tone, her expression. He could have handled all that better.
He still agrees with everything he said though, so maybe he should stop agonizing over it and focus on something else. He watches Leaf set up for her watch and is reminded of the goal factoring sheet. He takes it out and examines it once again.
Is the journey really the best use of his time and effort? Or does he just feel that way because he doesn’t want to leave Leaf and Blue? Should he keep putting himself at risk and potentially making morally compromised choices just to maximize his chances? He doesn’t want to become a recluse like Bill, but there’s probably a middle ground.
“Having trouble sleeping?” Leaf whispers.
Red looks up to find her watching him. “Yeah.”
“Everything okay with you and your mom?”
“Not… really.” He sighs and lowers the page to his chest as he explains what happened.
Leaf is quiet for a moment after he finishes, then simply says, “That sucks.”
“Yeah. This is the first time in years I’ve felt like I disappointed her. About something that matters, you know? And I did it deliberately, too. I feel like an asshole, but also like I’d do the same thing again, so what does that say about me?”
“That you’re sorry that your different goals hurt others. Which isn’t a bad thing. Beats the alternative, at least.”
Red snorts. “I guess. I’m just not sure how to make it up to her, you know?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Right, how are you and your mom doing these days?”
“We’re okay. A bit better, and she said it’s water under the bridge, but I can tell she’s still upset with me. Or disappointed. Or something. I missed her tonight, for a crazy moment I thought maybe she’d show up too, but she’s really busy, and it’s so far…”
Red feels a stab of sympathy. “Been homesick?”
“Sometimes. I don’t want to go back though. Not just because of my pride after fighting for so long to come here, I’m really enjoying our journey. And your mom has been a great help. Her offer was really sweet.”
“Yeah, she’s like that,” Red murmurs, feeling guilty again.
“Don’t worry, Red. I doubt you said anything half as bad as the stuff I said to my mom, and she forgave me eventually.”
“It’s less about what I said and more about how I not only did something she found immoral, but made her complicit in it.”
“Hmm. Yeah, that is worse.”
Red gives a crooked grin. “Thanks, Leaf.”
“Still, falling out with your parents now and then is part of growing up. As long as you show her you’re not going to become a Renegade or something, I’m sure she’ll forgive you. She loves you too much to hold a grudge.”
“Thanks, Leaf,” he says again, quieter this time.
They sit in silence for a while as Red’s mind drifts to Leaf’s fights with her mother. Should he ask about their relationship more? Or would Leaf rather he not? “When we get to Vermilion,” he eventually says, “after the cruise, you should find a ride back to Unova and set an abra teleport there. Then you can come back and go visit whenever you want.”
“You think so? It’s a long flight…”
“For sure! We won’t mind waiting around. At least I wouldn’t, and I’m sure Blue and Aiko won’t either.”
“Thanks, Red. I’ll think about it.” He can hear her smile. “Now get some sleep.”
“Yes ma’am.” He closes his eyes and centers himself on his breathing, focusing his mind on the calming sensations until he drifts off.
Leaf wakes Blue for his watch, then lies down and relaxes. Guard duty always makes her shoulders stiff, and she considers getting a sofa chair to carry around in a container just for watches, though it would be harder to look behind her if she does.
She sees in her periphery as Blue sits down for his watch and takes a book out, and notices her confusion. After about thirty minutes of not being able to sleep, she decides to interrupt him. “Hey Blue.”
He looks up. “Yeah?”
“What did you say to me that day on the mountain, when the graveler self-destructed?”
“Uhh… I think it was ‘we should be dead?’ Why?”
Leaf smiles. “Just checking to make sure you’re really you.”
“What?”
“Never mind, private joke. Whatcha reading?”
“Oh. Remember the book Gramps gave me, in Pewter? Thought I’d finally get around to reading it.”
“Ah. What’s it about?”
“Nobunaga’s rise to power. Oh, you might not know… he was the warlord that started the unification of the continent, way back in the dark ages. He and his men went from region to region, beating the other warlords and either retaming their pokemon or getting their men to join his cause. Wasn’t the nicest guy, though. I think Gramps wants me to learn about leadership, the good and the bad kinds.”
“Or maybe the effective and the dangerous kinds?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I think you’ll be the effective kind.”
She’s staring up at the sky, but she can sense his surprise. “Of course I will. What in particular makes you think so, though?”
Leaf smiles. “You care about it so much. You’re not just after a goal, you want to make sure you’re on the right path to that goal. You care about the process. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. But I think that’s the important thing… caring about the process enough to let it guide you to what you want, rather than let your goals override everything else.”
“Is that related to goal factoring?”
“Probably not. I’m kinda tired, so I’m mostly just thinking out loud,” she says, hearing the drowsiness in her own voice. “I’m thinking more about science I guess, or journalism. If you want to discover things or cause a sensation, you might not be as careful as you should be in doing things right. But I think the process of goal factoring is important too, even if you don’t end up changing your current actions or behavior.”
“Yeah. How was your talk with Daisy, by the way? Think you’ll go try and get your coordinator license? Or work with Aunt Laura?”
“Not anytime soon. There’s still so much of your region I want to see, so many people to meet… I’ve got to learn more about them…” Leaf thinks of all the people she met at the museum and dig site, and the angry words she left Zoey Palmer with. “Get better at talking to them…”
“Well, I think you’ll be effective at that too. Changed my mind on a few things, since we started out. Not even Red’s had so good a track record with that.”
Leaf smiles, eyes slipping closed. “You just know him… too well… too personal… thanks though…”
“If you say so. Get some sleep, huh?”
“Yes ma’am,” Leaf echoes, and is out before she can hear his confused response.
The next day they’re woken by early morning traffic along the road, and by the time the sun finishes revealing the fields around them they’re back on the move. The ride goes quietly at first, everyone besides Blue still waking up after their late night. He doesn’t mind the silence, thoughts still on his conversation with Gramps. It was good to see him and Daisy again. Blue has enjoyed the journey so far, but he realizes he missed them a little, a thread of homesickness he barely recognized corded through his past couple months.
By their first rest stop everyone has woken enough to have sporadic conversations, and after eating, Leaf brings her pineco out for some basic training. Red follows suit, but when Blue spots Aiko sitting and watching, her own pineco not yet registered or conditioned, he walks over to her instead of joining them.
“So, fancy a battle?”
She smiles and stands. “You’re on. What kind?”
“I’m going to use just my wartortle so I can practice tighter control and less lethal attacks. You can use whatever pokemon you think you’ll need to win.” The same challenge he gave Red a couple days ago should give him a better measure of her training competence.
She runs her hands over her pokeballs, face contemplative. “Okay. I’ll take my oddish, sandshrew, and raticate.”
“Sandshrew, huh? Okay, show me what you’ve got.” They move away from the others. “Go, Maturin!”
“Go, Oddish!”
“Bai!”
“Ero!”
“Dodge!” Blue yells instinctively, with no idea what to expect from the custom command. A cloud of purple spores puff out and envelops Maturin a moment after her Ice Beam hits, the wartortle unable to get away on time. Blue’s battle calm keeps his surprise from disrupting his concentration, but he feels a stab of gratitude that oddish can’t learn Leech Seed.
60… 59… 58…
Aiko withdraws her frost-covered pokemon. “Go, Sandshrew! Ero!”
What?
“Bubble!”
“Ero” turns out to be Sand Attack, which at least cures him of the confusion in expecting a Sandshrew to know Poison Powder. Using the same word for two different pokemon to use two different moves… He thinks of his sister’s recent discovery with clefairy, and wonders if some changes in intonation are at the root of her code.
He shoves the thoughts aside for later consideration so he can focus on the battle.
53… 52… 51…
Her sandshrew’s cloud of dust makes it hard to aim the explosive bubbles, and Blue is proud of his pokemon for simply shooting them in a wide spray, but another cone of sand completely obscures her a moment later, making any aim impossible.
“Tackle!”
“Ero 2!”
What?!
Blue runs around the dust cloud to get a clear view of his pokemon as she dashes out of it, only to see the sandshrew dive into the ground.
“Withdraw!”
45… 44… 43…
Maturin sinks into her shell just as the sandshrew bursts out of the ground beneath her and knocks her away. “G-Bubble!” He almost used a water gun, but he’s determined to stick to weak attacks, as promised.
“Ero 2!” Aiko says again, and her sandshrew dives back down, but not before one of the bubbles hits his back.
“Withdraw!”
Shit, was I approaching 40 or 30? Start at 35… 34… 33…
“Bubble!”
Maturin sticks her head out and spits some bubbles out just as the sandshrew emerges again, and this time it takes the attack head on as it knocks Maturin away. The bubbles send it bouncing along the ground across the battle area and closer to Red and Leaf, who quickly withdraw their pineco and back away to make room.
“Sorry!” Aiko shouts as she runs over to her pokemon and withdraws it. “Go, Sneaker!”
About 20 seconds.
Maturin emerges from her shell, pale blue ears and tail drooping as she breathes hard, one hand rubbing at her face. “Gaw!”
“Fast!”
The raticate leaps forward in a burst of movement, hitting Maturin before more than a tiny spurt of water shoots out. Blue watches within his calm as his pokemon is gashed, her return attack dealing insubstantial damage, and with about fifteen seconds left he makes a snap decision.
“Maturin, return!”
Aiko’s next command dies on her lips as she stares in surprise, then blinks and straightens out of a battle crouch, her raticate’s ball in one hand. “I won?”
“You won.” Blue smiles, then turns in surprise as Red
and
Leaf start applauding as they walk over.
“Nice job, Aiko!”
“That was brilliant,” Red says. “I tried something similar in Cerulean and screwed it all up.”
Aiko grins. “Thanks, but I think he let me win.”
Red snorts. “I don’t think Blue could do that if his life depended on it.”
“He withdrew his wartortle too early,” Aiko insists.
All eyes turn to Blue, who has brought Maturin back out to treat her wounds and give her an antidote. “I just figured that the risk was too great. In a wild battle I might have kept her out longer, but I would have fought more aggressively in that case anyway. As it is, you won fair and square.” He pats Maturin’s shell, then feeds her some berries and lets her take a long drink from his water bottle, other hand petting her downy ears. “More than that, you did really well. I learned a lot from that.” He smiles at her.
Aiko maintains a skeptical look for a moment, then returns his smile and begins summoning her own pokemon to heal them, blushing slightly. “Well, it was fun. Next time go all out, okay?”
“You got it.” He turns to Leaf, wondering if he should comment on her watching a live fight. From what he gathered she could barely watch his battle against Brock, and he doesn’t even know if she watched his fight with Misty. Before he can though, she’s already asking Aiko about her attack code, and he groans.
“Leaf… you don’t ask a battle trainer that. It’s like asking someone the password to their email. Worse, you’re robbing me of the chance to decipher it myself!”
“Oh, I think I got that part,” Red says. “I guess I shouldn’t say it out loud, huh?”
Blue scowls at him. “No, even if you’re wrong.” Which he probably is. Red barely spent any time watching fights, no way he would-
“Whisper it to me?” Aiko asks curiously, and Red agrees. Aiko finishes defrosting her oddish, then withdraws it and stands so Red can cup his hands around her ear. After a moment, Aiko grins and nods. “You got it!”
What.
Blue shakes his head. He was distracted during the battle. He’ll get it after he has a chance to think it over. “Let’s get back on the road?”
They agree, Leaf asking Aiko about her training methods as they mount up. Blue tunes them out, thinking over the commands she used. His first guess was intonation, but then she added a 2 to one of them… not that that rules it out… He wants to check if that’s it, but he should make sure first, if Red got it in one try.
The rest of the day passes swiftly as they continue travelling south. They stop for lunch by a small grove where other travelers have sat to rest. Another traveler comes by and offers to sell or trade a farfetch’d, which visibly upsets Leaf once it becomes clear that it hasn’t been properly registered or vetted. He eventually moves on when nobody seems interested at the prices he requests, and the party leaves shortly after.
The sun is already well into its downward swing when a CoRRNet alarm goes off from someone’s phone, just as Blue was about to suggest another rest break. Red skids to a stop and checks it, but the incident point is far to the northeast of them, just inside the range he set for notifications.
“What is it?” Blue asks. “Tier 1?”
“No, some pokemon got loose at a ranch, going into other ones nearby. About two hours ride back the way we came, though.” He looks up. “Kinda far, isn’t it?”
“A couple hours isn’t bad,” Blue says, ignoring the ache in his rear and lower back. “We might still be able to help.”
“My house is actually really close,” Aiko says. “Another twenty minutes. I was hoping to get there by tonight, so I can talk to my dad about all this.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay with us spending the night?” Leaf asks.
“Oh, sure! I mentioned that I’d be bringing guests.”
“No way we’re making it there and back by dark,” Red says. “And we’ll be tired when we reach the incident, so whatever might still need doing, we won’t be at our best.”
Blue frowns. “You guys go on ahead, then. I’ll meet you there.”
“What? Split the party? You were the one against that in Viridian.”
“We were young and green then. Besides, I’m sure others will be there to help, so I won’t be alone.”
“What about the ride back down?”
“Aiko was planning on traveling this way alone, weren’t you?”
She hesitates. “Yes, but not while it’s dark.”
“It’s just a couple hours. I’ll be fine.”
Leaf shakes her head. “It made sense to split up in Viridian, but we don’t have to here. If you really want to go, Blue, I’ll go with you.”
“Same,” Red says.
Aiko bites her lip. “If this is what you guys would have done without me, I don’t want to stop you. I’ll come too.”
Blue smiles and turns his bike northward, feeling renewed by their confidence in him. Before he pushes his bike forward, however, he stops himself. The expressions they wore, the tone of their voices, they were determined, not confident or energized. With one foot on the pedal, he turns back to the others. “You guys all think it’s a bad idea?” They shrug and nod. “But you’ll go if I do?”
“Of course,” Leaf says, looking at him as though he’s speaking a foreign language. “We’re a team.”
“But not because you want to. Just so I don’t get hurt?”
“Well, yeah,” Red says. “What’s wrong, Blue?”
Shit. Dragging them along out of concern for his safety, forcing them to make a choice they’re against, that’s not what a leader does. He wants them to go because they realize it’s the right thing to do, that a little discomfort and danger is worth helping others. He has to inspire them, make them want to follow him.
He takes a deep breath… then lets it out, unsure of how to start. Everything that comes to mind just sounds too grand and epic for what’s not even a Tier 1 threat. Also they’ve got a two hour ride ahead of them to reach it, which means a lot of time for any enthusiasm they have to fade. They’ll probably stay determined though. Maybe if he just starts riding he’ll think of something…
The silence has gone on a bit too long, and he distantly notices Leaf, Red and Aiko glancing at each other and him, a little worried. Red takes off his helmet and scratches at his hair, while Aiko bends down to adjust her kneepad. They’re all waiting for him to say something or go, but he doesn’t want to leave without knowing what he’s doing and why. If learning to be a leader is his goal, there’s definitely more to it than just picking an action and getting others to follow you.
“Could you guys just go over why you don’t think we should go again?” Blue asks.
“Um. We’re all tired, and will be more tired when we get there, thus putting ourselves at extra risk and maybe even putting more strain on others there who will have to help us?” Red says.
“I’ve never responded to an incident before,” Aiko admits. “A small thing like this is probably a good place to start, but like Red said, I’m not really at my best, and I wanted to make sure my dad was okay with my journey sooner rather than later.”
Leaf is leaning on her handlebars, gazing down at the grass. “It does bother me that there are people there who might need our help,” she says after a moment. “But we should trust that others who are better positioned can handle it. If it was a bigger incident I’d agree, but it’ll be dark soon, and if everything is over by the time we get there we’ll either have to travel at night to reach Aiko’s house or spend it outdoors again. It’s not a huge burden, but I find myself against it all the same.”
Blue sighs. He can’t really think of any good responses to that besides just repeating that they could help others, and maybe even get some more fame out of it. But he doesn’t really care about that right now: developing his leadership skills is what matters. Learning what makes a good decision different from a bad one.
What would Captain Uda from Power Force Ten do, in this situation?
“Red,” Blue says, testing out the tone of command. “Give me an assessment of our choices that doesn’t have our safety as a consideration.”
His friend gets it right away, as Blue knew he would. A silence ensues as he thinks, fiddling with his helmet. Eventually he puts it on and says, “If we discount our safety and our comfort, I think that the opportunity cost should also be considered. We’ll be more tired and sore tomorrow if we go. What if another incident occurs right near us farther south? So the question is, do we extend ourselves for a sure thing, or preserve our strength. Rational beliefs are based on probabilities, not possibilities, but right now I don’t know what the odds of encountering another incident tomorrow are. It’s low, but so far in our journey we’ve only ever gone toward incidents when they were nearby or in our path. That’s worked out well for us, so I’d say let’s stick to that.”
Blue nods and turns to Leaf. “Do you think we’ll be able to live with ourselves if something really bad happens and we chose against it just to spend a night indoors?”
Leaf gives this careful consideration as well, tucking her hair behind her ear as she wobbles her bike slowly back and forth between her legs. “I think if that happens, we’ll regret not going and update our actions in the future,” Leaf says. “But that’s as it should be. I don’t think it would cause trauma.”
Aiko looks wary before he even turns to her. “I don’t really know what you guys are doing,” she admits. “So I’m not sure how much help I can be.”
Blue grins. “Actually, you’re kind of the most important one. I’m going to be blunt: would you respect me more if I say we go forward, at this point, or head back? Not would you be happier, I mean which action would you find more fitting for me as the grandson of Professor Oak.” He thinks he knows, now, he feels the shape of it…
Her eyes narrow, and like the others, she takes a moment to think. “I think my respect for you would increase if we go and everything turns out good, but would decrease if we go and things turn out poorly. But if we don’t go… I think I would respect you whether we find out we could have helped or not, because you made an informed decision and changed your mind based on what your team wanted.”
“My thoughts exactly.” He turns his bike back around. “Thanks for the feedback everyone. You’ve convinced me.” He kicks down at his pedals and leads them onward to Aiko’s house… until she bikes ahead to actually guide them off the main road to it, anyway.
Leaf’s first impression of Aiko’s house has nothing to do with the house itself, but rather the fields of open space around it where various domesticated pokemon live in carefully fenced off areas. The side road they follow winds through these in a circuitous route, giving them plenty of time to see the variety of pokemon within. Aside from all the normal, grass, and bug types, Leaf spots a few rarer ones she can identify, like drowzee, machop, and pikachu.
“You and your dad watch all of these alone?” Leaf asks, amazed.
“We hire help sometimes,” Aiko says. “But for the most part, yeah.” The other girl seems nervous, and as her house comes closer and closer, slows her bike to a stop and turns to the others.
“Um. My dad can be a little strange. Just… try to let me do most of the talking, if you can?”
“Sure,” Red says. By now Leaf can read his expression well enough to know he’s holding back his curiosity.
“Of course,” Leaf says.
“You got it.”
Aiko looks at them, then nods and leads them the rest of the way. The house looks nice, two stories of reinforced stone with a door to each side. That seems odd at first, until they store their bikes and gear and step inside to find a house with no indoor walls. None on the ground floor, anyway: other than a few pillars the whole thing is wide open, with various nurseries set up for young pokemon.
“Aww, look at all the littles!” Leaf says with a wide grin as she steps toward a small pen holding two budew and an azurill. “Hi! Hi there cuties!”
After a moment she remembers herself and looks back at the others with embarrassment, but they’re too busy being impressed by the house as well. Aiko is smiling slightly at their expressions, but after a moment she starts toward the stairs. “Daaad! I’m home! This way guys.”
They follow her up the stairs and into a much more traditional looking house, with a small kitchen and living room area and some bedrooms. A thin man in a loose button up shirt and khakis stands with a baby meowth in the crook of his arm being fed from a bottle.
“Hello,” he says, and bows slightly before peering at the group from behind wide glasses. “Pleased to meet you all. Won’t you have a seat? This one’s almost done.”
Leaf resists the urge to coo over the tiny kitten, its forehead coin no bigger than her pinkie nail. Instead she goes to the couch with the others, except for Aiko, who heads over to the kitchen.
“You guys want anything to eat or drink?”
“I’ll serve dinner in about an hour,” Mr. Sakai says.
“I’m okay,” Leaf says, and the boys agree. Aiko pours herself some juice and comes to sit in one of the chairs beside them while her dad goes off somewhere with the meowth.
“You guys have a serious operation going here,” Red says, voice low. “How much time do the pokemon spend out of their balls?”
“Most of it,” she says. “We only cycle them out for bed. I’ll go help him feed everyone before we eat, then return them to their balls after, before it gets dark.”
Leaf’s mouth drops open. “There were over a dozen pens out there, some with three or four pokemon! How does your dad manage it all when you’re not here?”
Aiko shrugs as she sips from her glass. “He doesn’t really do much else,” she mutters, gaze averted.
Leaf blinks and aborts her next question. A glance at the boys makes it clear they’ve picked up on her discomfort too, and the group sits in silence while they wait for her dad to rejoin them.
When he does return, he still has the baby meowth in the crook of his arm. No, the milk bottle is refilled, it must be a different one. He sits in another of the chairs. “Hello again. I’m Sho, Aiko’s father. Welcome to our home.”
Aiko said to let her do the talking, but greetings were probably okay. “Thank you for having us,” Leaf says after they introduce themselves.
Red nods. “Your house is really interesting. Did you buy it like this, or renovate?”
“Dad renovated,” Aiko says. “To make more room for others.”
“There’s never enough space,” Mr. Sakai murmurs. His speaking voice in general is low, but Leaf barely made this last line out. “So many in need…”
“So, Dad,” Aiko says. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Yes, dear?” he asks, gaze on the meowth.
Leaf sees Aiko’s nervousness through her relaxed posture, a kind of forced stillness. “I told you that Leaf, Blue, and Red all rode down here with me from Cerulean. They-”
“Yes, how was your trip?” he asks. “Did you enjoy the city?”
Aiko hesitates, then nods. “It was lots of fun. And I’m happy with the bicycle, thank you. That’s where I met them, buying the bike-”
“She usually takes public transportation,” he says to the three without making eye contact with any of them. “I think she’s old enough for a bike now though, don’t you?”
Aiko’s fingers tighten around her glass. “Dad, they invited me to travel with them.”
Mr. Sakai is silent. His gaze is distant, staring off between them all. After a moment Leaf realizes she’s holding her breath.
“No,” he says at last, in that same quiet tone. He shifts the kitten on his arm. “No, it’s too dangerous. When you’re older. You’ll stay here, learn more…”
“Dad. I won’t be traveling alone. I can go with them. We’ll keep each other safe.”
“The pokemon need you. It’s not safe. Maybe when you’re older.”
“They traveled to here from Pallet Town, Dad, they’re strong, we can-”
“Pallet Town?” He turns to them again. “It’s a lovely place. I used to enjoy visiting the beaches with my family, when we lived in Viridian.”
After a moment Blue speaks up. “Yeah, the beach is a lot of fun.” He glances at Aiko, whose cheeks are flushed.
“I fought Leader Misty,” Aiko says, glass trembling in her hands. “I won. Look.” She shows him her Cascade Badge. “I’m a good trainer, I can take care of myself-”
Her father stands. “This one’s done. I should prepare dinner. Please, enjoy your stay.” He pulls the bottle away from the meowth and carries it to the room.
Leaf doesn’t know what her expression looks like, but she imagines Red and Blue’s are a good enough reflection of it. Aiko, meanwhile, has a carefully blank face, her fingers so tight around her glass of juice Leaf suddenly worries she’ll shatter it.
“It’s okay,” Aiko says, voice hollow. “I’ll talk him around, maybe after dinner…”
“What’s wrong with him?” Blue asks.
“Blue!” Red whispers. “Not cool.”
“What? It’s like he barely heard her.”
“We’re guests here-”
“No, it’s alright.” Aiko puts her glass down (Leaf lets out a breath of relief) and curls up in her chair, legs drawn to her chest. “That’s just how he is. He decides something and it’s so. He doesn’t listen to anything that disagrees, doesn’t even acknowledge it. But he doesn’t get mad, no matter what I say or do in return. He just… goes on acting like it’s decided. It’s like fighting with air.”
Aiko rubs at her face, and Leaf is about to act on a sudden impulse to get up and hug her when she stands instead. “Please excuse me. I should start feeding the pokemon. Please make yourselves at home.”
Leaf and the others watch her go, then sit quietly for a moment. Blue’s arms are crossed, brow furrowed. Red looks puzzled, but also sorrowful. “What is it, Red?”
“He’s just… really sad,” he says. “I could feel it even without merging with his mind. The feel of him is just… quiet. Slow drips. Sad.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, it’s hard to describe.”
“Damn selfish of him, I say,” Blue says, voice bitter. “She’s a good trainer, and he’s trying to keep her here because he’s afraid. She should just leave, she has her license. I’ll pay her Trainer House fees and cover her food…”
“That’s good of you Blue, but I think that kind of falling out with her dad would be pretty distracting.” Red glances at her.
Leaf nods. “If there’s any other way…” She stands. “I’m going to go talk to her, maybe help out with the pokemon.” Leaf heads for the direction Aiko went in, leaving them to debate further.
She finds Aiko in what must be her room, listlessly lining her new pineco ball lenses up with a really old pokedex model that’s as thick as a book. Leaf knocks on the open door. “Mind if I come in?”
Aiko rubs at her cheeks, then shrugs.
Leaf enters the girl’s room and looks around. It’s nice, filled with books and electronics, half of them opened and with their silicon guts spilled out in carefully separate piles. Posters of various pokemon adorn the walls, all done in a particular impressionist style, with overlapping swirls of color that almost seem to spread into the pastel walls around them.
“Aiko, are you alright?”
The girl looks up, eyes red. “What do you think? He’s not going to let me go, I know it. I said I’d convince him, but… I don’t know how. And I don’t want to leave him alone without his blessing, without knowing he’ll be okay… ever since Mom he’s been…”
“Sad,” Leaf whispers, and sits on the bed beside the girl to hug her against her side. Aiko nods against her shoulder. “I understand. We all do. Red’s dad was a ranger, he’s still not over it. Blue lost both his parents. It’s what drives him so hard, I think. My mom and I fought like crazy before I came to Kanto, because she wanted me to stay in Unova where I’d be ‘safer.'”
“What did you do?”
“I made it clear that I’m a person, not a pokemon she can keep in a ball. That respect only lasts if it’s earned, and that if she wouldn’t let me prove to her that I was ready to make my own choices, I would lose respect for her and myself, and she’d never be able to get it back.”
Aiko shifts to stare at her. “You said that to your mom?”
Leaf shrugs, cheeks flushing. “I’m paraphrasing a little. It wasn’t really that polite.”
“But you’re so…”
“Charming?” Leaf grins, and Aiko giggles.
“But still, I’m surprised that worked.”
“Oh, it didn’t really change her mind. She was sure I’d realize how wrong I was at some point and forgive her. Maybe she’s right. But she let me go when she realized I was prepared to find my own way with or without her help.”
Aiko nods slowly. “I don’t know if that’ll work for my dad. He… I know he wants me to be safe, but I think he’d be lonely too.”
“Would he be able to handle all this work on his own?” Leaf asks. “I have to admit I don’t really blame him for being a bit worried about that, but he should just take less clients in that case.”
Aiko looks away. “That… won’t really work.”
“Why not?” Leaf blinks. “Wait… are these not…?”
“Only about half,” Aiko says. “The rest are babies that weren’t wanted or retired pokemon that don’t have a home. Dad’s been slowly filling the pens out, and he doesn’t want them to go into the wild where they might be killed, and he doesn’t want to sell them to trainers who might not take care of them.”
“Oh, Aiko…” Leaf has to take a moment to compose herself. She’d wondered about the incongruity between Aiko’s attitude and the seeming abundance of work her family has, and thought her dad was just a miser or wouldn’t let her access her funds. The reality is just… too sad. “That’s really good of him.”
“Yeah. But it leaves him little time or space for customers, and… it’s like all he does. I wouldn’t mind it so much, and I admire him for it, but…”
“You don’t want to be bound by it too. That’s understandable.”
Aiko wipes at her eyes again and gently pulls away. Leaf lets her. “I’m sorry for dumping all this on you. I guess I knew it was too good to be true, going with you guys. You’re all so cool, and it was amazing to meet the Professor. I just…” She sighs and shakes her head. “Anyway. I should go feed the pokemon. Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime.” Leaf stands. “Mind if I lend you a hand?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I’d like to.”
Aiko smiles. “Thank you, Leaf. For everything.”
The work goes quickly, though Leaf keeps stopping to play with various pokemon. They’ve all been tamed at some point, so it’s like one big petting zoo. Red and Blue come out to help after a while, and the four of them make a circuit around the pens while Aiko’s dad prepares dinner.
Even half expecting it, Leaf is delighted to see that the meal is largely pokemon-free. There’s a side of steamed goldeen that seems set aside particularly for the three guests, though she doesn’t take any and makes sure to compliment Aiko’s dad on the tastiness of the loaded mashed potatoes and mushroom stuffed artichoke. She hadn’t expected to meet anyone else with her diet in Kanto, though she can’t remember if Aiko ate any meals with pokemon in them during their trip. Maybe she only maintains this diet while at home.
Mr. Sakai is quiet during dinner, though he answers pleasantly enough when Leaf or the others try to engage him in conversation. They just don’t go anywhere, as he doesn’t seem particularly present, mentally, instead lost in his thoughts. Aiko seems too miserable to join in, though she does liven up when her father asks in what sounds like surprise if she really met Professor Oak.
“Oh, yes! He was very kind, and asked about my life and plans. I told him about our house, and the pokemon we take care of. He said he might visit some day.”
“That would be something. He’s a brilliant man, your grandfather,” Mr. Sakai says to Blue, though that’s only evident from his words, since he’s looking down at his food.
“Thank you. He showed a lot of faith in your daughter’s skills and future.”
Aiko shoots him a look of mixed gratitude and resignation, but Blue just watches her father, who’s silent for a moment, and then:
“I met him once, you know,” Mr. Sakai says. “In Cerulean, this was, years ago. Brilliant man. Taught me a lot about pokemon, when I was starting out…”
And so it goes. After dinner they go around and help return all the pokemon to their balls, then Red and Blue prepare to bed down in the living room while Aiko shows Leaf to her room. It feels a bit unfair to have a guest room to herself, but she enjoys the shower and offers it to the other two when she’s done. While they take turns with it, she finds Aiko in her room again, checking on the progress of her pineco’s registration.
“Takes a while, huh?” Leaf asks.
“Yeah. I’m going to let the other one run overnight.”
“Aiko, would you mind if I talk to your father alone? I know you told us not to, but what have you got to lose, really?”
“Leaf… I appreciate it, I do. But you guys have done enough for me. I didn’t bring you here so you could convince him, I just hoped he’d see for himself that I’d be okay.”
“Would you let me try anyway? I have an idea, and I would hate to leave without you and not know if it could have worked. I won’t say anything that gets you in trouble.”
Aiko smiles. “I don’t know what you could possibly say that would do that, but… okay, sure. Why not.”
“Cool. Should I just knock on his door?”
“Yeah, he should be up.”
Leaf goes and does so. There’s a pause, and then the door opens to reveal Mr. Sakai in striped pajamas, blinking at her from behind his wide glasses.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Mr. Sakai. Would you mind if I spoke with you in private?”
There’s a pause that she’s getting used to, and then, “Of course.” He opens the door wider, and she enters.
The room is spartan, with a bed, dresser, writing desk, and crib that contains the meowth kittens. Leaf spends a moment cooing over them. “What are their names?”
“None yet,” he says, sitting on his bed. “Bad luck, at this age. Not all of them make it.”
Leaf remembers Red and Blue telling her about Kanto superstitions. “They’re adorable. Did one of the pokemon outside have them, or…?”
“Yes. I’ll have to move some of the pokemon around to make room in their mother’s pen for them. I’m not sure how yet. Some of the other pokemon may stay in their balls more.”
He’s more cogent now, talking about his pokemon. Leaf hoped that would be the case. She sits in the chair by the desk. “That would be terrible, having less time outside…”
“Yes. It’s a tragedy, so many of them locked away… not existing, for hours at a time.”
Leaf is glad she left her pokemon belt in her room. “Is that why you don’t sell some of the pokemon to trainers?”
Mr. Sakai doesn’t ask how she knows that. “Too risky. Dangerous, and they’d spend most of their time in their balls. It’s not fair to them.”
Leaf tries to keep a running tally of his concerns in mind. She remembers Laura telling her about how understanding others’ values is integral to convincing them to change their minds, and knows that understanding their goals works the same way.
“What about others? Some older folk looking for company…”
“No, no. They die, and leave them behind again. Some can’t care for them well.”
“Kids, then, looking for pets?”
“Same. And they grow older, become trainers, use them to fight. Or sell them to buy one with better training.”
Leaf nods. “You care about the pokemon a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes. So many of them need help, a safe place to stay…”
“Your wife cared about them too?”
A tear drips down Mr. Sakai’s face. Leaf stares in horror, about to apologize, when he says, “Yes.” For a moment he looks at her, really looks at her, then looks away again. “Like you.”
Leaf nods, not trusting herself to speak. Did he mean because she didn’t eat pokemon either? For all he knows she just doesn’t like fish, but he seems certain.
“But you’re a trainer.”
“I am. To help them. Learn from them. Find ways to save them, if I can.”
“You can’t. Not all of them.”
“No,” Leaf whispers, remembering Red’s hoothoot and the pokemon on the mountain that attacked them. “Not all of them.”
“It’s not safe.”
“It’s never safe, Mr. Sakai. If an incident occurs around here, some rampage or attack, who will keep all the pokemon here safe? If girls like your daughter don’t become trainers, humans and pokemon will just keep fighting and killing each other.”
He’s quiet at that, then says, “It’s very peaceful, here. Aiko’s a good girl. She helps, cares for the pokemon. She should stay, learn more…”
Leaf almost sighs. “What do you want, Mr. Sakai? For her to be safe? She’s not. Aiko is secretly training already. She’s surviving on a pittance because she can’t ask you for help. If she doesn’t have your support, she’ll just leave some day without it.”
“She’s a good girl. When she’s older, she’ll be ready.”
Leaf tries to think of something else to say, but she finds herself wanting to get angry, say something that would hurt him, get a rise out of him the way she did with her mom. Instead she stands, heart leaden. “Think about it, Mr. Sakai. We’ll keep your daughter safe, if she comes with us. If she doesn’t, I’m worried she’ll get hurt on her own.”
He doesn’t answer, gaze on the kittens in the crib. Leaf gives him a minute, but when he still doesn’t say anything, not even one of his usual refrains, she heads for the door.
“Oh,” she says, turning back with her hand on the doorknob. “You should consider advertising as a petting zoo. Let kids come and play with the pokemon under supervision. Might help you pay for more space, they’ll get more attention, and the kids can learn more about the pokemon. Grow to care about them more.” Leaf smiles. “Just a thought.”
She leaves him there in his silence and goes to bed, unable to face Aiko’s disappointment, or her own.
Laura’s return trip to Celadon is quick and pleasant. After saying goodnight to Daisy and watching her fly away from the rooftop of her building, Laura takes a moment to look out over the city’s night life. It’s only been a couple months since she moved to Celadon, but she already feels right at home again. She knows she’ll eventually miss the peace and neighborly atmosphere of Pallet Town, but for now it’s nice to be back where every day something new and exciting happens, for those with the interest to hunt it down and interview it.
It isn’t until she makes her way down toward her apartment that her mind drifts back to her conversation with Red, and a chord of guilt, anger, and sadness twists through her.
I was unfair to him.
He shouldn’t have lied to me.
I should have raised him better.
Tom would have known what to say…
Her mood continues to darken until she reaches her front door and finds a sheet of paper folded and taped to it. Grateful for the distraction, she removes it and reads:
Don’t scream.
Laura stares, ice water trickling down her spine, then spins around, expecting a masked man with dark gloves to reach for her—
Nothing. She frantically looks around the hallway, heart hammering, then reads the note again.
Some prank or joke?
Maybe a viral marketing campaign. She checks the other doors for notes taped to them, but sees nothing.
They might have already removed theirs…
Laura weighs how silly she would feel calling the police for nothing against her vested interest in her personal safety, and compromises by knocking on a neighbor’s door.
“Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I got this note on my door,” Laura says, flashing it at the curious man. “You wouldn’t have happened to get one too, would you?”
His look of bafflement is answer enough, even before he says no. “Want me to check out your apartment with you?” he asks.
“Oh, no, I’m sure it’s nothing.” And she doesn’t want to get him killed if it isn’t. “But would you mind calling the police if I don’t come back and knock again in like, two minutes?”
He smiles uncertainly. “You got it.”
“Thanks so much.” She goes to her door and, in full view of the man still standing at his doorway, unlocks it and slooowly pushes it open.
Nothing jumps out at her. She turns the light on, then pokes her head inside and looks around. Everything seems fine. She exchanges a nervous smile with the man, then goes in and does a thorough search of the apartment.
Everything is in its proper place. Her heart rate is just about back to normal when she thinks to check under the bed and through the glass door to the balcony, but there’s nothing there either.
She goes back into the hall to flash her neighbor a thumbs-up. He returns it and closes his door, and she lets out her breath as she does the same. Exciting as that was, she hopes it doesn’t keep her up; she finds flying exhausting, even as a passenger. She removes her shoes and gets a glass of water from the kitchen, then returns to the living room just in time to see the balcony door open and a figure dressed all in black walk in.
Laura is too surprised to squeak, let alone scream. Her grip on the glass loosens enough to drop it, and the figure darts forward two steps and crouches, arm extended to catch it.
“Who… how…”
“Thank you for not screaming,” a heavily synthesized voice says, and Laura registers the mask covering the invader’s face. There’s a portion for their mouth and nose that seems like a high tech gas mask, while dark cloth with some slits covers the rest of their face and a hood covers their hair. “I apologize for startling you.”
Laura steps back, hand pressing against the wall as her galloping heart finally stops choking the breath out of her. She sucks in a deep one, and asks the first thing that comes to mind:
“How did you get inside? I… I checked the balcony.”
“I saw you coming and hung from the one above you.” The figure puts the glass down on her table, then sits on the couch. “Please join me. We have much to talk about.”
Laura stares. Then, slowly, she crosses her arms and glares at the intruder. “What are you, joking? You leave a cryptic note on the door, come in here uninvited, with your creepy mask and voice, and just expect me to sit down and talk? You’re lucky I didn’t just call the police.”
“I would have left if you had.”
“I should just call them now!”
“I would rather you didn’t. As I said, we have much—”
“—to talk about, yeah.” Laura stares at the figure through narrowed eyes. “This isn’t my first cloak and dagger meeting, you know, I just expect more sense. ‘Don’t scream?’ That’s the best you could come up with?”
The figure on the couch stiffens slightly, and Laura isn’t sure if they’re embarrassed or indignant. “I am not used to giving warnings before approaching someone. I wanted to avoid alarming you.”
Laura rolls her eyes. “I
do
have an email address, you know.”
The figure is silent a moment, and when it speaks again, Laura can detect a trace of wryness or amusement even through the heavy filter. “I snuck into your balcony while wearing a mask and disguising my voice, and you think I would have sent you an email alerting you of the meeting ahead of time?”
Point.
“Well, let’s start with the reason for your paranoia, then.” Laura goes to the kitchen and begins making some tea, in part because this promises to be a longer night than she expected, but primarily just to have something to keep her busy and calm her nerves. She reminds herself that if the intruder is here to hurt her they easily could have without warning. Besides, if any part of their paranoia is justified, whatever they’re here for must be something big. “You’re here to talk about a story, I’m guessing. First off, why me? I’m not involved in anything hot enough for this spy movie crap.”
Unless I’m waaay off about the Kajima scandal’s significance…
“No, it is not related to anything you are currently investigating, but those investigations and articles, combined with how long you’ve been out of the business, made it easy to ensure you’re not ethically compromised. That combined with the quality of your work makes me believe you would do the right thing with this investigation.”
Laura leans back against the counter as she examines the figure on the couch. Their body gives the impression of being lean beneath the bulky dark cloth, and before sitting they stood almost as tall as Laura, who’s 5’7″. Something about the shape of the shoulders and hips made her think “female,” but beyond that, age and ethnicity are totally concealed. She tries to think of anyone she knows that matches the figure’s stature and body type. “Have we met before?”
“No.”
As if she’d answer anything else with such heavy attempts at disguise.
“Then sorry, but I call bullshit. You didn’t just pick me out because I’m some shining beacon of journalistic integrity. There are at least five others I could name who have shown their independence at least as much as I have, and are more experienced to boot. What are you really after?”
The figure is silent for a moment, and eventually says, “You’re correct, there is another thing. You have a relationship with one of the most powerful figures in Kanto. I suspect you may need the support and resources that affords you, if you pursue this investigation.”
Laura’s eyes narrow. Taking some personal risks is part of the job, but she doesn’t want to bring any trouble onto Sam. She takes the time to finish making the tea before answering, thoughts racing.
Eventually she sits across from the figure and places two cups of tea on the table. She doesn’t expect the other person to drink it, but it seems the polite thing to do, even if she’s worried about poison or whatever. “So let’s get something straight. If you’re just using me to get help from Professor Oak, it’s not going to be that simple. I’ll tell him whatever I deem fit, and ask of him only what I think is safe for him. Got it? You want me as a journalist, you’ve got me, assuming whatever you have is real. But if you want me as a friend of the professor, you’re better off trying with someone else.”
“It’s you I want, Mrs. Verres.”
“Okay. So what’s so important that you couldn’t risk an email with some basic information for me to dig into on my own?”
The figure reaches into a pocket and pulls out a flash drive, placing it on the table. “This has information on the Silph Company’s communications and dealings, from a number of highly placed members. After reading your investigative work and articles on corporate corruption and influence, I believe you will be motivated to reveal their
true
criminal acts.”
Laura stares at the flash drive, stomach churning with sudden excitement, and then dread. Her fingers itch to pick it up, and she tightens them around her mug. “Where did you get this?”
The figure is silent a moment. “That’s not relevant.”
“It is to me. Are you a whistle-blower? Someone in the power structure? If not, if any of this was obtained illegally…” She thinks of the conversation she had with Red just a few hours ago, about moral compromises.
“I’m not asking you to publish this information,” the figure says. “I’m asking you to use it to look in the right places. Or as leverage, if you need to.”
“Why? What do you get out of this?”
“I want to stop their abuses of power. But recent events have convinced me that I may not be able to do it on my own. I need your help.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question. You could be from a competing company, or an ex-employee with a chip on your shoulder. I need to know who I’m working with, why I should trust anything on there as legitimate.”
“I won’t reveal my identity. Not yet. But I have confidence you can verify enough of the information to decide for yourself what to trust. I have more information of my own, but it is not verifiable. It’s up to you to reveal them to the world. The password on it is ‘purple Laura six Silph left.’ Capital L and S, six is spelled out. Try to memorize it rather than write it down.”
Laura imagines six of herself dressed in purple standing on the roof of Silph’s megamart with their left hand raised. “Consider it done.”
“Good.”
The figure stands, and Laura holds up a hand. “Hold on. If we’re going to do this, I need a way to contact you. You breaking into my apartment as you please won’t work for me.” She’s
pretty
sure the intruder means her no harm, but even still, wondering if a masked figure is waiting for her every night she comes home would be hell on her peace of mind.
“Then I’ll find you somewhere else. I have business outside the city, and won’t return for another week at least. We can speak more then.”
Laura frowns, ready to say that isn’t good enough, but the figure is already headed out the way they came in. “Hey! Use the front door!” She doesn’t really expect to be listened to, and sure enough they ignore her and disappear over the side of the balcony. Laura stares after them for a moment, wondering… then turns back to the flash drive sitting patiently on her table.
It could be a trap of some kind. Have a virus on it, ready to install a keylogger or something. She’d have to get it thoroughly checked out first…
Her fingers twitch, and she abruptly stands and goes to the balcony to lock it, then goes to the kitchen and puts the tea cups in the fridge.
Tomorrow. She’ll deal with all this tomorrow.
With one last glance at the flash drive on the table, she flees for her bedroom. Even without drinking any of the tea, it takes almost an hour of tossing and turning for sleep to claim her.
The next day she walks through Celadon with what feels like a hot coal in her pocket. She woke without a shred of sleepiness, getting up and out of bed in seconds so she could get to work. Forty minutes later she reaches the apartment of one of her most trusted associates, and one of the few that’s both in Celadon and available to meet on such short notice.
She knocks on his door, then waves to the camera set above it. Dominick opens the door a minute later.
“Morning, Dom.”
“Morning,” he grunts, closing the door behind her. His apartment’s living room and attached kitchen is full of container boxes, most sealed but some open to reveal their various contents, everything from clothing to kitchenware. “Coffee?”
“Had tea, thanks.”
He nods, then heads for the hallway in the back of the room. She follows and steps around the clutter as best she can. Dominick Bailey was a Celadon police officer years ago, part of the city’s cyber crimes division. She met him while they were both working on the same investigation from opposite sides, and agreed to help each other out. Dom retired before she left the city, but still did some freelance work for the department, and other clients who needed computer help of the right kind. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Y’r fine.” The ex-CPO is getting on in years now, hair and beard grey and deep creases around his eyes, but he’s still broad shouldered, and fit enough to lift what looks like a heavy box of electronics with one hand so she can pass through the hall easier. “Sorry f’r the mess.”
“Not so bad this time around,” she teases, which only makes him grunt again. Dom moves around a lot, seemingly on a whim. Most of the time it’s within the city, but even still he does it often enough that at some point he just stopped unpacking all his things beyond removing them from their container balls. The only room that looks more or less habitable is the one his computer desk is in, and she sits on one of the boxes that still has its cover on as he settles into the chair in front of his many monitors. She takes the flash drive out of her pocket and hands it to him.
“Where’d you get it?” he asks as he plugs it into an older looking computer that’s connected to nothing but a separate monitor, mouse and keyboard.
“Masked stranger came in through my window last night and gave it to me,” she says, voice bland.
Dom grunts. “Need a better lock? I’ve got something could help.”
“No, I think I’ll be okay, thanks.”
“Encrypted,” he says, and hands her the keyboard.
She types the password in, and he takes it back and begins monitoring some programs to ensure the flash drive doesn’t contain anything but basic text files. “Think you’ll need an extra hand on this one?”
Laura considers it. The figure hadn’t explicitly told her not to share the information with anyone, and she’d already said she would tell Professor Oak whatever she deemed fit. “Not sure yet, I’ll have to take a look through it first. But if it’s as big as it was made out to be, probably. At the very least I might hire you on as a filter, if that’s okay.”
Dom grunts assent, eyes on his monitor. Laura hires a number of “filters” to do some of the more tedious research work involved in her job. It took a few weeks for Laura to build up her network again, made up of both people she used to work with and new ones. Most are private detectives that can do preliminary investigations into major crimes and legal conflicts that come up in the city, then email her with summaries so she can look them over. All have worked as cops or journalists in the past, and have an eye for what would make a good or impactful story. The rest are like Dom, proficient in more specialized fields of detective work.
“Some audio files too, but looks clean,” Dom finally says, and goes to remove it.
“Wait. Make a copy.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah. If something happens to me…”
He eyes her. “The masked stranger. Wasn’t a joke?”
She shakes her head, staring at the flash drive. Now that her suspicions of the visitor are a bit alleviated, the reality of the encounter settles in. “I’ll spend most of the night looking through this stuff, see what’s on it. Maybe send you a few things to follow up on, if you can spare a couple hours tomorrow?”
He grunts, then gets up and leaves. Laura has a moment to wonder if she should follow him, then he’s back and hands her a small box that’s heavier than she expects. “What’s this?”
“Iron latch for the balcony door, and stun baton.” She digs for her wallet and he waves her off. “Happy birthday.”
She smiles and decides to add a bonus to his retainer. “Thanks, Dom.”
The rest of the day is spent on various errands related to her ongoing work: a couple quick interviews, a visit to her old news station to finalize some freelance work, and a walk by the Contamination Zone where the grimer attack’s effects are still being cleaned up. She ignores the flash drive in her pocket as best she can through it all, but afterward instead of going grocery shopping as planned she just picks up fast food on the way home, eager to begin her search.
When she does however, it quickly becomes clear that she badly misunderstood the nature of the task ahead. She expected to have to dig through hundreds of benign files to find the good stuff, and there do appear to be hundreds of those on the flash drive… but they’re meticulously named and organized by event, so that all she has to do is click the folder named “Bribery of Public Officials” and be treated to a number of subfolders specifying names and dates and containing all the relevant information, along with links back to the directories that contain the rest of the data they were found in.
After returning to the top level folders and scanning their names, Laura’s breath catches.
Murder.
She double clicks it and finds another dozen files, each with names, dates, or both. She clicks the first one and finds…
Almost nothing. She clicks through faster, skimming a few text files with notes, some emails taken from Silph employees that
might
hint and allude to involvement in crimes, but don’t confirm anything.
Laura lets her breath out. This is why her informant brought all this to Laura: to fill in these gaps. This is why they said she might need powerful resources and allies in her corner, when all is said and done.
No, finding something to send to Dom isn’t going to be an issue.
Deciding
what to send him among all the various avenues to explore is. This will almost certainly be more than a two person job… which means she’ll need to secure some funding.
Laura gets up and begins to pace her room, then goes out onto the balcony. She reminds herself to install the lock before she goes to bed, then stares out over the city and considers what her first move should be. Eventually she decides to investigate any breaches in Silph security, assuming they’d let any news of it slip out. Her visitor said that the information came from high up employees, so she should also look into any that were recently let go and might have an axe to grind.
All this assuming of course that the intruder themself isn’t a Silph employee whistle-blowing on illegal activity. Much easier to get into some colleague’s offices and copy their hard drives and emails over the space of a year or two. They may reveal themselves to Laura the next time they meet, but they also might not, and in the meantime…
Laura takes her phone out to make a call, then stops and curses herself for being an idiot, putting it away.
She was distracted when the intruder first came. Thrown off her stride both by the celebration she came from and the sudden fear of the note on the door. But now she has no excuse, and while it’s been years since she was involved in a story that might be this big, she has to get over being rusty
fast.
She turns around and looks at her apartment, which was so easily invaded despite being so high up. Even if she takes the intruder’s goodwill on faith, there’s no reason to think someone else couldn’t do the same thing.
Her phone was with her that night, so she knows it’s probably safe, but everything else…
She leaves her apartment and walks around the block as she makes a series of calls, the first of which is to schedule a full sweep of her apartment for surveillance equipment and the second to install extra locks on her balcony and front door. She’d return Dom’s, but happily borrow his stun baton.
Next would come checking with her various contacts for anyone interested in looking into the various claims on the flash drive so she can get independent confirmation of some. Speaking of which, she should tell her various filters to stand by for a new task.
Laura looks over each of the new stories they’ve sent her, occasionally flagging some to read later, then lets them know that she won’t need any more for the immediate future and would have other work for them instead.
As for where she’d get the money for hiring everyone…
She calls her old boss at the Celadon Broadcasting Network, who answers after a couple rings. “Hey Peter, got a minute? Or are you already tucked in for the night?”
“It’s almost ten, so naturally I’m still at the office. As you should well know.”
“I didn’t want to assume. What if you achieved a healthy work-life balance while I was gone?”
He snorts. “If you spot one of those let me know, we can run it in the new pokemon discovery section. What’s up, Laura?”
“I have a story.”
“You
have
a story? Not you think you have a story, or you have the beginnings of a story?”
“I’ve got multiple stories, actually. Big ones.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line, and when Peter speaks again he sounds worried. “What’s happened? There’s nothing on the other networks. Is this about the Flying Type discovery?”
“The what?”
“Where you been, Laura? It was all over the news today.”
“Didn’t see it, was too busy working on this.”
“Well, it must be good then. Whatcha got?”
“I can’t talk details yet. I just need an open retainer and a safe port.”
“An
open
retainer? If you have multiple stories already…”
“Some are going to be ready to go sooner than others, but I’m going to need a lot of manpower in verifying how deep the real story is.”
“Shit. Aaah,
shit
.” Despite his words, she can finally hear the thread of excitement in Peter’s voice as it hits home. “Is it a whistleblower? A collaborative work? Private or government?”
“I really can’t say yet. Is that a yes?”
There’s another pause. “I’m interested, sure. And I understand the need for secrecy… but Laura, I don’t know if I can get you an open retainer without more. We have history, but you’re still freelance. I’d have to run it by the others, and Leo is probably going to want at least one article by the end of the week.”
Laura frowns. “This is delicate, Peter. Putting something up that soon could compromise the real story.”
“I understand, but anything more than that will take some extra promises from you on article count. Maybe there’s another solution. You come in on it, limited contract, and I can offer you some interns to do the grunt work.”
“No, I need my people on this.” Laura paces back and forth in front of a bakery, the smells tempting her to go inside and grab a pastry. She forces herself to keep walking and escape the distraction as she tries to think of a realistic time frame for something substantive. “What about two weeks? Do you think you can swing that?”
“With a cap, sure. Maybe I can swing for dropping it if you come back in officially?”
Laura curses under her breath. She enjoyed her time there well enough, when she was still starting her career, but all the oversight and rules and meetings… she’s not ready to give up her independence just yet. Maybe she can make it work with two weeks if she dips into her savings a bit… though she’d really rather not have to do that.
“
Then you’re still not taking this seriously,” Red said, eyes unflinching in the lamp light.
Laura rubs her forehead. “Two weeks with a cap,” she agrees. “But something high, Peter, I’m using professionals.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Let you know tomorrow.”
She thanks him and says goodnight, then continues walking around the city to let the nightlife wash over her as she plans her next steps out. Eventually she stops to grab some food, and skims the news for a mention of what Peter mentioned.
It’s not hard to find, topping most of the web and news aggregators. Her brow rises in particular at the name of the person credited beneath the headline: Dr. Madi, one of Red’s supervisors when he worked at the lab.
She clicks the article, then plays the video of the press release as she eats. Pallet Town’s one news station has three different rooms they like to use for filming interviews: this one is their smallest and coziest, with warm dark colors that compliment Dr. Madi’s friendly, open face.
Interviewing him is one of Laura’s old neighbors and friends, Miho. “We’re here with Dr. Madi of Pallet Labs, whose team has discovered a new particle they call the ‘key’ to understanding pokemon flight. So, what does this mean in layman’s terms, Dr. Madi? Is the dream of human flight about to be realized?”
Dr. Madi adjusts his rimless glasses and smiles. “I’ll leave that to the engineers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to wingsuits that can generate and maintain lift, for a time at least. What we discovered is basically a type of… particle isn’t the right word for it, but it’s close enough, a type of particle that creates a minor burst of force when it collides with others in a vacuous enough space. The result of this in our relatively open, gaseous atmosphere is that it creates a cascading wave of pressure, which pushes the air around it outward up to a particular distance, creating lift and causing winds of high speeds.”
Laura is already messaging Red to ask if he’s seen this as the reporter nods along, then asks, “And this is the particle that all flying pokemon put out when they flap their wings?”
“Well, that’s the interesting part,” Dr. Madi says, becoming more animated. “Not all pokemon that fly seem to emit this particle, and of those that do, not all do so in the same way. In fact, this whole line of investigation was sparked when one of our interns, a young researcher currently on his pokemon journey named Red Verres, began questioning the very nature of what it means to be a ‘Flying’ pokemon.” Laura grins wide, typing faster as a swell of pride goes through her. “Recent advances in pokedex scanning technology have allowed us to better isolate the root of that mystery. Mechanically it always seemed obvious that a pokemon’s ability to fly justified the label, but the actual physics of it were mysterious, since wingspan, shape, and muscle mass appeared to have little correlation with how much wind force the pokemon could put out. It’s been a constant source of frustration for everyone from scientists to engineers.”
“Can you give some examples?”
“Sure, if you look at humanity’s first attempts at flying machines, you see that it took contraptions with much wider wingspans than almost any pokemon to lift an equivalent weight,” Dr. Madi says, spreading his arms wide out and flapping them. “We created dozens of artificial wing designs, and none were capable of the strong gusts that even a small pidgey can create, let alone the twisters and hurricane force winds of a pidgeot. Humans ultimately learned to fly in different ways, but this particle is the explanation for what we were missing by trying to mimic pokemon.”
“And now that mystery is solved, once and for all.”
“Well, now we at least know we’re started on the right path, at least. There’s still a lot of work to do to fully understand the particle’s properties and effects.”
“You said that not all pokemon that fly emit this particle. Such as?”
“I think flygon and carnivine surprised everyone the most. A lot of people lost money on those bets,” he says with a rueful chuckle.
Miho seems genuinely surprised, shifting Laura’s away from this being a rehearsed piece. “Flygon isn’t a Flying Type?”
“If we decide to define the type by the emission of these particles to achieve flight, then no.”
“Then how does it fly?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He grins. “Now come on, ask me the other side of it.”
Miho grins back. “Alright, since you seem so eager to tell us, what pokemon most surprised you by having it?”
“Do you want to guess?”
“Oh, gosh. Umm, tropius? But no, that makes sense now, doesn’t it? Tell us!”
“Gyarados.”
Miho’s mouth drops open. “No.”
“Oh yes.”
“How? From where?”
“That took a lot of figuring out, I don’t mind telling you. Ultimately some trainers and coordinators far braver than I am discovered that the scales on the gyarados underbellies can emit the particle in bursts, which is how they can launch their massive bodies through the air with such force when breaching water.”
“But… does this mean gyarados aren’t Dragon Types, then?”
Dr. Madi smiles and pushes his glasses up his nose. “I’m afraid that’s outside my area of expertise, so I’ll leave it to the battle trainers to debate. We’re still in the early stages of understanding everything we can about this particle, and the various ways it might react to different substances and energies may shed more light on what it means for the battle scene, not to mention a better understanding of Flying pokemon abilities and weaknesses.”
“Well, I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we’re all interested in the results of that. Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Madi.”
“You’re quite welcome, and thanks to my team at Pallet Labs. A lot of people worked very hard on this, and like always with new discoveries, it’s an exciting time for everyone.”
“Alright then, we hope to have you back on soon with more to share!”
Laura’s phone buzzes as she gets a message from Red.
Yeah, I saw it! Was pretty surprised, I had no idea they were working on that. And the namedrop was nice, particularly since it sets up my announcement about the abra and my research on the psychic particle, since both were discovered through Professor Oak’s new dex tech.
Laura smiles. Yes, that does sound like something Sam would orchestrate.
Are you all in Saffron yet, or have you passed it?
Actually we’re still north of it. We spent the night at Aiko’s house and it’s been raining like crazy here since this morning, so we decided to spend another night.
Huh. She wouldn’t have expected rain to stop the kids from traveling, especially since they should be so close to the underground tunnel. Maybe they’re enjoying their time with Aiko’s family.
Well take care hon, looking forward to seeing your press release!
Thanks, love you.
Laura smiles, feeling a warmth inside that has nothing to do with the delicious soup. Despite how hurt and angry she still feels at him, Laura wants to apologize for being so hard on Red soon. Not yet though. Some stewing would be good for him.
Love you too,
she types back.
Laura puts the phone away so she can focus on enjoying her meal, only to have it chime again a minute later. She briefly resists the urge to check it, then takes it out to look at the screen. It’s Dom.
Night cleared up. Want apartment sweep now or morning?
Laura catches the waitress’s attention and asks for her main course to go.
With her apartment declared secure from eavesdropping, Laura wakes early the next morning to talk with her various research aids, then prioritize her workflow. As soon as she gets the official go-ahead from Peter in the afternoon, she starts delegating tasks and sketching out various article frameworks based on the illegal acts contained in the flash drive, trying to pick the ones with the most publicly verifiable evidence and most isolated incidents. The last thing she wants to do is hint at a larger conspiracy that would make Silph lock down and start a cover up.
Unfortunately there’s little of that worth publishing in its own right. Some unethical business practices aren’t going to help Peter get authorizing for the extent of funding she really wants. She needs something meaty to justify that this is more than she can handle on her own.
For now she lets her filters take a pass down individual lines of inquiry and focuses on the broad patterns herself. After a few hours it becomes clear that the majority of the information comes from or concerns Fuchsia city. If her informant works for Silph, they’re probably stationed there. What’s more, the least recent information is from Fuchsia: once Laura starts focusing on the most recent conversations and business details, then cross referencing them to locations, she sees almost every major city in Kanto has had data extracted from it over the past two months.
She orders lunch to her apartment, eating on her balcony to give her eyes a rest from the computer monitors. This is more information than a single whistleblower should have access to, unless they’ve somehow compromised Silph’s entire security network. It’s possible her informant is in fact a hacker, but if so they would probably feel more comfortable with an encrypted message than with climbing onto her balcony to meet in person.
Speaking of which… how many people would be capable of something like that and
also
work for a corporation like Silph? Maybe they’re a professional security hacker that was hired by Silph and found incriminating information, or a rival company… Or maybe they’re a criminal themselves who worked for Silph, and had an attack of conscience.
Laura reminds herself that verification of the data on the flash drives is more important right now than anything else. Still, she can hardly ask Silph HQ to confirm details of illegal or unethical practices: even if they answered honestly, it would tip her hand.
But there are other ways of getting or confirming information, when you have some to start with. Laura considers all the personal information she has available from the flash drive, and tries to weigh the good of what she’s trying to accomplish against the ethics of what she’s contemplating. If she were still working for the CBN officially, she would need approval by senior editors and managers, and have stringent controls placed around her. Right now she’s free of all that, but that means the liability is all on her too… and the ethical dilemma.
Laura thinks of the murders in Fuchsia that are alleged by the mysterious stranger’s information to have been ordered by Silph. If even half of all of this is true, the company has some deep rot that goes pretty high up. By the standards of ethical practice, some deceptive practices should be justified in uncovering it.
Not that it makes her feel much better. Laura takes a deep breath, then calls Dom. “Hey. I need a way to spoof my phone ID. Mind if I head over?”
Two hours later she has a list of directory names, numbers, and titles in front of her, along with some key excerpts from the flash drive files. She twirls a pen between her fingers nervously as the phone rings, connecting her to a Silph finances office in Cerulean.
“Hello, this is Maddie.”
“Hi, Maddie, this is Elsa over in Celadon,” Laura says, pitching her voice higher and with just the right mix of cheer and exasperation. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a problem with the accounts on this end and was hoping you could clarify the details of a pay order?”
“Oh, of course. Elsa, did you say? I’m sorry but could you tell me whose office you’re in?”
“Mr. Hishida. I got lent over to help check the accounts before next month’s audit. I’ve got to finish this by Monday, and it would save a lot of time if I could double check this with you.”
“Sure, of course.” Laura hears the hesitation in their voice, and then… “Do you mind if I just check with Mr. Hishida first?”
“Not at all! He’s in a meeting at the moment, why don’t I try to figure it out on my own and if I can’t by the time he’s back, I’ll tell him to call you?”
“That would be great, thanks. Good luck!”
“Thank you!” Laura closes the call and scratches off the top entry on her list, then goes to the next one. And the next one. And the next, until:
“Sure, no problem! What’s the transaction number?”
Laura quickly checks to make sure she has the right number for the office she called. This one was in the Pewter branch… “OT-733-1489-6-25.”
“Alright, just give me one second… okay, and the date on that was?” Laura confirms the date, and even the account it came from. “Yeah, that was authorized by Mrs. Rhee.”
Laura stares at the name on the file:
Mrs. Rhee.
Here it is. Not just independent verification of the information on the flash drives, but potentially damning evidence of criminal activity.
“Thanks so much, have a great day!” Laura ends the call, then rereads the files on the money transfer. A few of the documents in the chain are tenuous, but they lead to a politician with clear conflicts of interest. If she can find a few more and shore up the connections, this could lead to a solid story that justifies more investigation, but not in the direction of the really scary skeletons in Silph’s closet that might put them on high alert.
Payments to known violent criminals. Coverups of crimes by those in the company. And something more…
She frowns at the jumble of files that her informant clearly wasn’t able to connect to any specific crime. Laura minimizes them and focuses on the money transfers again. She’ll just have to trust her people to untangle that mess.
She goes back to her list and starts calling the next one.
It takes her a week and a half to fact check, write, and publish the article. Laura gives Silph Company a heads up to the allegations so they have an opportunity to respond, but they decline to comment. The very day it comes out, Laura comes home after an evening meeting with Peter for expanded funding to see a note taped to the front of her door. She feels her pulse speed up as irritation and wariness makes her walk faster. Did all her new locks really do nothing to stop the masked stranger? And they said they would find another place to contact her…
Laura quickly snatches the paper off the door and reads it:
“Balcony.”
Laura blinks, then opens her door and walks to the balcony, which is still securely locked. She can see the stranger standing out there and smiles. Good to know she didn’t waste her money on the security upgrades.
Though maybe they’re just being considerate…
If the intruder didn’t place the note on the door from the inside, did that mean they were walking through the halls in that disguise?
Maybe I should put a camera in the hallway.
Laura puts her things away and turns the voice recording app on for her phone, then slips it into her pocket and opens the balcony door to invite her informant inside.
“What was that?” they say upon entering, heavy voice modulation not disguising their anger.
“Hello to you too,” Laura says, closing it behind them. “What was what?”
“That article. It was totally useless, just some shitty white collar crimes, and worse, now they might be aware of a leak! What were you thinking?”
Laura frowns as she watches them gesticulate and pace around her living room. Despite their clear agitation, they suddenly seem less imposing, somehow. Laura wonders for the first time how old they are.
“I’m sorry, which of us is the journalist here?” she asks at last.
The figure stops and turns to her. “What?”
“You came to me because you trusted me to do what needs to be done. If you wanted to be involved in the planning, you should have stuck around and talked it out instead of playing up the ‘mysterious stranger’ angle.”
“I came to you because I wanted the
real crimes
revealed! People are getting killed, and you waste almost two weeks on some bureaucrats being bribed?”
Laura crosses her arms. “Do you want to let me talk or not?”
Her informant is quiet a moment, then goes to the couch and sits. “Explain.”
Laura rolls her eyes and sits across from them, then goes over her restraints and plans. “This is the best way forward,” she insists. “It’ll take time to get all the evidence on the bigger crimes anyway, and whatever defense they try to mount against the white collar allegations might shake other things free.”
“You’re underestimating them. They won’t just go on the defensive, this is going to prompt a retaliation.”
“Legally I’m in the clear, I just came back from making sure of—”
Her informant is shaking their head before Laura even finishes. “
Listen to me.
You don’t know these people. Whoever’s calling the shots in the organization on this stuff, they’re not acting like a businessman, they’re acting like a strategist in an active war. I’ve spent months trying to stay ahead, and I’m not even their primary enemy, though they may be aware of me now. Do you have pokemon?”
Laura blinks at the sudden change of topic. “No, I’m not a trainer.”
“Get some. You’re going to need to get serious about self-defense now that you’ve revealed yourself so early.”
A dozen thoughts go through Laura’s head, but none of them attempt to minimize what she just heard. Her informant may be paranoid, but there’s enough on the flash drive to make them have reason to be, even without Laura knowing what they’ve been through to get it.
“I told you, I’m not a trainer. If Silph is actually going to send hit men after me, my best way to stay safe is to be informed and cautious. I’ve already upgraded my security, as you may have noticed.”
“They’ll just wait until you leave.”
“If you’re this worried, why didn’t you tell me all this earlier?”
“I didn’t want to scare you off.” Is that a note of peevishness in the electronic, synthesized voice?
They really are new to this,
Laura realizes. “Will you continue? Or are you still not taking this seriously?”
“I am, and I will,” Laura says. “But I think it’s time for you to be more honest with me. Who are you? How did you get all this information? I’ve had my apartment swept for listening devices already, we’re safe to talk here.”
Her informant stands. “I can’t. Not now, especially not with you at risk like this.”
“You’re leaving again? Can you go out the front door this time, at least? I’ll check to make sure the coast is clear and you can take the mask off in the stairway. Otherwise someone might see you climbing around out there.”
“They won’t. Besides, I don’t know how fast Silph will move, but the usual ways into your apartment will probably be watched soon if they’re not already.”
Laura stands too, feeling frustrated. “So that’s it, you just came to berate me and not give any more information or help?”
“I gave you both. It’s up to you to take them seriously, or not. I’ll be back to check on you soon.”
“What happened to us meeting elsewhere?” Laura asks in exasperation as her informant heads for the balcony again.
“Too risky, now,” the masked figure says before stepping through the balcony door. “The safest way to not be anticipated is to not have a plan.”
Laura goes through the next day in a state of heightened awareness that has her stressed out by midday and exhausted by nightfall. She refuses to let her life be dictated by fear and stay inside all day, but in taking her informant seriously she can’t help but crane her neck around as she runs errands through the city. Is that woman the same one that she saw at the cafe? The man sitting across from her on the subway, is he only pretending to read, or is he making note of where she exits? How many eyes are watching her as she returns home?
Some tension leaves her as she carefully opens her door and checks the tape she placed over the hinge and signed her name over, which is thankfully uncreased. Laura unpacks her new purchases, which includes a pokeball. Contained inside is her very first pokemon, a tangela.
A strange mix of feelings go through her as she holds its ball up, getting used to its weight. The last time she held a pokeball, it was one of Tom’s as he took her out to practice with them. She never had the passion or interest in becoming a trainer, but knowing the basics was important for safety or emergencies, and her husband always practiced what he preached about the value of being prepared.
She’s glad for those lessons now, even if she’s a little rusty. It would be nice to use his pokemon again, who she would at least be familiar with, but as a ranger his pokemon were all taken for reassignment to others after his death. Just another sacrifice asked of those in the force. Before today it always seemed a justified one.
Laura shakes her head and clips the ball to her new belt. No, it’s still better that Kage and the rest had gone on to help keep others safe over the past few years. It just means she’ll have to spend a little more time practicing with her tangela. Besides, Tom barely had any pokemon suited for civilian self defense the way her new pokemon is, with its plethora of non-lethal abilities.
She puts the belt on so she can get used to it there, then goes to her computer to relax, catch up on emails, and check for the latest results from her filters.
Research altering and funding false studies on effects of Silph products…
Two murders that might be connected, in both cases pokemon were stolen from the houses…
Bribery of investigators or witnesses of crimes…
Relocation and concealment of people…
Laura sits up, attention sharpening. She clicks the subject line to read the full report.
Verified payments to housing and living expenses for people with no apparent link to company. Only aware of a few so far, the earliest of which starts about seven years ago. Maybe off-payroll workers, but info for who they are, what they do, or how they were hired seem purposefully avoided. All have little to no contact with others in Silph outside of R&D, and these communications are only mentioned in passing, no detailed logs or emails in the flash drive. Might be more info hidden somewhere, will keep looking. Not sure what it’s all about, but seems sketchy. Let me know if I should stop.
Laura types out her answer with a sense of excitement that she knows is premature. Ever since her conversation with Professor Oak the night Red left home, she’s had few leads on the missing researchers he mentioned. Finding out as much as she could about Dr. Fuji was her first step, and looking for patterns in the other missing researchers was time consuming work that she nevertheless spent a few hours a week returning to. It was quickly clear that he was right, there were dozens of scientists and engineers who had quietly slipped out of the public eye around the globe, but the why and where to was still a mystery.
That Silph might be behind it all on top of everything else seems too good to be true, but assuming these people are off the grid, how many secret conspiracies involving missing researchers can there be?
Well, okay, probably a few…
Still, while without mention of contact with R&D this would just be a curiosity, with it she feels justified in forwarding the email to Sam. She adds some context of what it’s referring to, cluing him in on what’s been going on lately.
He answers within an hour, and sends her the link to some “cyber detectives” that will apparently work on this particular task for free. Laura’s brow rises. She wasn’t aware that he had so many connections in hacker circles, but it would be useful to have them as an extra resource, especially to work off of data her more traditional private detectives find.
Meanwhile, she checks the various locations where people are being housed. Mostly rural areas, apparently, the first of which is currently in Lavender Town.
Laura reaches out to one of her people in Saffron to ask if they would mind taking a quick vacation to the east. It might teach them nothing, but getting a visual of whoever is living at the house in Lavender could help string more clues together.
Something begins to bother her as she writes the email, like an itch in her mind. It feels like she’s forgetting something, but before she can devote attention to it…
Knock knock knock.
Laura glances at the door in surprise, then finishes typing her email out, sends it, and puts her computer to sleep to go check who it is. A quick look through the peephole reveals a nondescript man in a black suit, and after checking to ensure her stun baton is at hand beside the door, Laura opens it. “Hello, can I help you?”
“Laura Verres?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Silph humbly requests to speak with you.”
Laura stares at the man, heart suddenly thudding in her chest. “Right now? I’m rather busy at the moment, I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere.”
The man turns to the side, and Kazue Silph, president of the largest trainer supply company in the tri-region area, steps into view. The old man looks smaller in person than he does on television, but no frailer. His bearing is as confident and lively as Professor Oak’s, despite being at least ten years Sam’s senior, any stoop in his shoulders or back hidden by a perfectly tailored suit.
Not an ostentatious one, however. Laura has learned enough over the years to judge, interviewing people in everything from off-the-rack generic two-pieces, to designer, custom fit three-pieces, to those made of ridiculously expensive patented fabric blends.
The president of Silph Co. wears a plain tan two-piece suit, with a red bowtie. Fitted, no doubt, but with what looks like a basic fabric and simple buttons rather than the flashy ones many rich favor.
He’s also wearing a bowler hat, which he removes to reveal a balding crown of white hair. “Good evening, Mrs. Verres. I was hoping we could speak on some rather pressing matters.”
“On the record, or off?” she asks, hoping her face shows none of her shock or apprehension.
He smiles. It’s a good one, warming even his pale blue eyes. “Off, if you’d please.”
Laura only takes a few moments more to come to her decision. Whatever he wants to talk about, it’s better to know than not know. She steps back from her doorway, but he puts his hat back on. “Why don’t we go to the roof?”
“Of course. Let me just get my jacket.” She closes the door, then makes sure her phone is set to record before putting her jacket on, sticking her stun baton in a sleeve, and stepping into the hall. There’s another man in a suit standing outside, keeping his gaze on the hallway.
“Excuse me a moment,” she says, and goes to one of the neighbor’s doors, a student with a pet purrloin that Laura has cared for in the past while its owner was out of town.
Laura knocks, and when the young woman opens her door, Laura smiles in relief. “Hey Danni, would you mind watching my apartment for a moment?”
Her neighbor’s brow rises. “Sure. Got some food cooking?”
“Just have to step out for a bit.” She moves out of the way to let her neighbor enter the hall, and only catches her shocked expression in her periphery, watching Mr. Silph instead. The president is still smiling, but with a wry edge now, eyes meeting Laura’s as Danni stammers some greeting and throws Laura a confused look before disappearing into her apartment.
“Ready to go, now?” he asks once her door closes.
“Right this way,” she says and leads him and his retinue to the roof. The night isn’t really chilly, but she tightens the jacket around her middle anyway as they step away from the landing and teleportation areas and toward the railing at the edge. The president’s bodyguards stay a distance away, which she appreciates. She still feels like her pulse is a galloping rapidash in her throat as she waits for him to speak first.
They look out over the city together, watching as a huge noctowl and its rider soar down toward another building’s rooftop, wings flapping as it passes over theirs. Laura imagines she can see the concussive particles billowing outward as her hair and clothes stir. “I take it you’re not here to set the record straight on my article?” she says at last, impatience winning out. She doesn’t know what a billionaire’s time is worth, but she has work to get back to.
“Not officially, with this being off the record and all, but our statement about those allegations will be ready tomorrow. I don’t mind giving you a small scoop and letting you know that we’ll be conducting thorough internal investigations to get to the bottom of such troubling charges.”
Laura nods.
And to see where the leaks are coming from, no doubt.
“You’re here about my gardening column, then.”
He smiles. “You must think me a very dangerous man, Mrs. Verres.”
“What makes you say that?” she asks after a moment, trying not to let her wariness show.
He leans forward slightly, arms resting on the railing. “Your request of your neighbor was smoothly done, but entirely too cautious for a simple meeting with a businessman, however unethical you believe my employees may have acted. To say nothing of what’s likely distorting the shape of your jacket sleeve.”
Laura’s heart hammers faster as she realizes that he’s right. She might as well have held up a big flashing sign telling him how much wider her suspicions run than the simple accusations in the article. “I’m sorry, Mr. Silph, I didn’t think of how that would appear. I’m afraid I’m paranoid by nature, and after living in Pallet Town for so long, returning to the city has been a change I’m still getting used to. I meant no offense.”
“Of course. A woman on her own must look after herself.”
His demeanor is still affable, and she does a mental sidestep, imagining she’s in an interview so that she can more easily match it. “Remarks like that, which can be both reassuring and threatening, don’t help,” she says with a wry smile.
Mr. Silph chuckles. “You’re quite right. I apologize, I’m not here to threaten you, far from it. I’m here to warn you.”
“Still not helping.”
“Oh, not from me. From the source or sources of your information.”
“I’m sorry? I don’t know what you mean,” Laura says after waiting a second and knitting her brow together in confusion. She feels sweat on her neck and resists the urge to wipe it off.
“You do,” he says with steady assurance. “I won’t waste both of our time explaining how I know that you do. There are forces outside of your knowledge at work here. The information they’ve fed you that led to that article no doubt seemed genuine, and perhaps it was. If so I owe you and them some thanks, for identifying bad actors in my company. But I built said company out of nothing over the course of my life, and there are plenty of people who would love to see it torn down, taken over, or split into smaller, more easily manipulated parts, stifling its innovation and potential. I won’t let that happen.”
Laura is silent. He’s wrong if he thinks Laura’s informant wanted her to publish that article… or rather, that’s not the impression she got from their second meeting. Maybe that was just an act: it wouldn’t be particularly hard, with the voice filter and mask, to convincingly pretend to be upset about something.
“But you are just a pawn in this, I understand that,” he continues. “It is not your fault that you have been deceived, and so I’m offering you an opportunity to reveal the criminal who has attacked my employees, stolen our data, and, possibly, inserted misinformation to tie our resources and attention up in legal matters.”
“Mr. Silph, if there’s been some crimes committed against your company I would be happy to talk about and report on them,” Laura says, ignoring for now the implication that her informant is a violent vigilante. “I hope you don’t believe I’m on some personal vendetta against you or your company. I can’t reveal my sources, of course, but I assure you I did my best to fact check what I’ve written, and stand behind it, given what I currently know. If there’s some bigger picture that I missed, or some of it is in fact false, I’d be happy to write a retraction and set the record straight.”
“I appreciate that, Mrs. Verres, but there’s nothing a public article on these actions would accomplish that would benefit me on net, or you can be assured that they would already have been written and published. As I said, I’m simply here to warn you that you are consorting with a dangerous criminal, or an organization of them, one of whom has already ruined innocent lives to pursue her mission.”
Her?
“And what is that mission?” Laura turns to regard Mr. Silph fully. “If your company has been targeted by some criminal, that doesn’t mean there’s a connection with my story. What if they’re working independently?”
“That’s not your concern,” he says, voice gentle. “All that should matter now is that you assist police in apprehending whoever contacted you or provided you with the information you used. If you reveal whatever information you have now, I can assure you I will regard you as a tool, unwittingly used, and do my best to ensure you do not take any legal blame.”
Laura shakes her head. “You know I can’t reveal sources, on general principle.”
“I know no such thing,” he protests. “If you believe your sources innocent of any wrongdoing, your silence is commendable, but surely you have a different policy for being subpoenaed to testify against a proven criminal.”
“Or charged with aiding and abetting said criminal?” It’s remarkable how calm she feels now that she understands the general shape of the conversation and his goals.
“It’s certainly possible,” he says with a grave expression. “I would hope it does not come to that, however.” He does sound genuinely upset at the prospect, for what that’s worth.
Not much, on reflection. Shit. Shit shit
shit,
what did that masked maniac get her into? Have they really attacked Silph employees? And would she really be surprised if they did, considering their penchant for wearing disguises and climbing buildings?
“In a situation like that,” Laura says slowly, “I’m afraid I would still have to insist that I can’t be of any help, and hope the judge and jury believe me, even if you don’t, Mr. Silph. But I’ll certainly keep this conversation in mind, if I am at some point contacted by such a person.”
He turns to assess her quietly in the rooftop lights. After a moment he nods.
“I suppose that’s the best I can ask for. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Verres. I do hope our next meeting is under more pleasant circumstances.”
He takes his leave, but Laura stays on the roof a while longer, replaying and digesting their conversation again and again before remembering that she left her neighbor watching the apartment. She returns to it and thanks Danni for her help, then sits on her couch and tries to think past the suspicions and worries gnawing at her mind.
Despite trying to look into the ways the data was gathered, Laura is still unclear about who her informer is. Mr. Silph confirmed that they’re female, assuming his suspicion is correct. Maybe young, probably lives in Fuchsia, definitely highly skilled in physical, and possibly digital, infiltration… Laura never saw any pokeballs on her during their two meetings, but they might have been hidden inside her dark and bulky vest. But if Silph is right, he’s certainly been keeping things close to the chest himself: there haven’t been any news articles of attacks on Silph employees. Laura just doesn’t know enough, and she finds herself getting more and more angry at her informer for keeping her in the dark.
She’s also getting more and more nervous. There’s a feeling of something being off that keeps her on the edge of her seat, wanting to stand and pace or run through the apartment checking for someone who isn’t there. If she didn’t know that her apartment was bug free she’d think someone was listening in on her—
Laura suddenly goes rigid. How had it felt, when Red was using his powers on her?
Like someone standing in the room with you, who you can’t see…
Laura doesn’t quite feel like that, it’s not nearly so strong… but whether it’s her imagination or her limited psychic abilities warning her of a mental intrusion, she knows that
something is wrong.
She tries to control her breathing and think. What set her paranoia off? It started with her second meeting with her informer last night, carried on through this whole day… in a sense Mr. Silph’s visit should have confirmed to her that something outside of her control was coming, that’s what it feels like, it feels like
something is coming—!
Laura jumps to her feet and runs to her computer, heart pounding painfully in her chest as she grabs the flash drive, throws it to the floor, and smashes it with her heel. She keeps stomping on it until it’s a broken mess of plastic and silicon, then gets a plastic bag and scoops the pile into it, tying it off and going to her door.
She rests her forehead against the wood, listening. All is quiet. She can distantly hear the sounds of the city through her balcony door, and the bark of some growlithe or poochyena in the apartment a story above her.
She opens her door slightly, then looks out the hall. After checking both ways, she slips outside and locks it, then hurries down the stairs, pausing at each floor to glance down to the next. She’s not sure what she expects, exactly… Silph’s bodyguards in the stairwell, maybe, or police staking out the entrance to her building.
She sees neither, but walks through the city with the same lingering sensation of something being off. She wishes she’d paid more attention when the feeling started, so she could compare how it felt before to now: as it is, it’s too hard to recognize if she’s still sensing someone else in her mind, if that’s actually what she felt in the first place.
After she walks two blocks, ducking into stores with more than one entrance and leaving through others, she waits until she can walk through a crowd that’s passing by a garbage bin and quickly pours some of the broken flash drive into it. She doesn’t pause, just continuing to walk from one place to another and taking whatever opportunities she could to pour the rest of the bag’s contents out.
By the time she returns home she feels… better. Not much, but a little. She still feels like something is coming, but she feels much less unprepared now that she’s done something.
Laura takes the elevator up and enters her apartment, some more tension leaving as everything seems the way she left it. She does a quick check through the apartment again to make sure, then goes to her computer and sends off some more emails, including a recount of what happened to Peter so he has the heads up for a potential legal response from Silph.
Her contact from Saffron says he’s happy to take a trip to Lavender in a week or so, and after she sends confirmation and his payment, she finally turns the computer off and goes to bed for another night of tossing and turning.
The sense of unease lingers all the while, keeping her in a fitful doze as her clock ticks ever upward into the morning hours, and the other side of her bed feels as empty as it’s ever been.
BANG BANG BANG
Laura is awake and up in an instant, reaching for her hanging pokeball belt as her mind jolts her out of some nightmare and into a waking one.
“
Police! Open up!”
Laura freezes then looks at the clock. It’s eight thirty in the morning, and the police are at her door, and she has no idea why, and every idea why.
BANG BANG BANG
Laura jumps at the violent sound, hearing her door shake in its frame. “Just a minute!” she yells, throwing a robe on and hating the way her legs tremble as she goes to the door. It feels like she can’t get a full breath in as she presses her eye to the peephole, and it takes her a few tries to say, “Can I see some ID?”
The uniformed officer holds his badge up, and her hands quickly go to unlock her door. The Celadon police enter in force, five men and two women in full tactical gear, each with a pokemon on their shoulder or at their feet: two oddish, a spearow, a whismur, a growlithe, and she doesn’t see the rest as they all spread out and begin checking the apartment, and shouting out all-clears.
Laura turns back to a third woman, who has a bellsprout wrapped tight around her shoulders and neck, a warrant in one hand, and a pair of handcuffs in the other. Laura almost brings her hands behind her back reflexively, recognizing at the last second what a bad idea that would be and halting the motion. “Please,” she says, voice soft so that it doesn’t shake. “What is this? Why are you here?”
“Just an investigation, ma’am,” the officer says. “You’re not under arrest. This is to search the apartment and seize any potential evidence of criminal collaboration. I just need you to stay outside and detained for now.”
Laura wants to argue, but the look on the officer’s face makes her simply hold her wrists out. The metal closing around them feels surreal, and she waits in the hallway with the officer, leaning against the wall and trying to listen for what the police are doing inside her apartment. She hears doors opening in the hall as curious neighbors poke their heads out and are told to stay inside. Laura closes her eyes, leans her head back, and breathes, trying to combat the feeling of lightheadedness that’s accompanying the unreality of the situation. Fainting now would be embarrassing.
She keeps reminding herself that she’s safe. She hasn’t committed any crimes… unless the destruction of the flash drive would be considered obstruction of justice, but how could it be if she wasn’t even aware of an investigation when she did it? Oh Arceus, what if there were some pieces she missed in the rug? No, even then there’s no reason for her to be charged with anything, how would the police even know there was a flash drive? Unless they’ve somehow already gotten to Dom?
It feels like she’s in the hallway for perhaps ten minutes before she starts hearing the sounds of pokeballs opening. “What’s going on?” she asks the officer beside her in a whisper. She wants to talk louder, but she still feels short of breath.
“Assuming they didn’t find any other incriminating evidence, your computer, notes, and phone are likely being confiscated,” she says, keeping her gaze roaming the hallway.
Laura feels the words like a cold punch to the stomach. “Confiscated, for what? For how long? I need them to work.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t say. They may be returned to you in a few weeks, they may take longer.”
“Who accused me of this? Mr. Silph shows up at my apartment last night threatening legal action, and now you guys show up to bully me? Is that how it works?”
“I don’t know anything about that, ma’am.”
Stop talking, Laura.
She takes a deep breath, letting it out shakily. “I want to speak with my lawyer. His number is in my phone.”
The officer steps over to the doorway and knocks on it. “Bring her phone,” she tells one of the others who looks over.
Laura is handed her phone and a piece of paper and pencil. “Go ahead and write out any numbers you need.”
She glares at the officer, who stares blandly back. After a moment she looks through her phone and copies out the numbers for her lawyer, Peter, and Dom. Red’s she has memorized. After a moment she also copies out Sam’s. The handcuffs clink and rattle as she writes, then hands her phone back, watching it get carried away with an empty feeling in her chest.
Soon the officers begin filing out. “Thank you for your patience, ma’am. You’ll be contacted by the department soon. Please don’t leave the region in the next few weeks without informing us first.”
“That’s it?”
“For now, yes. We understand that you may not have been aware of who you were getting information from, but while the investigation and search for them is ongoing, you’re advised to call us immediately if you come into contact with them.”
Laura is uncuffed and handed a receipt for all the things that were taken. She checks her apartment to confirm that only those things are missing, feeling another, softer punch to the gut when she sees so many things moved out of place and disorganized, and her computer desk sitting empty. She wants to object that she doesn’t have time to check and make sure that none of her other things are missing, but she has a feeling they would wait patiently if she insists on looking through her closet and jewelry cabinet, and she just wants all this to be over so she can get to the next step. She signs it and watches them leave, rubbing at her wrists.
Laura hears a doorway open and turns to see Danni staring at her in apprehension. “Is everything okay, Mrs. Verres?”
“It’s fine, Danni,” she says, trying to smile. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you, hon.” Laura closes the door and goes to sit on her bed, staring blankly at the wall. It wasn’t too long ago that she warned Leaf about the perils of writing stories involving powerful people. She can repeat to herself as often as she wants that she’s innocent and won’t be charged with anything, let alone convicted… but looking around at her trashed apartment makes her innocence feel like a paper shield. Just being shocked awake like this, her home invaded, handcuffed, and having her things taken without warning, told she can’t leave the region, and overall treated like a criminal… it hurts.
It hurts.
Laura’s face works, lip trembling. She covers her eyes with her hands, and her shoulders shake, once, twice. After a minute she rubs her face and gets up to make some tea.
She sets about putting things back in place and getting dressed as it brews, then drinks a cup and heads out. She feels like people are watching her even though no one is in the halls. It’s a different sort of feeling than the night before though. That sense of impending doom is completely gone, ironically enough. Instead she just has a much more solid lump of worry in her stomach, a worry of things seen rather than unseen. She walks with her shoulders in an unconscious hunch, feeling utterly exposed and vulnerable, despite the new pokeball at her belt. It can’t protect her from the law, if the law has become corrupt.
She goes to the nearest electronic store and buys a new phone, wasting a precious hour going through the tedious paperwork for having “lost” hers so they can deactivate it and connect her new one. As soon as it’s powered up and synced, she checks the contacts to make sure she doesn’t need the numbers on the paper she wrote out, then tears it up and tosses it in two separate trash cans on the way home after buying a laptop too. She can only hope these won’t get seized in a couple days too.
Along the way she calls her lawyer and Peter, both of whom express surprise, sympathy, and words of encouragement: “You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride,” from her lawyer, meant to make her feel better about being over the hardest part, and “We’ll get that old bastard” from Peter, meant to make her smile. Both did, briefly.
She considers calling Red and Sam, but doesn’t want to bother them about it yet. Just the thought of telling Red makes her feel a little sick. If it all blows over soon, she’d rather not worry him at all, especially since he’s leaving on his cruise in a few days.
She gets home and sets her new computer up, every minor annoyance of the experience amplified by her impatience to get back to work. At least they left her mouse and keyboard so she didn’t have to buy new ones of those. The expenses from all this are already adding to her stress, but the inconveniences are what’s most irritating. It takes another hour for her to set up the new computer and connect her various emails and social media accounts again.
Meanwhile she calls Dom to ensure that he’s okay. She tells him what happened without mentioning the flash drive. He grunts a few times in response, and she knows he understands. There are new emails waiting for her when she finishes, and she spends the rest of the day trying to pick up the pieces of her investigations and side projects as best she can without the files on her computer, or her notebooks. She has an automatic backup for digital files, but it’s only scheduled to do so every week, and the past few days of work is gone. It’s hard not to be bitter about failing to plan ahead better, despite her action with the flash drive. If only she’d backed up her files too…
She feels a sudden disquiet as she remembers that the police will see much of the information she was working on. If they’re in Silph’s pocket, which she’d like to assume they’re not but knows she has to be ready for, it would mean the element of surprise is gone for many of the other articles she was planning on putting out. That new realization hurts nearly as bad as losing the computer did, and she takes a few minutes of angry pacing to vent her frustration as a new cup of tea brews, night falling over the city outside.
She’s still working to weave together the threads of her various non-Silph related projects when she hears a knock on her balcony door.
Laura bolts up and dashes to the living room, where she sees the informer on her balcony. Ice water floods her veins as she stares. What’s she
doing
here, she just came a couple nights ago!
She rushes to grab a piece of paper and scribbles a quick message on it, then goes to the balcony and holds the paper against the glass with one hand as she calls the police with the other.
“CPD, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello, there’s someone on my balcony!” Laura yells. “I think they’re trying to get in!”
The masked figure stares at the paper pressed against the glass, then turns and leaps over the balcony railing, falling down and out of sight.
Laura walks over to the kitchen as she gives the woman on the phone her address and puts the piece of paper in her sink, then lights a match and drops it on top. Some part of her feels regret that she’ll likely never know what the informant came to tell her. Whatever remains of the story, Laura will have to find it on her own.
She watches as the fire creeps over the paper and slowly turns its message to ash.
Silph knows about you, called you “her.” Police came and took computer/phone. Apartment may be watched.
Red wakes the morning after arriving at Aiko’s house to the sound of rain. He lifts his head in his sleeping bag and opens bleary eyes to see the grey sky through the glass, then turns over and drifts back to sleep, lulled by the steady drum on the roof and windowpane.
What next wakes him is the sound of conversation, and he sits up to see Leaf, Aiko, and Blue sitting in the living room and talking quietly as they eat from a common platter of bread, various soft cheeses, fruit, and vegetables.
“Morning,” Leaf says with a smile. “Hungry?”
“Mm, maybe in a bit.” He rubs his eyes. “What’s going on?” He checks his phone and sees it’s already almost noon.
“We were just talking about waiting out the rain, but the forecast says it’ll probably stay like this all day.”
Red smiles. “Well, that’s perfect. More time to…” He pauses and looks around.
“My dad’s downstairs,” Aiko says with a resigned look.
“More time to convince him to let you come.”
Leaf grins as Aiko sighs. “What?” Red asks.
“Welcome to the argument we’ve been having,” Leaf says. “She doesn’t want us to stay.”
“Not because you’re imposing,” Aiko insists. “I doubt Dad will say anything, since that would require him actually acting normal,” she says, voice bitter. “But you guys don’t have to stay just for me. He’s not going to change his mind.”
“We’re staying because we don’t want to get soaked,” Blue says. “But if by staying a little longer we
happen
to get you out of here too, that’s an added bonus. I still want my training partner.”
Aiko’s smile is brief, but she seems more relaxed. “Well if you’re going to spend the time anyway, I take back what I said yesterday. Feel free to say whatever you’d like to him.”
“I tried last night,” Leaf says, and fills them in on her conversation with Aiko’s dad. “Maybe one of you will have better luck. I’m going to give it another shot later too.”
“Let’s talk strategy, then,” Red says. Something about her mention of opening the ranch up as a petting zoo makes his mind reach toward an idea, but it’s too vague and shapeless for him to grasp it. “It seems like there are two separate issues here. One, Mr. Sakai has a lot of pokemon to take care of, and without Aiko here he might have trouble doing so. Two, Mr. Sakai is worried about her safety, and may not want her to leave at
any
point because of that. Is there anything you can tell us that might help, Aiko?”
Aiko looks at the three of them with some hesitation, but thinks it over as Red finally reaches out to grab some bread and spread cream cheese over it. “He’s really into pokemon welfare, obviously, but not just the ones we have here,” she says after a couple minutes. “Maybe if I can convince him that it’ll be better for other pokemon, that might help?”
“Right, and help you defend the ranch if needed.” Leaf says. “Maybe if we also sell it to him as you going out to find more pokemon that need a home?”
“Hang on, that just makes the first problem worse.” Blue practices spinning a pokeball across his knuckles as he leans back against the bottom of the couch. “What if we also try to do some crowdfunding, or see if any sanctuaries will take pokemon from here?”
“I think the second needs to be our main concern,” Red says as he places a tomato slice on the toast and bites into it, enjoying the mix of flavors. “And I might have a partial solution. Blue and Leaf, you’ve got some extra abra. If you’re okay with letting Aiko borrow one each, she can register one here and one wherever we are, then teleport back every morning and night to help with the chores. Could be a bit of a hassle, but better than nothing, right?”
“Sounds good to me,” Leaf says, and Blue nods. “But if safety is the true concern, she’d still be missing most of the day.”
“Oh, I’m gone most of the day anyway,” Aiko says. “That’s how I train my pokemon and catch new ones. But I don’t know if I want to lie to him, and I’d feel bad making you all wait for me if I suddenly had to teleport back here on short notice.”
Red shrugs and reaches for a new slice of bread. “We can adjust as needed. When we reach cities our pattern so far tends to be each of us doing our separate things for most of the time anyway, and travel between cities should be quicker now that we all have bikes.”
“It would mean being careful about how you schedule battles,” Blue points out. “Would suck to register for a Challenge match and then have your dad call and ask you to come home for the afternoon.”
“That goes back to the lying question.” Leaf lifts her legs up and hugs them to her chest. “How much does that bother you, Aiko?”
She bites her lip, staring out at the rain. “I’d like to avoid it,” she says at last. “It would make things so much easier to be able to just tell him the truth. Maybe the abra will be enough, and the other ideas will help too. Let’s try them and see.”
Everyone agrees, and Aiko smiles at them, one by one. “I just want to say again… thank you. Even if it doesn’t work out, it means a lot to me.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re a trainer, same as us,” Blue says. “We’re in this together.”
“Speaking of which, what can we do in the meantime?” Leaf asks. “What are your chores on a rainy day?”
“Cleaning the house, upstairs and down. Oh, and medical checkups for each of the pokemon, one at a time,” Aiko says. “That would probably go faster if one of you came with me. But also, feel free to just relax here, since you’re all guests.”
The trio ignores her, looking at each other instead. “You guys go,” Red suggests. “You have more experience taking care of pokemon.”
“Then you should go, you have more to learn.”
“Fire-Water-Grass?” Blue suggests.
Red and Leaf immediately hold a fist out, and Red has just a second to predict what the other two will do.
Leaf might go Grass, but Blue isn’t going to go Water… he might think I’ll go Fire though… Unless he thinks Leaf is going Grass too?
“Best two out of three?”
“Nah, let’s just give it one go, elimination style,” Blue says. “Ready? Set?”
Red considers reaching out to Leaf’s mind, but doesn’t have time as the other two begin to bounce their fists. “Fire, Water, Grass, GO!” everyone yells, and Red tosses out Water, hoping to at least beat Blue.
Leaf’s fingers come up with their points together in a water droplet shape too, while Blue’s fingers splay upwards in Fire. “Dammit.”
Leaf turns to Red with a smile, and his heart beats faster as he meets her gaze.
Ok, so if she just went Water she probably won’t go it again, right? No, most people stick with what works for them, expecting others to think they’ll shift…
“Fire, Water, Grass, GO!”
Red opens his hand palm up and fingers curled, then grins and captures Leaf’s water drop with it. “Mm, tasty.”
She grins and stands up. “Cleaning it is, then. Come on Blue, let’s go strategize. See you guys later.”
“Later.” Aiko leads Red to the medical room, which looks like the biggest on the second floor. Red’s impressed by how well stocked it is, and feels like he stepped into a miniature pokemon center. “Wow. You know how to use all this stuff?”
“Yeah, my mom taught me.” Aiko begins turning various pieces of equipment on, explaining what each one does as she goes. Red follows along as best he can, distracted. He wonders if it bothers her, sharing the room that was her and her mother’s with someone else.
Most of the medicines are familiar to him from his first-aid training of their field application forms, the common “potion” bottles that come in various formulations to heal not just generic open wounds, but also tissue damage from burns, hypothermia, electric shocks, and poisoning or toxicity. What’s new is learning about the proper dosages of the newer substances meant to be injected rather than applied topically, and the operation of the recovery tanks that can be filled with various fluids to immerse the pokemon completely if needed.
“Does your dad know a lot about this stuff too?” he asks as she goes over to the stacked ball trays where the ranch pokemon due for inspection are waiting.
“Yeah, at least as much as I do,” Aiko says as she takes a ball off its tray and releases the rattata from it. “He’d be fine on his own for taking care of them, other than the time investment… but a lot of that is because of how committed he is to letting them out of their balls as often as possible.” She gives the pokemon a moment to adjust to its surroundings, then scratches its back and carries it over to the table.
“I have to admit, I don’t really get that,” Red says. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just let them out in smaller amounts?”
“Believe me, I’ve tried talking to him about it. He just repeats that they want to be free, to live their lives. I sort of understand where he’s coming from, it feels wrong in a way to put their lives on hold just for our convenience. But working himself to death won’t help them.” She gets a second ball from the tray and brings it to him. “There’s another rattata in here, they’re brothers. For rattata you gotta check their teeth first, make sure they’re not loose or chipped from biting something too strong for them. Then their paws…”
Red takes the second rattata out and checks it over too, following her lead. His is very mellow, seemingly fine with its sterile surroundings and happy to nuzzle his fingers as he checks it over. Red smiles and feels an acute stab from the loss of his own rattata.
“…lesions and scabs from too much scratching is a problem, so just run your fingers through their fur and make sure. That’s pretty much it for them.”
Red dutifully mimics her, then has a thought. “Hey, would it be okay if I test my powers out a bit? It could help in diagnosing.”
Aiko’s eyes widen. “You can do that? That’s so cool!” She blinks. “Uh, it’s not harmful to them, is it?”
“Nope, unless they’re psychic they won’t even notice.”
She grins. “Go for it!”
Red smiles at her clear excitement, chest puffing out a bit as he focuses his mind. He feels an urge to extend his hand at the rattata, do something visual to let her know when he’s starting…
It takes him just a few moments to sense the rattata’s mind, then merge with it. The fresh wave of grief is distracting, but not enough to keep him from marveling over the way the rattata body-sense fills his awareness. Red feels the same doubling he did on the roof with his abra, of hearing everything in the room twice, both from his own ears and the rattata’s much stronger hearing. And the
smells
…
Red pulls his mind back with a gasp, hand clutching his nose even as the sensation fades, was never really in his nose at all. It’s in his mind now, an impossible blend of nuanced, layered scents that he can’t even begin to interpret or understand. Even as he tries to remember it, the memory of its complexity fades. He wishes he could talk to his dad about this, they’d discussed what it would be like to be a pokemon many times when Red was young…
“Are you okay, Red?” Aiko asks, voice hushed.
He wipes at his cheeks. “Yeah, sorry. Side effect of my power.”
“To cry?”
“It makes me remember my dad. How it felt when he died.” It’s getting a little tiring having to constantly explain that to others, but also less embarrassing than it used to be, which he supposes is a good sign.
Aiko is quiet for a while as she plays with the rattata. “That must be painful. I still cry about my mom, sometimes.”
Red nods. “Your dad, did he… is this how he always was, or did it happen afterward?”
“After, but not right away. I think. It was hard to notice right afterward, because… well, I wasn’t really noticing much. I think he held it together a little for my sake, and my aunt came to stay with us and helped too, but once I started to get better, he just began to retreat more and more into himself and the pokemon.”
“I’m sorry,” Red says as he watches the two rattata begin to playfully bat at each other. He hesitates, then says, “Feel free to let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds or saying something clueless or too obvious…”
Aiko smiles. “Alright.”
“It sounds like something he could use help with. Did he ever see a therapist about it?”
“Ah. Yeah, I thought of that, but not until it was really obvious that something was wrong. I brought it up maybe two times, but it’s hard to have a serious conversation with him. He just let it slide off and ignored it, like everything else.”
“Figured. Just thought I’d ask.” The nebulous idea from before solidifies a little bit, but he still can’t quite make its shape out. Something about the idea of a petting zoo being good for her dad…
“It’s appreciated. Are you seeing one?”
“Yeah, same one from when I was younger. We talk online, since she’s back in Pallet.”
“And is using your powers to relive the feeling part of your treatment?”
Red scratches beneath his hat. “Uhh, not exactly?”
Aiko frowns at him. “Well, you don’t have to put yourself through that, then. Our normal diagnostic tools should be fine.”
“I’m trying to keep practicing my powers so I can advance my abilities enough to master free teleportation. That means not getting overwhelmed by the feeling of the pokemon’s body so I can concentrate more on its mind.”
Aiko’s eyes shine with renewed fascination, but quickly turn skeptical again. “That seems like a bit of a risk, doesn’t it?”
“A calculated risk.” Red shrugs, then smiles lopsidedly. “If I wanted to play it safe, I wouldn’t be on my journey at all.”
She smiles back. “No argument on that here. So, you can feel what they feel? What’s that like? Did you sense anything wrong?”
“Oh, no, he didn’t seem to be in any pain.” He goes on to explain the feeling of inhabiting two bodies at once as they finish up with the rattata, then move on to checking over an oddish and a meowth as Aiko goes over the standard care checks for them too. Red continues to use his powers as best he can to see how the pokemon feel, bracing himself for the unusual sensations and fringe senses that he can handle, as well as the compounded grief that follows.
At first he has his doubts about how long he can exert himself before it gets too overwhelming. It’s Aiko that keeps him going: she seems to have taken his earlier pronouncement about risks to heart, trusting him to know what he’s doing. Even when things get obviously bad and he starts to sniffle or occasionally sob, she continues to work and act like nothing’s wrong. It grounds him somehow, helps let the feelings go each time.
Little by little, Red feels himself get better at discerning whatever sensory input he gets from the various pokemon they check over. He doesn’t expect to get much from a bellsprout, with its unique physiology, and is shocked when he’s able to receive not just the flood of flavors that fill its gaping mouth and act like a mix of taste and smell, but also the tension in the whip-thin vines of its limbs. The tension slowly fades as it wraps them around Aiko’s hand, and the pokemon feels… relaxed. Her hand is like a firm anchor for what feels to him like a frighteningly frail body: to Red the bellsprout almost feels like it’s standing up instead of climbing, in terms of how comfortable it is, which is so counterintuitive at first pass that he laughs out loud when he realizes how well it fits, a brief shine of sunlight in the dark clouds filling him. Aiko listens in fascination as he explains, but doesn’t seem as surprised.
Still, the amazement from such sensations and discoveries can only distract him for so long before the dense pit in his stomach starts to weigh too heavily, the aching emptiness in his chest open too wide. His speech becomes more monotone and brief, and he starts spending periods of time simply staring into the distance or shutting his eyes against the tears, overwhelmed. When it gets so bad that Red can’t bring himself to connect with a new pokemon and refresh the grief, he asks if he can take a break instead.
“Of course, yeah,” Aiko says as she finishes checking over a female nidoran. “I should take a break too, actually, we’ve been here for a couple hours now.”
She’s probably just being polite. “Time flies,” Red mutters, and Aiko gives him a concerned look. He forces a smile that probably doesn’t look convincing, then goes to his pokeball belt. He finds Pichu’s ball and releases him, smiling more naturally as the electric mouse looks around, then climbs his arm to perch on his head.
Red goes to the living room couch and brings Pichu down to sit in his lap.
He’s getting bigger.
Red remembers when the pokemon fit in both of his palms cupped together, and feels a bit wistful. His pokemon won’t stay a pichu forever. Red should really get around to naming him… his failure to really nickname any of his pokemon is feeling more and more like a failing as a trainer the longer he takes.
Red hears the sound of another pokeball opening back in the medical room, and after a moment Aiko comes out to join him in the living room. With her is…
Red blinks, then blinks again as she gets closer. She’s carrying an eevee, which is surprising enough considering how rare they are, but its coloration is very light. In fact… “Is that…?”
Aiko smiles as she sits beside him, the fluffy fox settling in her lap too. It’s over twice as big as Pichu, though the thick fur around its neck and tail make up a lot of that. What has Red staring is the way the fur shines silver in the light. “You have a shiny eevee?” he asks in awe.
Red has seen “shiny” pokemon before, of course… through online videos and in movies, mostly, though also a couple at Pallet Labs, as their unconventional coloring makes the pokemon, estimated conservatively at one-in-a-thousand rarity, subject to intense scientific curiosity.
As far as anyone has been able to tell, their uniqueness is purely aesthetic. While legends and stories often mark pokemon of importance with unique coloring, no one has been able to establish any clear advantage in their abilities, and despite breeders’ best efforts, the trait doesn’t appear obviously hereditary.
As a result, they’re mostly in demand by collectors and as pets rather than by battle trainers, who often trade them for stronger or rarer pokemon. Even unusually colored rattata are collected by people who consider shinies lucky. For a species as rare as eevee in the first place, however…
“It must be worth thousands,” Red murmurs. Aiko’s smile slips, and he winces. “Sorry, I mean it’s beautiful, and I’m just really surprised, and—”
Aiko chuckles. “It’s okay, Red.”
“What’s its name? And is it a boy or girl?”
“Girl, and I haven’t named her yet. It feels weird doing so before she evolves, considering how different she might turn out in each form.”
Red reaches a hand out, looking at Aiko for permission. She nods, and he strokes the soft fur between its ears. “Where did you get her?”
“We had a client a couple years back who wanted us to breed their eevee for a few months. They got some babies out of it, but got charged for selling on the black market just before this one was born. Happens once in a while when people use small ranchers like us.”
“Woah. So you got to keep them?”
“Not all. The previous births and the mating pair legally passed on to their family, but our contracts work on a first-buy-option guaranteed to the client for each birth, and it’s voided if the buyer is charged with any crimes related to pokemon mistreatment.”
Red smiles. “Good clause to have in there.”
Aiko strokes the eevee’s fur, gaze adoring. “It was a surreal couple of weeks, first seeing such a gorgeous and rare shiny born, then finding out that the client might have been mistreating the others,
then
realizing we’d get to keep this one. I’ve been raising and training her ever since.”
“Training? You didn’t list her among your pokemon.”
“Yeah, I don’t take her outside the ranch.”
“Makes sense, that would be a pretty huge risk.”
Aiko rolls her eyes, and Red blinks. “What?”
“You just did it again.”
“Did what?”
“Thinking of her in monetary terms.”
“I didn’t… okay yeah I guess I did. But it
is
a risk, isn’t it?”
Aiko reaches up and flicks his nose.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Think about it. You’re a smart guy.”
Red stares at her in bewilderment as she scratches the eevee’s long ears, smiling down into its face as it squirms in pleasure. He wants to point out that he’s in a shitty mood and just ask her to just tell him what he did wrong, but…
You’re a smart guy.
Red frowns down at Pichu, rubbing his fur. There’s a tone of flippant challenge in her words that he hasn’t heard in a while. Blue would just tell him why he’s wrong, and Leaf would explore it with him, teasing the answer out. He tamps down on his annoyance and tries to pattern match. Aiko’s views on pokemon remind him of Leaf’s, but she’s a battle trainer, like Blue. He doesn’t know if Blue would hold sentimental value for any of his pokemon, but the motivation feels off: it was the pokemon’s monetary worth Red referenced, not the connection with Aiko.
Pichu nuzzles his palm, and Red takes a cheri berry out to dampen the pokemon’s electricity generation again. Red doesn’t plan on using him for combat anytime soon because he’s too young and weak, but when he evolves, would he? What would it say about his other pokemon if Red decides not to?
“I think I get it,” Red says. “Not using Eevee in combat would mean admitting that you value her more than your other pokemon, who you are willing to put in harm’s way.”
Aiko winks. “Attaboy.”
“But if that’s the case, why not take her outside the ranch when you travel?”
“She seems really weak, for an eevee. Gets tired quickly, can’t run fast. I try to make sure all my pokemon can at least defend themselves, but she’s still not ready for actual fights.”
Red frowns, dredging up what he knows of eevee. “That’s not right, she looks like she’s well past adolescence.” He takes his pokedex out and checks for maturity signs and expected growth rates, then reaches out a hand to stroke the eevee’s mane, testing its thickness. “Yeah, this eevee should be ready for fights by now.”
Aiko’s expression is blank. “Well, I guess I’ll try training her harder, then,” she says. “Thanks for the feedback.”
He looks up at her, blinking. “Oh, no, I wasn’t criticizing you! I’m just saying something might be wrong with her.”
Now she looks wary. “What do you mean? We had her checked out when she was born, nothing came up.”
“Hmm. Maybe it’s not something obvious. Hang on.” Red checks internally to see how he feels, then closes his eyes and extends his mind to the eevee’s. He feels warmth first, its thick fur surrounding it in cozy heat as it cuddles Aiko’s legs. Warmth, safety, affection and—
Red gasps in pain as the eevee takes a breath, and the connection breaks. His hand probes his chest.
“Red? You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He looks at the eevee’s cute face as it looks up at Aiko with loving, bright eyes, giving no hint of the pain it’s in. He shoves his despair down as best he can to speak clearly. “It’s her lungs. They’re really weak, every breath is a painful struggle.”
Aiko stares at him in horror, then quickly removes the eevee from her lap and puts it on the couch, voice hushed. “Oh gods, I didn’t know!” She takes out its ball. “I’m so sorry, Eevee, I’m so sorry, return!”
Pichu flinches at the sound of the ball activating and returning the eevee, and Red comforts him with a backrub. “Hey, it’s okay Aiko— ”
“It’s
not
okay! I didn’t realize she was in so much pain, I never would have made her stay outside her ball all the time and trained her if I knew!” Aiko walks back and forth, short dark hair clutched in her hands.
Red places Pichu aside and stands, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, hey! Relax! Everything’s fine. You have a trainer’s license now, right? Just take her to a pokemon center when we reach Vermilion.”
“What if they can’t cure her?” she asks, eyes flicking back and forth between his. “What if I made it worse?”
“Then that wasn’t your fault either,” Red insists. “You didn’t know. And for all we know she would have died without getting enough physical activity. If you insist on blaming yourself, at least wait until you know for sure.”
Aiko takes a deep breath. “Alright, you’re right, okay.” Red lets her go, and Aiko sits back on the couch. “It’s okay, Eevee,” she murmurs, stroking the pokeball on her belt. “You’ll be healed up soon.”
Red sits back down, feeling a bit awkward. Pichu crawls onto his lap, sniffing inquiringly, and he smiles before lifting his pokemon up and depositing him on Aiko’s shoulder. She twitches and giggles as the mouse begins sniffing at her ear, slowly relaxing.
Eventually she offers Pichu back, and stands. “Thanks Red. I’m going to get back to work. You should rest up, you’ve done enough.”
For a moment it sounds appealing to just sit with Pichu and stew in his lingering sadness, but having actually used his powers to help someone is invigorating in a unique way.
What would Future Red want me to do?
“No way, I’m coming too.” Red deposits Pichu onto his cap and gets up, feeling the mouse’s claws clutch the hat as he’s suddenly lifted. “I’m feeling a little better, and I don’t need my powers to learn.”
If there’s one thing no one can accuse Blue of, he reflects, it’s lacking persistence. Sure, there are some less flattering words for it: “stubborn,” according to Daisy, or “obstinate” as Red put it a time or two. But the bottom line is, when he wants something, no matter how difficult it is, Blue Oak doesn’t give up.
Blue is starting to wish he were the kind of person who gives up.
He and Leaf joined Aiko’s dad downstairs almost two hours ago, and offered to help him clean out the various pokemon dens. Mr. Sakai expressed quiet gratitude, gave out the occasional instruction or advice, and for all else said basically nothing of any substance, no matter how much Blue and Leaf talked about their journey, Aiko, safety precautions they take, and any combination of them that felt natural… and eventually some that didn’t.
Through it all, even when trying to engage Mr. Sakai directly, the answers remained persistently passive:
“It’s been years since I took the underground. Very quick and clean.”
“Very smart, isn’t she? Aiko’s always been a fast learner.”
“Oh, yes, the Rangers do great work. Always so professional.”
By lunchtime Blue’s eye is twitching, and Leaf looks torn between exasperation and amusement as she watches him get more and more direct, with as little effect as ever.
“Yeah, I think we’ll be in Vermillion in no time,” he says loudly as he stares at Mr. Sakai, hands moving automatically to scoop and bag the dirty straw in his pen. “Between the subway and the Ranger Outpost after it, I bet we won’t even spend a single night in the wild.”
“Vermilion is a very interesting city, you know,” Mr. Sakai says from the other side of the room, eyes on his own work. “Lots of history there. I loved to watch the boats, when I was younger.”
“Sure would be nice if Aiko came with us,” Blue goes on, unaware that the bag he’s holding is full as he tries to shovel more straw into it. He frowns as Leaf grabs the bag from him and hands him a new one, then looks down at the mess and sighs. “Why, she’d be able to teleport back every night for dinner, thanks to all the abra we’ve caught.”
“Oh, Aiko can’t possibly go just yet. She just got back.”
“Seems like most fathers might be grateful their kid was journeying with others that could enable her to still be home so often.”
“Soon. She’ll be ready soon.”
Blue’s mouth opens to respond just as his phone chimes. He fumes silently for a moment, considers ignoring it, then checks the ID. “It’s gramps,” he says with some surprise.
“Go on,” Leaf says, shooing him away. “Tell him I said hi.”
Blue heads to the stairs and sits on the bottom one. He hears Leaf start some other line of conversation as he checks his grandfather’s message.
Hello Blue! Where are you all located currently?
at aikos house. stuck in rain. everyone says hi.
I wondered why you were all still in one place. I just wanted to tell you all to be sure to check the site for a big announcement in about an hour!
whats the announcement?
That would ruin the surprise! Send my regards to everyone!
Blue sighs. He’s about to put his phone away, then has a thought.
we have a situation here actually. aikos dad doesnt want her to go on journey. they take care of a lot of pokemon and he’s kind of
Blue pauses, wondering what the best way to put it is.
overprotective of her and the pokemon. and hard to talk to. advice?
I hope you’ve tried showing him that she would be among competent and supportive friends through your actions there?
ya its not working though. he also seems dependant on her mentally. but gotta be something we can do. maybe u can come by and talk to him?
There’s no response for a minute, and Blue is about to return to cleaning when his phone buzzes again.
I’m sorry, Blue. That sounds like a complex problem, and a personal one. It might be best to let Aiko and her father work it out among themselves.
Blue frowns. No, he won’t accept that. Aiko is going to be a great trainer, and the sooner she starts her journey the better she’ll become. Leaving it to her dad is not an option.
new idea. got any refurbishes left lying around?
Yes, a couple.
lemme buy one
Another long pause, then,
You have a good heart, Blue. This one’s on me: should be there by the end of the day, depending on weather.
Blue feels a blossom of warmth and pride in Gramps.
thanks.
He thinks of writing something else, struggling to find the right words, then just puts his phone away and returns to Leaf. They spend another half hour cleaning, during which he alternates between thinking of new ways to approach the topic with Aiko’s dad and analyzing her command code from their battle. It can’t be some simple derivative of a high level code, Red doesn’t pay attention to that stuff and he figured it out right away… What do “Sand Attack” and “Poison Powder” have in common that both can be called “Ero?”
They’re not the same type, they don’t have the same effect, they do have the same range, roughly… But coding attacks by their range would be a terrible idea. Or would it? His thoughts meander down that path for a while to examine the potential tactical benefits.
Eventually Mr. Sakai goes to prepare lunch. Blue and Leaf head upstairs to see Aiko and Red, who are finishing up their examinations of the ranch’s pokemon. Red’s pichu is playing with some toy made of yarn on the floor, and Leaf immediately sits on the floor to play with it while Blue drops onto the room’s one chair.
“Got a message from Gramps,” he says. “Something about a package he’s having delivered here and a new thing on his site.” He takes his phone out and opens the Pallet Labs website, refreshing the front page every so often to see whatever his grandfather was talking about. “Not sure what he’s sending, probably our birthday gifts.”
“When is it, six days away, right?” Leaf asks.
“Five, for me,” Red says.
“You guys were born a day apart?” Aiko asks.
“Yeah, our moms were in the maternity wing together,” Blue says. “That’s how we got our names.”
“What were you going to be called otherwise?” Leaf asks. “Before they saw your eye color, I mean.”
“Satoshi, apparently,” Red says, then looks at Blue curiously.
“Shigeru, my sister said.” He remembers so little about his parents, but Daisy was old enough when they died to remember everything. She used to hold him at night when he had trouble sleeping, tell him about them, answer any questions he had.
The memory makes his chest ache. It’s been a long time since he thought of that.
“What?” Red asks, and it takes Blue a moment to realize he’s talking to Leaf.
Her nose is wrinkled, but she’s grinning. “They’re not bad names or anything, it’s just weird thinking of you as anything else. There’s such a wide range of names in this region.”
“Hey, here it is,” Blue says as the page refreshes and a new article shows up. “Something about Flying Type research…” He turns the volume up so they can all listen to the interview.
There’s a fascinated silence throughout it, and Blue smiles as it becomes clear that there
is
evidence to back up the idea of a Flying Type. He looks at Red, expecting a frown or look of confusion, but his friend is grinning wide, eyes distant in that way he gets when he’s thinking about something too much. Sure enough he leaps for his bag and takes his notebook out, not even pausing in his scribbling as he’s mentioned by name.
The mention of gyarados being Flying type makes Blue forget all about Red, however, and reach for the type chart in his own bag, mind racing as he considers the implications. How often do people use electric or rock attacks against gyarados, so they could observe its effect? Sending a Rock type out against a Water pokemon that strong would often be considered suicidal, and Electric attacks seem to be weak against Dragons… but if gyarados
isn’t
a dragon… no, that’s ridiculous…
“Alright then, we hope to have you back on soon with more to share!” the interviewer says before the video ends, and everyone starts speaking at once.
“This is
so cool
I can’t believe I wasn’t there for that—”
“Flying wingsuits, that’s going to be
so much fun
—”
“This is going to change so much about how Flying attacks are used—”
“I wonder how the particles interact with electricity—”
“So much for your ‘Flying isn’t a Type’ theory, right?” Blue asks with a smirk.
Aiko raises a brow, but Red just keeps smiling. “That’s why this is so exciting! The Flying Type makes so much more sense, now!”
“Except for flygon not being Flying Type,” Aiko says. “What’s up with that?”
“Or gyarados?” Leaf asks.
“Yeah, I’m not buying it,” Blue says. “Lance is the strongest Dragon trainer in the Indigo League, you’d think he’d notice if gyarados aren’t actually Dragons.”
“They can use so many Dragon attacks,” Aiko says. “But non-Psychic pokemon can sometimes use Psychic attacks, so…”
“Is there any pokemon that is considered a Type but doesn’t learn any attacks from that Type?” Leaf asks.
“What, like a Fire pokemon that can’t use any Fire moves? Not off the top of my head,” Aiko says. “Maybe shedinja?”
“Shedinja are just weird altogether,” Blue says. “But I don’t think they fit.”
“Wait, I got one,” Aiko says. “Togedemaru doesn’t naturally learn any Steel attacks.”
“What, really? Gyro Ball?”
“Needs a TM.”
“Huh.” Blue frowns. “It should be able to learn it. It would barely hurt anyone with how small it is, though, so maybe no one’s tried hard enough.”
“The same can be said of gyarados,” Red says. “Maybe it can learn some Flying attacks, now that we know this and people actually try teaching it Flying attacks. Not sure it counts, but with how big it is, just launching into the air and landing on an enemy would probably be pretty strong. Knowing there’s precedent makes it easier to accept that it might be Flying in general. But!” Red holds a finger up. “There’s a much more obvious solution.”
“What’s that?” Aiko asks. Blue has his suspicions, and sure enough:
“Just stop thinking of pokemon as only having two Types.”
Blue sighs. “For the millionth time, if a pokemon could have three types why haven’t any obvious ones shown up? Like, there’s no Fire and Water and Flying type. Or an Electric and Rock and Bug type. Or a Grass and Ghost and Ice type.”
“Or Dragon and Flying and Fire type?” Red asks with a brow raised, tapping Charmander’s pokeball. “There could be a hundred reasons those particular combinations don’t exist, this is just semantics mixed with confirmation bias.”
The argument gets more animated from there, until at some point Aiko’s dad actually comes out to check on them, looking mildly surprised at the commotion. They stop and turn to him.
“Lunch is ready,” he says after a moment.
“Oh, alright, thanks Dad.” He’s about to leave when Aiko smiles. “Hey, guess what? There’s a new discovery at Pallet Labs that explains how Flying pokemon work.”
Mr. Sakai turns back, eyebrows rising further. “How do they work?”
She explains, and he leans against the door frame, eyes distant. “Fascinating. It explains doduo.”
Blue blinks, then laughs. “You think they’re a Flying type?”
“Makes sense,” Red says. “Now that we know about these particles, it explains where all that wind comes from when they jump so high.”
Mr. Sakai nods. “Precisely. Their biology is in all respects avian but for their lack of wings.”
Blue looks back and forth between them with growing horror. “But… but they can’t fly! They can’t be a Flying Type if they can’t fly!”
“It’s just a label,” Aiko says. “But, yeah, I mean, maybe we should call it something else. Otherwise this kind of makes it clear there’s a problem with the Type system.”
“Ha-HAAaa!” Red points at Blue, who facepalms. “Suck it, Blue! I didn’t even talk to her about it!”
Blue’s response is interrupted by noticing Leaf’s startled look, and Red claps his hand over his mouth a second later and looks at Aiko’s father, face mortified.
Mr. Sakai doesn’t appear to have heard him though, or maybe he’s just retreated back to whatever cloud his brain seems to constantly float on. “Fascinating,” he murmurs again, and wanders off toward the kitchen.
They all look at each other a moment, then get up to follow him as Aiko asks Red what he didn’t talk to her about. As Red begins to explain, he fails to notice Pichu dashing around his feet until Leaf picks the pokemon up and deposits him on Red’s hat, causing it to tip down into Red’s eyes as the pokemon crawls onto the bill. Blue grabs his shoulder to stop him from walking into the wall, grinning as his friend curses and lifts his hat off to give his pokemon a baleful look.
They arrive at the table and start to eat. Blue feels some disappointment as he looks over the available food. At first the lack of meat didn’t bother him much: he’s eaten trail rations that didn’t have any, after all, and these dishes actually tasted pretty good. But no matter how well made or how much noodle, cheese, fruit, and vegetables he eats, there’s an oddly unsatisfied pang in his stomach. He wonders if he should grab a strip of beef jerky from his bag, then decides to wait until after the meal.
And people say I don’t have tact…
Speaking of which, it’s time to reopen negotiations. “This is really good, Mr. Sakai,” he says as he adds some more sauce. “Have you given any thought to making trail rations? They’d probably be a lot more appealing than the non-pokemon ones we have.”
“Oh, thank you, but I wouldn’t have time to care for the pokemon then.”
“But if you spend just a little time setting things up to start making money, you could use it to hire a worker to help out here. Aiko could be free to leave then, and even act as a traveling advertisement for the brand.”
“Aiko, leave? No, no, the pokemon need her.”
“Actually, we have a solution to that too,” Blue says, suppressing a sigh as he repeats yet again, “We have enough abra to let her port back and forth from here. She can still help out with the pokemon every night and morning.”
Mr. Sakai doesn’t respond, merely lifting his forkful of food to his mouth and chewing slowly. Blue feels a lick of heat in his chest. “Did you hear me? Mr. Sakai?”
“Hmm?”
“Abra. Aiko can use them to leave with us and still help with the pokemon.”
“Soon,” Aiko’s dad murmurs, fork twirling in the noodles. “She’ll be ready to leave soon.”
“Have you given any thought to my idea?” Leaf cuts in before Blue can respond. “Turning this place into a petting zoo would bring in extra help for the pokemon, and more funds to expand.”
Mr. Sakai continues twirling his noodles slowly, eyes down. “It is an interesting idea… perhaps…”
They all wait in hopeful silence, but when it becomes clear that her father won’t continue, Aiko clears her throat. “You would also be less lonely,” she says, voice quiet. “When I go on my journey.”
The twirling stops, then resumes. “Many years yet on that.”
“It might also help now,” Aiko continues, sounding a bit more desperate. “There are a lot of kids out there who would enjoy spending time with pokemon—”
“That’s it!”
They all look at Red as he leaps up, eyes shining with excitement. “What’s it?” Blue asks.
“Uh. Sorry. But, be right back!” Red is already dashing from the room. “I have to make a call!”
Blue frowns at his retreating back, but decides not to let the ball drop. “Aiko and Leaf are right, you could get a lot of people to help out here if you try. Then you won’t need her to stay.”
The conversation continues fruitlessly until Red returns, eyes bright as he sits down. “Mr. Sakai, I have a business proposition for you,” he says, cutting the conversation off.
Aiko’s dad turns to him. “Oh?”
“I was talking with my therapist just now because I had an idea for a new kind of service. See, I lost my dad a few years ago, and it still hurts a lot to think about it,” Red says, tone and face becoming more subdued. “My therapist told me to spend more time with my cuddliest pokemon, and it’s been helping. I was wondering if spending time with the pokemon here helps you when you feel sad about your wife?”
In unison, Blue, Aiko, and Leaf turn to Mr. Sakai, who is staring at his mostly empty plate. A long, silent pause goes by… and then a nod.
“So I was thinking,” Red continues as everyone turns back to him, “Why doesn’t there exist a place where kids or adults who have lost someone they love can spend time with safe, tame pokemon, and take care of them, and maybe feel better? My therapist said she never heard of a place like that, because most pokemon daycares and ranches are focused on efficiency and training and breeding, but since you’re
already
running a ranch that lets the pokemon stay out and just enjoy their time outside their balls, you could be the
first ever
pokemon therapy ranch, and my therapist said she knows of at least two colleagues in Cerulean and Saffron who would love to work with you and help anyone who comes engage in play therapy.”
Red finishes all in one breath, then takes a deep one, watching Mr. Sakai with a gaze that almost seems to bore into him. Blue wonders if his friend is using his powers to get a sense of the man’s mood, and he briefly wonders if he’s using some kind of mental manipulation. The thought suddenly alarms him: Blue wants Mr. Sakai to say yes, but not through mind control… even if real mind control is a myth, projecting emotions onto someone against their will feels similarly bad.
Red wouldn’t do that,
Blue thinks, even as he wonders whether his friend would tell them if he’d learned how.
Mr. Sakai is sitting still, chest rising and falling with his breaths. After an endless silence, he slowly turns his head. “Do you think this would be good, Aiko?”
“I do,” his daughter says, voice firm. “For both the pokemon and people that come. Being with the pokemon helped me a lot too, after…”
“And it can bring more money in,” Leaf says. “So you can hire more help, or expand the farm.”
Again, a long silence. Blue resists the urge to jump in too and say something about Aiko, worried it would return her dad to his rote responses.
Finally, a nod. “Yes. It seems good. I think… yes. We will try it. Thank you, Red.”
Red grins. “No problem! I’ll tell her so her colleagues can call you to talk logistics, and-”
“Aiko, you will be a great help organizing this.”
Everyone freezes and looks at Aiko, whose hopeful smile seems frozen on her face, a touch away from shattering. “Dad… I think you can handle it. I can help, but I was thinking of leaving with them for my journey, remember?”
“Yes, this will be good,” her father muses as he gets up from the table and carries his empty plate to the kitchen. “Together we can do it quickly, perhaps start by Fall…”
Aiko’s smile comes apart as she stares after him, and Blue feels the anger stirring and prowling in his chest again as he watches her hope fade. Leaf puts a hand on her shoulder, and Red looks stricken. “I’m sorry, Aiko, I thought—”
“No,” she says, voice harsh. “It’s okay, Red. It was a good idea.” She stands, plate in hand. “He made it clear that he needs me here. That’s just all there is to it.”
She leaves before they can say anything, and the table is silent in her absence as Blue meets Red and Leaf’s gaze, reading the frustration and despair in them and knowing they can see his own too.
The rest of the afternoon is more subdued. Blue tries to cheer Aiko up or talk to her dad again, but nothing seems to work. The steady rain continues, both mirroring the household’s mood and giving them hope: they won’t leave until it stops, and so there’s still time for a miracle.
As the miracle continues to elude them, however, Blue starts to spend less time trying to convince Aiko’s dad to let her go and more time getting her to just make the decision on her own. This meets with similarly little success, as Aiko asserts that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself for leaving without his permission or blessing.
A few hours before nightfall, the rain finally lightens to a drizzle. They agree to stay for dinner and spend the night anyway, though Aiko insists that they shouldn’t do it just for her.
“You guys did your best,” she says as they finish cleaning the bottom floor. “I’ll be okay. It was great meeting all of you, and maybe we’ll group up again in a couple years?”
“Of course!” Leaf hugs her. “Hopefully the therapy ranch idea works out and you can join us sooner.”
“Hey, there’s still time.” Blue wonders if the package will arrive soon now that the weather is better, or if he should just tell her it’s coming… but it doesn’t sound like it would matter to her, at this point.
“I appreciate the optimism, but I’ve already started unpacking my bag,” Aiko says with a sigh. “I think at this point if it’s this hard to get him to say yes… maybe I should stay after all.”
Blue feels anger at Aiko, for once, though he manages to hold it in. “I don’t understand her,” he complains to Leaf later, as the two of them set the table for dinner. “It’s sad that her dad is like this, but it’s not like he’s going to die if she leaves.”
“We don’t actually know that,” Leaf says, voice quiet. “He might be hanging on by a thread. The situation is different from mine with my mom. It sucks, but it’s no one’s fault.”
Blue is still trying to find an answer to that when there’s a long, cheerful warble from outside. Blue grins and heads for the stairs, followed by a curious Leaf. Red is taking a shower, but Aiko comes out of her room at the sound.
“Was that a delivery song? I don’t think we’re expecting a package.”
“Well you got one anyway,” Blue says as he starts down. The other two follow him to the front door, and he steps aside to let Aiko through, wondering if Gramps addressed it to him or her.
The courier is perched on her swanna, dressed in the colorful uniform of her shipping company. “Aiko Sakai?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
The courier unstraps herself and slides off, then steps onto the porch and unclips a container ball. She releases its box and digs inside for a package, then hands it to Aiko, along with a sign pad.
“Thanks,” Aiko says, still looking confused as she signs it and examines the package. Her eyes go wide as she sees the return address, while the courier heads back to their pokemon and takes off into the grey sky, rain exploding outward and wetting the three of them as its wings flap to lift it.
“It’s from Professor Oak,” Aiko says after retreating to the dry porch. “I think it’s for you?”
Blue snorts, still wiping rain off his face. “If it were for me it would be addressed to me. Go on, open it!”
They watch in silence as Aiko unwraps the package. Her hands begin to shake when a familiar box is revealed beneath, the sleek, bold logo of Pallet Labs on top.
Blue grins as Aiko finally stares unbelieving down at the pokedex in her hands. It’s not the latest model that Red and he are field testing, but it’s the most recent one available on the market.
“I guess it’s official,” Blue says. “You’re one of us.”
“Congratulations, Aiko,” Leaf says, and gives the girl a sideways hug.
Her face is shocked as it turns up to them, then begins to twitch and crumple. Blue stares at her in alarm, but before he can speak she falls to her knees, box clutched to her chest as choked sobs shake her form.
Leaf is back in Aiko’s room, watching her new friend move with purpose back and forth as she packs her travel bag. Occasionally she’s asked to hand something to her, and Leaf does so without comment, watching the girl with some concern.
After her crying stopped, Aiko stood back up and wiped her face, then strode inside with a determined set to her facial features, dropping her pokedex off in her room and returning to the dinner table without expression. She insisted she was fine, and when Red arrived with his hair still wet, asked them not to bring up her leaving anymore to her dad.
Dinner was quiet and tense: Mr. Sakai ate with his usual dreamy distance, Aiko with mechanical precision, and the others with sparse, empty remarks as they looked at Aiko and each other with concern. As soon as she finished eating, she excused herself from the table and went to her room. Leaf finished up as soon as she could afterward and went to join her.
Now she feels awkward about breaking the silence as she parses what seems to have happened: Aiko decided to go with them. She does not appear to be happy about the decision.
When Aiko opens her new pokedex and reverently takes it out of its box, Leaf goes to sit beside her.
“Want to talk about it?”
Aiko glances at her, then shakes her head and begins to follow the instructions to transfer her user ID from her mom’s old pokedex. “I’m afraid if I do I’ll change my mind.”
“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help, then?”
“You guys have helped enough. More than enough. The rest is on me. In the morning I’m going to try and get all the pokemon out and cared for early, then let my dad know after breakfast so we can leave then.” She lines up the lens of both pokedexes and sits back, head against the wall. They sit in silence for a few minutes. It feels awkward at first, then companionable. Leaf relaxes and lets her mind wander until Aiko whispers, “I don’t know how he’s going to react.”
“You mean you’re afraid he won’t react at all.”
Aiko closes her eyes, and nods.
“I think it takes a lot of courage, what you’re doing,” Leaf says slowly. “Not the kind that puts you in danger, maybe, but the kind that means risking things important to you to pursue what you want. I know it feels selfish. It is a little, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Making a stand like this, for what you believe in, it’s how we grow. Or how I did, anyway. I’m patting myself on the back a little here, but it’s what I believe.”
“And if things do go wrong?”
Leaf doesn’t respond right away, thinking it through. Anything optimistic is going to sound fake and meaningless. And she knows Aiko isn’t looking for that: in the end what really matters is that she feels supported.
“Whatever happens, we’ll be with you,” she says at last. “We’re a team now. We look after each other.”
“I can look after myself,” Aiko murmurs, eyes still closed. “Been doing it for years… It’s my dad I’m worried about.”
“Friends care about what their friends worry about too.”
At that, Aiko smiles. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that. It’s been nice, having friends.”
They stay that way until the pokedex data finishes transferring, then Leaf says goodnight. She goes to tell the boys about Aiko’s decision as they prepare for bed. Blue grumbles about people being dramatic, but he seems as worried as she is.
“Should we plan ahead?” Red asks. “Be ready to jump in if something goes wrong?”
“No,” Leaf says. “I think the best we can do is respect her decisions and support them. Let’s just get some sleep and be ready for the road.”
Which is easier said than done, as it takes her an hour of tossing and turning to get to sleep. She finally drifts off without realizing it, and snaps awake with soft morning sunlight pouring through the window.
A quick shower and breakfast later, Leaf joins Blue and Red outside in the dew-covered grass to help Aiko release various pokemon who are on their “morning feed” cycle. Leaf expects her to protest the help, but she seems too tense to do anything but nod greeting and give instructions.
By the time her dad is awake, breakfast is ready and all the chores are done. He seems vaguely surprised when told, but sits down for another tense, quiet meal as Leaf and the others make small talk.
Aiko sits quietly the whole time, eyes on her plate even after it’s empty. Soon only her father is eating, and as soon as he finishes she begins to clear the table with the others’ help. Mr. Sakai is about to get up when Aiko puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Could you stay here a minute, dad? I want to tell you something.”
He blinks at her, but sits back down and watches in bemusement as the trio finishes clearing the table while Aiko goes to her room. Soon everyone is standing around, tense and nervous. Despite his general detachment, Leaf can see some of it in Aiko’s father too. He keeps looking at them, then Aiko’s door.
When she finally emerges from her room, she’s dressed in full travel gear, backpack strapped on and belt on her waist. Her dad’s reaction is immediate, and heartbreaking:
“No, Aiko. Please.”
The words are soft, but Aiko reacts to them like thrown stones. She walks over to the table and kneels down so she’s eye level with him. “I’m going, Dad.”
He shakes his head, eyes wide, but she doesn’t blink. “I’ll be back every night with the abra, so you know I’m okay. I can help take care of the pokemon and even bring groceries, same as usual. But I’m going.”
“Soon,” he says, gaze going distant. “Not yet, Aiko, not yet, the pokemon need you…”
“I told you, I’ll be back to help them. To help you. How many trainers and their parents are so lucky? If they move on without me, we won’t even have that.”
Aiko’s dad seems lost in thought, and Leaf despairs that he’ll ever be able to hear this conversation, accept it. “Just another few years… soon, you’ll be ready soon…” He moves as if to stand, but Aiko doesn’t budge, and he stops rather than collide with her. “I need to feed the pokemon.”
“We fed them,” she says, gaze steady. “How many years is ‘soon,’ Dad? Tell me a number and I’ll stay. You’ve never outright lied to me, as far as I know.”
“Aiko-”
“Tell me when I’ll have your blessing to go, and I’ll wait. If you don’t, if you go without giving me an answer, I’m leaving with them. So choose.” Aiko backs off a little, giving him room to stand.
Mr. Sakai seems carved from marble. Leaf expects another vague refrain, or for him to just say something extreme like 10 years, but after a minute passes with them all waiting in silence, she feels her pulse kick up a little. Leaf glances at Aiko, who appears worried at the way he seems to have shut down, but under the worry, there’s some hope.
Eventually Aiko nods. “That’s why I have to go now. At this rate, you’ll never be ready for me to leave. And I’ve stayed because traveling alone is too dangerous, but I won’t be alone anymore. Leaf and Blue and Red want me to come. They want me to come so badly,” Aiko says, voice catching briefly. “They believe in me. Professor Oak believes in me. If you don’t, if I let your fear hold me back now, I’ll regret it the rest of my life.”
Mr. Sakai almost appears to shrink into himself as she speaks. His lips move, something too low for Leaf to make out. Aiko’s eyes close, then she kneels in front of her father again and wraps her arms around him.
“I love you, Dad. I’ll see you tonight, and every night after.”
Leaving the ranch is a solemn affair, Red and the others watching Aiko use Blue’s abra to register a teleport location there, then turn her back on her home, moving resolutely forward. The ground around them is still moist from yesterday’s rain, but once they reach the main road their bikes move faster, and they arrive at the underground path within an hour. They can just make out Saffron City in the distance, and there’s an increase in traffic as they turn off the main road and enter the funnel of roads leading to the entrance. Red feels excitement as it comes into sight: he’s never taken a subway before.
A number of stores, a ranger outpost, and a pokemon center are on either side of the road leading up to it, and after ensuring they’re all ready to keep going, they descend. The stairs level off every few minutes for a quick rest and some vendor stalls, and while the tiles and floor are obviously old, it’s all surprisingly clean and well lit, to the point that if Red didn’t know better he’d think he was just in some big mall.
The shuttles themselves depart every few minutes, and soon they’re on their way to the central hub under Saffron. Red watches as Aiko’s subdued mood slowly fades, and when he feels safe doing so leans over to ask how she likes her new pokedex. Soon she’s happily exploring its features as he answers any questions she has, while Blue and Leaf discuss the differences between the underground rails in Kanto and Unova. Blue mentions that they’re still a relatively new thing here, and points out a few notices among the advertisements along the walls indicating plans to extend the tunnel farther north and south to connect it to Cerulean and Vermillion.
The central hub is a mini-mall itself, and Aiko spots a stall selling bike accessories and heads over to check the prices of the things they bought in Cerulean out of “morbid curiosity.” Things seem mostly the same price if not a little more expensive, and Leaf buys a basket to hang on the front for Bulbasaur. Red and Aiko decide to buy one too, but Blue doesn’t seem interested until Red points out the added reaction time if they’re attacked while riding.
They stop for lunch and take another tram south until the end of the line, then disembark and take the stairs to emerge into the bright noon sun. The road stretches ahead with fields and forests to either side. They’ve passed Saffron City and its suburbs completely, and as they mount up and continue biking south, they soon feel the downward slope of the land as Vermilion City becomes visible in the distance, with the ocean beyond it.
It feels strange to see another city so quickly. The bikes and subway more than made up for the increased distance they had to travel between Cerulean and Vermillion compared to their other trips, but what really made Cerulean feel fresh in his mind was the lack of anything really intense happening along the way. Other than keeping an eye on Pichu for signs he isn’t okay with his new travel arrangements, Red is able to relax and reflect on how nice it is to travel between cities without risking his life for once.
They’re a few hours out of the tunnel when Red gets an email to notify him that the abra deal has been finalized. That night they celebrate their new fortunes together with leftover cake. Aiko participates heartily, still aglow over her new pokedex and sense of freedom, then uses Blue’s abra to teleport back home after saying goodnight to everyone.
She returns the next morning a few hours after they’ve had breakfast, subdued again. The others don’t pry, and her mood seems to lift faster as they start traveling again, bikes swallowing the distance between them and the city. They take another quick break when they reach Vermilion’s northern suburbs, and Leaf notifies the various news outlets to update them about their estimated arrival time. Once they start moving again, Red leads the way into the city proper. He’s getting more and more nervous as he imagines what’s waiting for him, and tunes out the conversation of the others as he rehearses what he’s going to say again and again.
Soon the Trainer House appears, and Red checks the time. They’re a little early, but the three different news station crews are already gathered outside it, along with a handful of trainers and passerby who are waiting curiously to see who the crews are waiting for.
Leaf must have noticed his quiet nerves, because she smiles at him as they slow to a stop and return the bikes to their containers. “You’ll be fine,” she says. “Treat it like a teaching session. You’re just telling people something they don’t know.”
“And if you start to get nervous, remember that you can just stick to the basics,” Blue says. “A quick statement, two or three questions, and it’ll be done in no time.”
“You guys should prepare to take over if he gets flustered,” Aiko says. “Not that I’m saying you will, but—”
“Premortem mentality, right.” Red smiles. “Care to do the honors, Leaf?”
“Sure! Just cross your fingers behind your back or something.”
One of the cameramen has been watching them as they get closer, and begins preparing his equipment. The others react to his sudden excitement and look around until they spot the four, so that by the time Red reaches the front door of the Trainer House, everyone is holding their mics out and shouting questions.
“Mr. Oak, a sale of 99 abra was made this morning, how did you—”
“—at such a low price, when such—”
“Who helped you acquire so many—”
Before Red can do more than raise his hands in a half-hearted attempt to slow them down, Leaf steps forward. “Quiet please, everyone! Red Verres has prepared a statement, and we’ll take questions afterward.”
They immediately go silent, expectantly staring at him with six eyes and three camera lenses, not to mention all the onlookers nearby. Red swallows and settles his mind into a pattern of calm, simple data reporting.
“Hello. My name is Red Verres, and these are my traveling companions, Leaf Juniper, Blue Oak, and our new friend, Aiko Sakai. While we were in Cerulean City, I made a plan to capture large quantities of abra to use for my research on measuring physical attributes that enable psychic phenomena…”
Red goes over the strategy he formulated, how they executed it, and how they decided, as a group, to provide them at an immense discount to various institutions in Kanto. Red avoids mentioning Bill, as the inventor didn’t want the notoriety, and he highlights both how invaluable Leaf’s well trained wigglytuff was and how Blue managed to catch, and therefore donate, the most.
“After keeping a few for ourselves the rest have been sold to pokemon centers, gyms, and ranger outposts around the region,” Red says. He realizes he’s speaking too fast, and as a drop of sweat slides down his neck he takes a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart as he loses the clear pattern of what to say next. “Even though we’ve only been on our journey for th-for a few months, we’ve seen the invaluable help these institutions have been to everyone, to ourselves and others. As Blue said, ‘When Kanto’s institutions are stronger, Kanto’s people are safer.’ We hope that this will allow rangers, gym members, and pokemon center staff to he-to be able to more swiftly respond to incidents around the region, so they can continue to help those in need.”
Red lets out the rest of his breath. He feels like he was nearly incoherent, though no one looks particularly upset with him, which is probably a good sign. Still, it’s a struggle to keep his gaze up and keep it moving between the different reporters and cameras. “That’s it,” he says after a moment of silence. “Thank you.”
The reporters immediately begin asking questions, and Leaf once again steps forward and tells them to calm down. Red steps back, and startles as Blue’s hand falls on his shoulder. “Good job,” he mutters. “And thanks for the quote, you made it sound good.” Red flashes him a grateful smile.
“Mr. Oak! How much help were you in forming or executing this plan?”
Blue turns as he’s addressed, hand still on Red’s shoulder. “I didn’t do anything, really. It was all Red’s idea, and Leaf’s coordination with her wigglytuff. I just ran around and caught as many abra as I could, which turned out to be a lot.” He grins, and the audience chuckles. Red wonders why Blue doesn’t like talking to reporters: his voice is casual and confident at the same time, his charm on full display.
Leaf points to another reporter, who smiles at her. “Miss Juniper, was this wigglytuff the same one you used to help apprehend the Renegade on Mt. Moon?”
“Yes, her name is Joy. She’s a fantastic partner, and gave us her all so we could catch as many abra as possible.”
More questions are thrown at them regarding planning, such as safety precautions taken, and captures, which allows Leaf to talk about her method of keeping abra from teleporting away. At one point Aiko is asked whether she participated, but once she tells them she didn’t join the trio until after they left Cerulean, the reporters ignore her. At one point Red is asked what he’s working on now, which allows him to talk about his research.
“Thanks to the volume of samples I was able to scan and test, I believe my recent research is weak evidence of some physical component of psychic power,” Red says, going over his carefully rehearsed lines. “I’m currently seeking publication of my research as I consider new research avenues to explore.”
“Is this related to your involvement in the ‘Flying particle’ that was recently discovered?” a reporter asks.
“I wasn’t really involved in that,” Red says, taken by surprise. “I just expressed some confusion about the way Types are determined, and I guess that kicked off some research, which I’m happy about. But the same scanning technology that Pallet Labs developed is being used, so they might be related in that sense.”
“What advice would you give to other young trainers who plan on becoming researchers?”
Red’s brain locks up. “Uh.”
Shit.
What can he say to others? Get lucky with who you apprentice under? Not helpful. Question everything? Cliché. Everyone’s staring at him, expecting some pearl of wisdom, but he has no idea what to say—
“Now you’ve done it,” Blue says, and everyone’s attention shifts to him. “Red’s always full of advice about everything, he’s probably sorting what order he wants to say the first ten things in and we’ll be here all day.”
Red laughs along with everyone else, relaxing as he reminds himself to thank Blue later. If there’s one thing Red shouldn’t have trouble with, it’s talking about whatever he finds interesting and helpful, solicited or otherwise.
“I’ll try to stick to one,” Red says. “Notice your confusion, let it guide your search for answers. If something doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because either your model of the world is wrong, or the thing that confuses you is wrong, in some way. That’s what led to my questions at Pallet Labs, and a lot of what I’ve learned since I started my journey. I hope it helps others too.”
The questions start to branch out into the choice to disclose the methodology and commit to a wholesale, which Red is happy to let the others handle, until:
“Mr. Verres, what influenced your decision to offer the abra to the Rangers?”
Red looks up, taken by surprise at the question. “It seemed to be the right thing to do. Abra are a great resource for any organization—”
“But surely you could have sold them at market price, and furthered your research?” The reporter insists.
“I… yes, that’s true. But even at a third the price we’ve made a good sum.” Red feels uncomfortable with how that came out, and rushes to add, “I wanted to ensure that others benefited from my discovery.”
Leaf steps forward and points to another reporter, and Red relaxes until they look right back at him. “Mr. Verres, your father was a ranger, correct? Ranger Tomio Verres?”
An unexpected lash of pain goes through Red, who stares at the reporter for a moment, realizing too late that this is what the other reporter was hoping he would bring up himself. “Yes. He was.”
“How much did that influence your decision to sell to them?”
Everyone’s watching him as he feels the pain and emptiness grow, far stronger and faster than it usually does these days without him using his powers. Alarm bells start ringing as he remembers Psychic Narud’s warning that weakening his partition could make him more susceptible to the emotions locked behind it overall; Red thought that just meant the general depression that he fell under over the past few weeks. Instead it’s starting to feel like he’s going to have a full meltdown on camera.
Red notices Leaf glancing down at his hands, and his fingers twitch, about to signal her to take over… but what would she even say?
He breathes deep and holds it, about to use shining-mirror-in-a-dim-house to cut off all emotions, then stops himself at the last moment. He can do this.
“A lot,” he says, voice quiet. The microphones are extended further, and he swallows and clears his throat. “A lot. My father was the bravest man… I ever knew, growing up. But I’ve had the privilege of meeting… a number of other Rangers since then, and they showed me that it’s,” he pauses to take another breath, “an organization full of brave men and women, and I hope that I can—”
His voice catches. Pressure is forming behind his eyes, the sun is too hot and everyone’s
staring
at him as he falls apart, as he—
Blue puts his hand back on Red’s shoulder. Red breathes deep again, and doesn’t brush the tear away as it trails down his cheek. “I hope… to do his memory proud. By helping other rangers… support each other… and get home safe.”
There’s a moment of silence, the reporters all staring, the audience quiet. The only sound is the occasional car along the road. Red feels himself regain control, little by little, but he still feels shaky, and when Leaf takes the opportunity to step forward and thank them for their questions, Red doesn’t resist as Blue guides him inside the Trainer House by the shoulder. He hears scattered applause start up by those watching as he passes by them. When it catches on and fills the air, he wipes at his face and lifts his head a bit higher, letting the sound in, letting it fill another small portion of the hole inside him, at least for now.
Leaf expected a media response. Leaf wanted a media response. Leaf
prepared
for a media response.
Leaf did not prepare for a feeding frenzy.
Within a day at Vermilion, the amount of interview requests the group gets is more than she can handle on her own. Red is particularly sought after, but he’s got his own flood of mail from professional catchers and researchers. Even the company that made the speakers they used reaches out to see if he would appear in a commercial.
The look on Red’s face was still worth a chuckle a couple days later, when the offer is extended to her and Blue, who also refuses, though he at least looks conflicted about it. Leaf talks it over with Laura and decides to accept and donate the payment, as long as they grant her some creative control to ensure it’s more of an informational guide that just happens to feature their speakers. That takes some back and forth, but ultimately they reach an agreement she can feel good about.
Blue ignores most of the media storm, and focuses on his challenge to the new gym. He used some of his money to buy a competitive rhyhorn, and trains it with Aiko in secret while he beats the gym’s first test match without using any Ground pokemon. The two plan out an expedition into Diglett Cave for after Red and Leaf are on their voyage, and as soon as they put a post up on the Looking For Group forums, there’s an immediate swell of interest to join.
“I think you’ve got groupies,” Aiko observes as the four have lunch together, eyes on their Looking For Members entry. “The other Diglett Cave parties aren’t getting half the response.”
Blue snorts. “Maybe they’re there for you.”
“Oh, please, no one even remembers my name.”
“No, seriously. They might be curious about who the mysterious girl traveling with The Pallet Three is.”
“No one is calling us that,” Red says, deadpan. “Please tell me you made that up.”
“‘Oaklings’ is the one I see a lot,” Leaf says, and Red groans. “Which seems like evidence that they’re coming for you, Blue.”
Blue narrows his eyes, and Leaf is careful to keep her face perfectly innocent.
“It’s too bad your name isn’t Green,” Aiko says, still studying the page. “You guys could have been The Primaries.”
“Oooh, or The Additives,” Red says, perking up.
“Laaame.”
“The Trichromes?”
“A little better. Sounds like a gang though.”
Blue ignores them, looking at the LFG page now too. “They might just think we have a way to catch a ton of diglett. You happen to have something like that, Red?”
“Um. Just stomp around and wait? I was under the impression you can barely walk through the tunnel without tripping over them.”
“Sure, but too many and you can get overwhelmed. The trick is to only attract a few at a time.” Blue strokes his chin. “What we’d need is some kind of adjustable diglett magnet…”
Red looks at Blue as if not quite sure whether he’s making an Alolan diglett joke, or if he really expects Red to come up with something like that for regular diglett. “Magnet. Right. I’ll look into that.”
It strikes Leaf as strange at first how this of all things seems to be the biggest story of their adventure so far. It wasn’t like they saved anyone’s lives, or helped stop some pokemon rampage. It wasn’t a new pokemon discovery, or even some significant new understanding of one, though Red’s research is getting a fair bit of publicity too.
What really drives home the impact of what they did is seeing groups form online to try to get people together and hunt abra. Large speakers quickly sell out in Cerulean and Saffron city, and have to be transported into local stores from elsewhere. The price of abra on the market begins to decline before many more even get listed.
The secondary effects start to manifest a few days later, once a sizeable amount of abra are made available. Not just for trainers who normally wouldn’t be able to afford an abra, but also breeders, who in turn offer a reduced rate to anyone that doesn’t intend to use the abra for combat and just cares about their teleporting ability. Even the Celadon City casinos, who regularly offer rare pokemon as rewards, lowers the rarity and effective price of their abra.
Soon a whole new industry pops up: some entrepreneuring spirit, no doubt predicting a jump in demand for teleportation spots, begins advertising deluxe facilities that trainers can set as their “traveling homes,” with everything in their room being transferred from place to place by staff. Leaf can see the attraction of it, and that’s when it really hits her: the three of them changed things in Kanto, possibly the world, permanently.
Red acts as though this is obvious. “Let’s say 10% of trainers with abra have their lives saved by them over the course of their journey. Maybe it’s less, but it also may easily be more. Even if the amount of abra owners merely doubles in the next year, we’ve altered the course of a generation.”
“But it’s more than that,” Aiko says. “This could be the last generation to grow up with teleportation being a luxury. Even after the first wave of easy to catch abra are done, the amount of breeding stock that will be introduced to nurseries and ranches might make an even bigger difference in the long run.”
“Which in turn will affect the bike industry, and various riding pokemon’s worth,” Blue says, then shrugs. “For non-Dark trainers, anyway. And since the abra can only teleport its trainer, the markets will probably shift toward pokemon that can carry multiple people.”
All these possibilities and more make it hard to decide what project to focus on next. Leaf originally planned on spending her pre-voyage time in Vermilion looking into the Mt. Moon incident further and trying to figure out what Giovanni’s investigation is working toward, but there’s so much else that draws her interest… a geothermal plant accident on Cinnabar that causes power outages on a third of the island, new announcements about exhibits in the Pewter Museum, and particularly some leaked hints about what would be on the S.S. Anne tech expo that has her excited all over again for the voyage.
And then there’s the individual responses and forum discussions. It was hard enough staying out of the controversy and negative comments that sprang up from her Pewter article, and most of those weren’t even targeting her. For every post or thread full of positive or neutral conversation topics she sees, there are a few comments that stick out at her like angry welts:
“
Why is everyone throwing a ticket parade for them? Sure they gave a discount, but still made more than most do in a year from a couple day’s work. That’s charity, now?”
“
I worked my ass off to catch abra for the past few months, and now the market crashing thanks to these rich kids using their parents’ secrets to make a splash.”
“
Does anyone actually believe that Red came up with this strategy? They obviously put him front and center because of the sob story, while the professors’ kids did the actual work.”
Anger and disgust makes Leaf’s stomach churn throughout the days, and she can only hope the other two remain too busy to pay attention to such conversations. She knows she should stop following it all, but she somehow just… can’t. The comments dance in her head whenever she tries to do something else, like look into the investigation at Mount Moon, her mind throwing up responses and refining what she wants to tell them until she feels compelled to do so.
“
The ecological impact of this is going to be massive. These young trainers don’t think things through.”
-“
Hi there! Red checked with Professor Oak and the nearby Rangers before we launched the plan, and their only concerns were physical safety of trainers. It’s possible that new ecological impacts will be seen if it becomes widespread, but for now the Rangers have said that the change in wild abra populations should not upset any local ecologies.”
-“
Sure the rangers said that, they knew they’d get a bunch of them cheap. Professor Oak is just another short-sighted scientist who cares more about his research than the environment!”
Some are just nonsensical or contradictory even by the same users:
“
Tried the strategy, only caught five abra. These kids are bullshitting us, they were clearly farming them for a while and didn’t want to tell anyone so they could cash in first.”
-“I’m sorry you only caught a few! It might be important where you attempted the strategy. We happened to be in a big open area, where did you try it?”
-“What so you could come grab them here too? You probably already emptied the area out!”
Soon she’s only dropping in where the comments aren’t openly hostile or suspicious to clarify something about her own contribution or explain what she did to keep the abra from running in more detail. Unfortunately once she makes an appearance in a thread, the activity increases tenfold, and while many comments are still positive, the negative ones start popping up too, and those are the ones that keep Leaf distracted day and night.
Leaf eventually realizes she’s abandoning her own projects and pursuits to keep up with the conversations full time. She starts sleeping less, until she practically has to drag herself out of bed in the mornings and the thought of opening her email or browsers fills her with anxious dread… but she does it anyway.
On their fourth morning in Vermilion she sits at breakfast with Red and Blue, barely eating and listening with some bitterness as they talk about their latest successes and plans. Red’s abra paper cleared peer review, and a combination of double birthday and Research License celebration is scheduled whenever his arrives.
“…both journals, but I wasn’t sure if the focus on pokemon discoveries or psychic phenomenon was better. It felt like picking sides,” Red says. “Did you finish vetting the interview requests, Leaf?”
She jerks out of a light doze at the sound of her name. “I forwarded all of the ones I’ve finished,” she says after replaying what she last heard.
“What about the one from Celadon?”
“I didn’t look at any last night.”
“Oh. It was sent a couple days ago, though…”
“Well I said I forwarded the ones I looked over,” Leaf snaps. “If you don’t have it then what does that tell you?”
Red stares at her, eyes wide, as Blue raises a brow, chewing on a mouth full of noodles. Leaf sighs and rubs her face. “I’m sorry, Red, I’m just tired. I guess I might have missed that one. I’ll look for it after breakfast.”
“It’s okay,” he says, and everyone eats quietly for a moment before he says, “If there’s something you want to talk about though, you can tell us.”
“Nope.” Leaf tries to focus on her food, but the thought occurs that Red might be using his powers on her. She feels herself getting angry, then realizes she’s being stupid. She puts her fork down and clasps her hands, which gets their attention. “Actually, there is something. I know I volunteered to be the group’s media liaison, but I think it might be more than a one person job at this point.” Especially if she keeps spending too much time on the message boards… “Sorry, I should have brought it up sooner.”
“Nah, it’s our fault,” Blue says. “We should have checked to make sure you were doing okay.”
“Want us to pool some money together and hire a secretary?” Red asks.
Leaf blinks. “Isn’t that a bit extreme? It’ll probably die down in a few days, maybe a week.”
Especially if I can just stop paying so much attention to the forums…
Blue shrugs. “Not if we play our cards right. If any of you come up with some amazing new discoveries or techniques, keep it under wraps until the media coverage dies down then drop it for a new cycle.” He pops an egg slice into his mouth. “Unless it would save lives, of course.”
“Um.” Red raises his hand. “Don’t know how much you’re joking, but can I register opposition to having an official PR strategy? It feels fake. Worse, manipulative.”
“We’ve been over this,” Blue says. “You can ignore public perception if you want to be another Bill, but public perception won’t ignore you.”
Leaf sees something flash over Red’s face, some mix of anger and pain that’s there and gone before she can fully process it. Blue doesn’t seem to have noticed, and before Leaf can bring it up Red sighs and nods. “I can’t commit to anything, but I’ll run whatever comes up by you guys, at least. I don’t want to mess up your plans.”
Leaf feels herself nodding off again, until a text jolts her back awake. “Speaking of plans, Aiko’s on her way,” she says, and stands. “We’re going to take a walk around the city, if either of you want to join us.”
They pass, and Leaf goes to the roof to meet Aiko as she ports in. She looks as tired as Leaf feels, but smiles when she sees Leaf. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” Leaf waits for her to withdraw her abra, then starts walking side by side to the elevator and down from the roof of the trainer house. Leaf brings Bulbasaur and Buneary out while Aiko summons her Eevee and Sandshrew. The former was just returned to her with a clean bill of health yesterday, some genetic disorder with its lungs requiring a few days of treatment to get fixed. Aiko looks overjoyed at her pokemon bounding around with Bulbasaur, and explains how just a minute of that would have tired the eevee out before.
“I’m glad they were able to heal her,” Leaf says as she tosses a treat straight up, grinning when Buneary hops over her to eat it. “Any evolution plans?”
“I think Espeon or Umbreon would be best,” Aiko says. She stomps her feet every so often to send directions to her Sandshrew when it wanders too far or starts investigating something rather than keep walking. “I don’t like the idea of forcing one on her, but I might put all the stones in a circle and see which way she walks. If I do that every day and she picks the same one consistently, that should trigger that evolution eventually.”
“Getting that many stones will be an adventure in itself.”
“Yeah,” Aiko says with a smile, folding her hands behind her head. “An adventure I thought was years away. I can’t wait to get started.”
The city unfolds around them as they head toward the docks to the south, Vermilion’s beating heart. Unlike Cerulean North, whose beaches and vibrant boardwalks made it feel like one big tourist attraction, Kanto’s major port has a more industrial feel to it, helped along by the many construction sites they pass. The girls pause to watch some machoke carry girders away from a massive container box, the skeleton of the new building rising up to about the same level as the moderately sized buildings around it.
“This city’s busy,” Aiko says.
“The layout’s weird too.” Leaf looks around, but can’t put her finger on it. “Let’s go somewhere high.”
They head for the skyscrapers in the distance. After passing a few only to realize how close they are to taller ones nearer the shore, they finally choose one that’s about eighty stories. They return their pokemon, then go up the elevator and onto the roof and summon Crimson and Spearow, who fly above them as they look out over the city, enjoying the thrill of being so high up. The wind whips at their hair and clothes as they go from the railing on one side to another and study the layout of the city.
This close to the coast they can see mostly ocean to the south and the west, the harbors teeming with vessels of all shapes and sizes. Leaf can just make out some of the bigger pokemon being ridden as well. She takes a moment to enjoy the smell of the sea as flying pokemon soar around the city, trainers on their backs. The walk helped wake her up, and the wind and view up here does the rest of the job.
“Lots of new construction,” Aiko says after a moment from beside her.
“Yeah.” Leaf looks around. “At least half the buildings look like they’re being worked on, but they look fine. Maybe they were just finished?” Leaf is itching to go back downstairs and start asking the city’s residents if they know something.
“Look how much space the pokemon centers all have around them, too.”
“Same with those factories.”
“They’re really spread out in the city… that can’t be efficient.”
“There must be some reason they’re built that way. Less risk of losing them all from an attack?” Leaf watches the traffic from the harbor a while longer. “I wonder what the city was like before container technology took off.”
“Oh, way busier. It was the biggest shipping port on the whole island, not just for Kanto. Now that shipping stuff isn’t as big a deal, its purpose is more civilian. I think the city must still be adapting to that.”
“Is this your first time here?”
“Yeah. Before the ranch we lived in Viridian, never came this far south of Saffron. Dad didn’t have much interest in traveling afterward.”
“How’s he doing, anyway?”
Aiko’s face is carefully neutral. “Fine. He’s mostly ignoring what’s happening, hasn’t brought up my leaving every day, or responded when I talk about the stuff I’ve been doing.”
“Oh.” Leaf senses some deeper worry there, but doesn’t want to poke at it. “What about Mrs. Ino?”
“So far I just showed her around the ranch and talked about the basics of what we can offer. Dad was as engaged as he gets while talking to him, which is promising. What about you, anything exciting coming up?”
“Too much. We’re getting dozens of emails a day from all sorts of people, and digging through them to find offers worth taking or opportunities is hard, there’s just so many choices, and wow as I’m saying all this it sounds like such a petty problem to have, I’m sorry.”
Aiko laughs. “No, you’re good. I’m glad I just have to focus on the gym right now, I don’t know how Blue is going to juggle his battles there with all the attention you guys are getting. Though I guess you’re helping out with that.”
“I think the conversation with the Professor and the others helped a lot. Without that we’d probably all feel overwhelmed not just by the volume but the choices themselves. I turned down the third Coordinator Academy that reached out to me today, and can’t help but feel like it’s a huge waste of goodwill and opportunity.”
“It sounds like one, yeah. Isn’t there anything else you can do with them that doesn’t require attending? Maybe offer to write a column on their site?”
“You think they’d go for that? Sounds like something they’d reserve for faculty, or at least alumni.”
Aiko shrugs. “What do you have to lose? You just need one of them to say yes. They want to know more about your unique relationship and bond with pokemon, right? You could be a voice against people eating pokemon.”
Leaf is nodding, the possibilities unfurling in her mind. “I could start with the abra catching, and if it gets a positive response… yeah, I think I can do that.” There’s a part of her, however, that worries about what responses she’ll get to such a post, and how much more time she’ll spend poring over them. Maybe she can make an anonymous account to respond to the comments with…
“I’d love to have enough influence to pull it off, if I could get around the whole media blitz.”
“What would you use it for?” Leaf asks, curious to know what drives the girl. “Are you on your journey for something in specific?”
“Besides trying to become Champion?”
“Is that all you care about though? I mean… I was surprised to find out you don’t eat pokemon either, since…”
“Since I battle with them?”
“I battle with them too.”
“You know what I mean. Or rather, I know what you meant. Why don’t you just ask it?”
Leaf puts her hand on her hat as the wind gusts, hair whipping around her. “I didn’t mean to offend—”
Aiko turns to her. “Do I sound offended?”
“A little, yeah.”
That
pisses the other girl off, and Leaf holds a hand up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start a fight.”
The girl rolls her eyes. “This isn’t a fight. I’m good at battling, and I care about pokemon. That’s all there is to it.”
“But… what do you
want
?” Leaf asks. “I mean, let’s say you got the fame and glory and skillset, somehow, of a pokemon master. Would you still want to become Champion?”
“The journey to becoming Champion is important. That’s how I get stronger, how I learn more about training my pokemon and catching others. But yeah, becoming a Champion would help in something.” Aiko is quiet for a minute, then smiles. “It’s weird, I just realized I’ve never told someone else.”
“Well, I won’t laugh if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve only just figured out mine.”
“Which is?”
Leaf extends an arm out toward the city. “Being a voice others respect, listen to. Find ways to improve human and pokemon relations. Get people to stop eating them, hopefully.”
“That’s great. You should push for mandatory end-of-life care for trainer’s pokemon, too. Most just keep them in their balls when they’re not capable of fighting anymore, or release them into the wild, unprepared, which is just another death sentence.”
Leaf smiles. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot since visiting your ranch, yeah.”
“But getting people to stop eating pokemon… that would be amazing. Almost hard to imagine.”
“Sometimes it seems like a pipe dream, but Red and Blue are shooting for the moon too. So whatever yours is, you’re in good company.”
Aiko nods. “I want to be a Tracker.”
“Oh.” Discovering new pokemon isn’t a particularly strange job, unless… “You mean you want to hunt for mythical pokemon?”
“Yeah.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them. Mew, Shaymin, Manaphy… my mom used to tell me stories about them. It’s stupid, I know. But since I was a kid I wanted to go on my journey so I could get stronger, make friends, discover new species. I want to travel the world, and maybe… be one of those trainers from the stories, the ones who cleverly put the clues together and found Jirachi and got wishes granted, or saved some forest and encountered Celebi and traveled through time…”
Leaf watches Aiko’s flushed face, her gaze out over the city. “I think I get it.”
Red and Blue would even more, I think.
Aiko shrugs. “Even if they’re all made up and I never find any of the myths, hunting down leads and discovering even a couple new species would be amazing. Can you imagine? Being the first person to see a new pokemon, figuring out what it can do, how it acts, what it likes and dislikes…”
Leaf smiles. “That would be cool, yeah. But you
do
believe in the myths, right?”
“Some, yeah.”
“Why? I’m not scoffing,” Leaf quickly says. “You just seem really determined.”
Aiko hesitates a moment longer, then simply says, “I saw one.”
Leaf stares. “Saw… which one? Saw as in, saw
in person?
When? Where?”
“Ho-Oh. A Johto legend.”
“The Guardian of the Skies,” Leaf recites, remembering the stories she read when researching her book.
A golden flame that endlessly reincarnates, rekindling life even from ashes…
“Yeah. Over here there are stories of a fourth seasonal bird, the avatar of Spring, embodying the fire of renewed life and leaving a rainbow in its wake. I think they’re the same bird, and I saw it a few years ago.”
“How many is a few?”
Aiko’s face darkens. “I don’t really expect you to believe me, I know memories can be unreliable. Obviously I could have been wrong, but… it was three years ago, early April. I was out in a pen taking care of some pokemon. Out of nowhere all the pokemon around started freaking out. It was terrifying, and then… I felt it too. It was like the air was heavy. Like a storm was about to burst out over us at any moment. I know it sounds weird saying this, but I
felt
a storm, inside. It made my bones feel like they were thrumming. I even looked up in case stormclouds had somehow snuck up on me, but the sky was completely clear. Instead I saw the bird.”
Leaf listens in rapt silence, the described sensations so powerful that she shivers in the warm sunlight as Aiko continues. “It was like a prismatic jewel in the sky, a rainbow of colored lights reflecting off its feathers. It wasn’t huge, maybe a little bigger than a full grown pidgeot, but it
felt
enormous, like craning your head up at a tropius in a forest, or looking at the shadow of a wailord swimming under a rowboat in the ocean. The air shimmered around it, and as it passed over us the heat it gave off was like a second sun, burning my skin.”
Aiko’s runs out of breath, then takes a deep one. Her face isn’t flushed anymore, now it looks pale, and Leaf sees a tremor go through the other girl.
“Maybe it’s just my memory exaggerating, maybe the pokemon freaking out was a coincidence, maybe I just saw a shiny fearow and was suffering from heat stroke. But I don’t think I would have made up that feeling, the Pressure. It’s too strong. Even if I just read someone’s account of what it feels like facing one of the Stormbringers and forgot, I don’t think my imagination is good enough for that. I think I really saw it, and I want to prove that it exists.”
“You didn’t take a picture, I guess?” Leaf asks with a weak smile.
“I didn’t even think about it until after it was long gone and I’d finished calming all the pokemon down. Thinking at all, about
anything,
was hard. I tried drawing it, but the details are all confused in my head, and I’m not a great artist.”
“What will you do if you find it?”
Aiko is quiet for a long time as they both look over the city. Leaf doesn’t think she’ll answer at first, too embarrassed or still shaken by her memory, but when she sneaks a peak she sees the other girl smiling slightly, watching their birds fly around them.
“There are a lot of stories about the avatar of Spring and Johto’s golden Guardian of the Skies. While the Stormbringers wreak death and destruction, the stories say Ho-Oh heralds greatness and brings life. Some say anyone who the bird appears to is blessed, while others say its feathers—”
“Bring back the dead,” Leaf says, thinking of the discussion with Amy, Red, and Blue back in Viridian.
Aiko shrugs, still looking up at the sky. “I’m not fooling myself. Magic like that isn’t real. Celebi, if it exists, probably doesn’t actually travel in time. Jirachi can’t grant wishes.”
“But even still…”
Aiko nods. “Even still. If the bird itself actually does exist, maybe the part about seeing it and being ‘destined for greatness’ is true too.”
Leaf smiles.
And if the
other
stories about it just happen to be true…
They watch the city together, dreaming of the future.
Blue’s first impression of Vermilion’s gym was that it’s rather small and plain. Not plain the way Pewter’s is, that monolith of granite is at least distinctive. From the outside Vermilion’s looked just like it did in media, camouflage green walls with its sign in big bold letters of electric yellow. The inside resembled an office building’s lobby however, and as he registered and signed up for his challenge matches, he noted that the gym members all wore the uniforms he saw in pictures and videos.
It wasn’t until he walked through the rest of the small building and out the back entrance that he found himself in the “real” gym… a sprawling campus of outdoor training zones, arenas, and various squat, unadorned buildings. Blue always thought the military mannerisms and clothes of Vermilion’s gym members were mostly theater: no doubt the Leader ran a tight ship, but he figured at its core it would be similar to other gyms.
That first day, as Blue walked across the campus to start his challenge matches, saw a formation of gym members jogging side by side with their pokemon, passed a line of trainers practicing their pokemon’s aim and timing against targets, and heard the cries of battle commands mixed with shouted orders, he knew he’d been wrong. And he began to believe that he came to the right place to learn how to be a leader.
Unfortunately, by their fifth day in Vermilion he still hasn’t been able to schedule a meeting with the Unovan gym leader. After the first challenge battle, a straightforward fight against a pikachu and a mareep that seemed insultingly easy considering his two badges, he wasn’t able to request another until the following week. Until then, he’s been… “training.”
Blue stands at attention with the other new challengers in a field, eyes on the gym teacher in front of them. None of them are wearing the full uniform of the gym members, but they were each provided shirts and pants in various green and khaki colors. Just putting it on made Blue feel like he was part of something new, made his spine stiffen as he fell into formation with the others at the assigned time and place.
The first few days were spent learning basic presentation, then the importance of physical conditioning (AKA, lots and lots of running and some obstacle courses), then a few standard commands to position groups of pokemon in strategically useful ways. Today they finally have their first combat related lesson. Blue looks around, wondering where Aiko is… then spots her jogging toward them, already short hair tied back. Blue smiles at her, and she flashes one back before joining the rear line just as the instructor finishes unpacking some supplies and standing an easel up.
“Morning trainers, and welcome to Positioning 101,” the instructor says in a lazy drawl. The Gym’s Third, Sabra, is a tall young woman with dark skin, a buzz cut, and a perpetually half-lidded gaze. “This being your first official lesson, I’m going to introduce you to something you may have seen others carrying around.”
She opens a box full of plain wooden disks with the Thunder Badge symbol on them and a pin in the back. “These are your ‘Objections.’ Used to just be called ‘tokens’ when I started, but someone began calling them Objections and it stuck. Raise your hands with fingers out for each badge you have.”
Blue raises two fingers into the air. Most others raise at least one finger, while the majority show between two and four. An older woman with short greying hair is the only one with seven fingers up. Blue vaguely recognizes her from a battle match against Erica.
Lin, that was her name. Had a crazy-strong slowking and heracross.
“Keep em up.” Sabra begins tossing Objections to each of them for their badge counts. The trainers quickly space themselves out to give themselves more room to catch, many beginning to smile or laugh as they grab the flying discs with one hand as the other keeps holding their fingers in the air. She leaves Lin for last, then holds seven discs up with a raised brow. Lin smiles and lowers her hands, palms out and fingers curled. The trainers back away from her as the instructor begins to fling discs in every direction, and Lin’s hands dart left, right, up and down, grabbing every one. The class applauds, and Sabra smiles.
“Alright, form up again. I want you all to pin those to the front of your uniforms, rows of four. Pay attention to who’s got how many, because as of this moment, while you’re on the Gym grounds, those with more than you are your superiors. Any group activities, they give the orders. Any strategy decisions, they have final say. Understood?”
Blue nods along with the others, brow creased. This feels like a predictable and limiting way to assign rank, but he trusts there’s more coming.
“Any dispute you have with someone else with an equal or higher rank than you can be settled by wagering a token,” Sabra continues. “Your superior gives an order you disagree with, you can put up a token to express that disagreement. They can then choose to take it and try your idea instead: if it works, you get yours back plus one of theirs. If not, they keep it. For two with equal rank, either can offer a token.”
Someone raises a hand, and Sabra nods to them. “What if neither does?”
“Then what are they arguing for? Not putting your money where your mouth is should make it clear you’re not worth listening to. If the deadlock continues, their punishment is their continued dysfunction as a unit.”
Someone without badges raises their hand, then asks, “What if someone doesn’t have any, or runs out?”
“Then they’d better hope their arguments are convincing on their own. You all can feel free to hand someone a token at any time if you’re impressed by them, or want to make a sociopolitical statement.”
“How many tokens do
you
have?” someone else asks.
The group chuckles, and Sabra smiles. “Infinity minus two. Any other questions about the Objections?”
“Is there a way to earn more, outside of wagers?” Aiko asks.
“We used to hand some out in classes if a student did something impressive, but eventually felt it was messing with the dynamic. In case it’s not clear, these tokens are just meant to physically represent a natural dynamic between people: trust. Trust in thinking, in experience, in leading ability, whatever. And trust doesn’t come from on high. Trainers are warriors, not soldiers. Outside of gyms or the Ranger Corps, trainers don’t have formal ranks or a chain of command; when we choose to follow someone, to listen to them in a crisis, it’s based on their accomplishments or how well they can convince us their idea is the right one. And the more they prove themselves the more trust they have. So while you’re in this gym, we’re going to make you as aware as we can of how you’re assigning your trust to others, and what it takes to earn some.”
Blue realizes he’s grinning and tones it down to a smile. He’s going to have to push Red to take a few classes here: he thinks his friend would enjoy this system. Hell he’d probably try to implement it among their group.
“So. You’ve got your Objections. Let’s see how you use them.”
Sabra marks an X on the poster board. “This is a dragonite. Fully grown, and mean. Rampaging in this direction.” She draws an arrow down, then some circles. “About to reach a town. You and your classmates are the only trainers around. Your objective is to prevent it from reaching the town if possible, and minimize civilian loss if not. Now. What’s the first question you’ve got to answer about any engagement?”
The class is still and silent. Blue listens to the distant yells and chants of trainers and other instructors, trying to think as a drop of sweat slides down his neck and the sun beats down on them. First he’d want to know what pokemon the others with him have. Next the terrain, anywhere they can surprise the dragonite from…
A gangly redhead raises his hand, one of the two five badge trainers. “How strong it is.”
“Good. What else?”
“What pokemon my allies have,” Blue offers, and the rest of the class begins pitching in ideas.
“How much time we have.”
“Has anyone fought a dragonite before?”
Their instructor nods along with each suggestion, then writes three words out:
Intel. Resources. Terrain.
“All good answers. More than anything else, you have to know what your enemy is capable of, what resources are at your disposal, and where you’ll be fighting. Any strategy you try to devise without one of these three things is going to be weak to the point of uselessness. So, you know your enemy, roughly. Here’s your terrain.” She draws some grass tufts and hills, then a forest to the side. “Now split into groups of… seven? Eight, and figure out a plan. You, there, you two here, you go with them. Reconvene in ten with a plan, as detailed as you can get it, and we’ll do a breakdown and judgement then.”
Blue is glad he’s not paired with Lin: little chance of getting an Objection from that veteran. He scans his group mates as they walk a distance away from the others and form a circle. One with one badge, two with no badges, one with two besides himself, two with three and the gangly guy with five, who speaks first.
“Hey everyone, I’m Cal. The only pokemon I have that can take some hits from a dragonite are a scizor and a golem.” He looks to the trainer on his right.
“Hi. Jen. I’ve got an ursaring that might take a few attacks. Other than that, a raichu or hypno to hit it from afar.”
“Glen. Got a snorlax to slow it down.”
Everyone perks up at that, and Blue whistles. Getting a snorlax by his third badge is either impressive or really lucky. “How old?” he asks.
“About twenty years.”
Not much grown, then.
And snorlax aren’t all as physically tough as most people give them credit for, though they can shrug off most special attacks like no one’s business. “Any useful attackers?”
Glen gives him a skeptical look, but says, “A fearow that can harass it for a bit.”
Blue nods and lets it go. Cal seemed about to say something to Blue, then just nods at the next person in the circle, the other trainer with two badges.
“Lani. I’ve got a dewgong.” Everyone murmurs appreciation at that, Ice attacks being the only thing that can reliably take a Dragonite down fast. “Won’t have much mobility, but it can get some solid hits in if you can give it cover.”
“Blue. My strongest attacker is double resisted, so a wartortle with Ice Beam may be the only thing I can offer. The rest of my pokemon would really just be there to distract and harass.”
The two trainers with no badges look at each other. They appear related, and Blue guesses they’re on their journey together. “Chie and Taro,” the girl says for both of them. “I don’t know what we have that could do much. A jigglypuff to try to put it to sleep, a koffing to make some smoke and distract it… nothing that can really take a hit or do much damage.”
“Same here,” the boy with one badge says. “I only have a meowth, oddish, poliwag, and pidgey. I don’t think it would even notice them. Oh, I’m Vincent.”
“Okay,” Cal says. “So. We’ve got a golem and snorlax to tank it, scizor and dewgong to take it down. We can have… Jen? Jen, as flex. Maybe start with raichu or hypno, then put ursaring in if we need him. I guess I should ask, anyone else here feel confident dual battling? Okay, I think that’s our best bet then. We hit it hard with everything we’ve got and take it down before it has time to knock out our tanks. The three of you, try to keep your pokemon safe, but get a hit in when you can. Preferably with any status conditions.”
The others nod, but Blue is frowning as he tries to think of a better plan. There’s got to be something better the less useful trainers can do than just try to distract it and hope for the best: a dragonite in a rampage isn’t going to be slowed down by anything but a critical hit to an eye or wing.
“Any Objections?” Cal looks around. “Okay, so positioning. Those woods provide us cover, if we’ve got time we should check an area for wild pokemon then camp it until the dragonite is moving past. If we can engage inside it we’ll have extra cover, and the farther we fight from the town the safer it’ll be.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t all be in one place,” Blue says. “If it’s full grown it probably knows hyper beam. We should spread, minimize the risk of all being hit by one.”
“We won’t be able to coordinate as easily,” Cal says.
“So delegate. Trainers with melee pokemon will have to be closer anyway. Choose a lieutenant to call the shots for the ranged attackers.”
“Which would be who, you?” Glen asks.
“Whoever has the most experience among them, so Jen, probably.”
She looks surprised. “Yeah, I guess I can do that.”
“Hang on, I’m still not sold on splitting up in the first place,” Cal says.
Blue remembers his objection to splitting up back when Red suggested it in Viridian forest, and fights down his impatience. “Well, what are your problems with it?”
“It’s just trading one risk for another. I’d rather keep everyone together.”
Well, that’s helpfully vague.
Blue decides not to press it and come off as insubordinate. “Okay, let’s go over positioning then?”
Taro frowns. “I thought we just did. In the woods, right?”
“He means of our pokemon,” Lani says. “I think.”
“Yeah. The instructor said to go into as much detail as possible. I figured we should try and go over where they are in relation to each other and ourselves.”
Cal shrugs. “Sure. So we’ll set up our tanks on the side where the dewgong is and keep it from getting past us to hit it, while you guys harass it from behind and try to get it to turn around.”
“If you set up in front of me it’ll be harder to hit the dragonite without friendly fire,” Lani says.
“And the rest of us will have to try and aim around you, from a distance.” Jen says. “Not great.”
“It’s the only way to prevent it from just going straight at the ranged,” Cal says.
Lani shakes her head, then kneels and plows a finger through the dirt to outline the forest, town, and path of the dragonite. “Dragonite are fast. I think it’s better to put some of the tanks on either side to avoid getting hit by our ranged, and to box it in. If we come at it all from one side, it could just flee and attack the town from the other.”
“Maybe,” Blue says. “But it’s not
trying
to attack the town. That’s just the direction it’s rampaging. If we hit it from one side it should turn to us.”
“Why not draw it away then?” Glen asks. “The objective was just to not let it reach town.”
“That seems like a technicality,” Jen says. “I’m not sure Sabra will accept it.”
“Agreed,” Cal says. “Besides, a rampaging dragonite is dangerous: pointing it in a different direction just puts others at risk.”
Blue considers as they argue, trying to imagine himself in the situation. It’s not hard to come up with strategies he would use to fight the dragonite if he was on his own, with access to the others’ pokemon, but even with a dewgong, golem, and scizor, he would be worried about his odds.
Being able to fight all together means they should win, even if they get sloppy, but they still want to win
clean.
No casualties, no risks. If they know the dragonite will stay engaged on them, it might be best to engage in a battle of endurance of sorts.
“We shouldn’t try to distract it,” Blue says, interrupting a discussion of the lower level trainers taking turns. “I think I have a better idea. We should set up a field medical line for you four.”
“No one listed any healing pokemon. Does anyone have them?” Cal asks.
“Even without any, we have potions, ether, and revives. If we’re not going to be useful in the fight anyway, even using your second and third choice pokemon is probably a better idea, if it means someone else is there to get your primaries back in shape. Switch your pokeballs to open access, and when one of your pokemon is hurt, withdraw and toss it to us. We can summon it, heal it, and throw it back while you keep battling with your others.”
The circle is quiet as they consider this, and Blue listens to the other two groups conversing as he looks from face to face. Some look doubtful, but the others…
“It also lets us split up, but not too far,” Jen says. “Melee, ranged, and medical forming a triangle point between them.”
Finally Cal nods. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense to me. Anyone else got an objection?”
No one does, and they spend the rest of the time discussing positioning. When Sabra calls time, they approach and go over everyone’s plans. The first team uses hit and run tactics to keep the dragonite distracted while Lin’s slowking attempts to overwhelm it mentally from a distance. The strategy seems simple on the surface, but they’d come up with a number of clever tactics to use as needed, which caused Sabra to nod approvingly and declare their plan a likely success. Lin hands an objection to one of the trainers in her group, who smiles wide and attaches it to their shirt.
The second team’s plan does indeed try to simply drive the dragonite away from the town, as Glen suggested. Sabra doesn’t seem to have a problem with the concept, focusing her criticisms specifically for their use of kiting tactics.
“Remember to take the temperament of the wild pokemon into account when trying to confront it. If this dragonite is looking for a fight, it may not be driven off by seeing the ground in front of it set ablaze or get rocks thrown at it. The only thing known to reliably deter a dragonite once its blood is up has been a powerful enough blizzard. Sorry, but your plan probably wouldn’t work.”
A trainer from that group with three Objections unpins one and hands it to their group’s leader with a slight frown. Sabra turns to Blue’s group, and Cal describes the plan. The instructor makes a thoughtful noise after he finishes. “Dedicating non-combatants to battlefield recovery is standard procedure for this gym. Do any of you know gym members, or read our forum?”
His group shakes their heads, a few of them glancing at him. Blue is as surprised as they are, and widens his eyes to exaggerate his innocence. It’s satisfying to know that he was able to come up with a gym-approved strategy on his own, and he wants to make sure people don’t think he “cheated.”
“Well, I’d say your plan should succeed as well. More casualties than the first group’s, probably, but they have stronger pokemon up front. Well done.” She waits to see if any objections are handed over. A few people glance between Cal and Blue, but Blue never offered an Objection: Cal had adopted his plan without him needing to. “So, this was your first taste of working in groups. Next we’re going to practice maneuvers that allow easy propagation of orders among group members.”
She flips the page on the poster board and starts writing out
Priority 0, Priority 1, Priority 2…
“At the very least, you should have an understood shorthand for priorities for any group you’re a part of, large or small. Rangers use an increasing priority list, so we’ve adopted theirs as standard procedure. For those of you who don’t know how this works, it’s fairly straightforward: Priority 0 is considered the basic default behavior of everyone acting in the best interest of themselves and those around them, with their own understanding of events. Priority 1 supersedes it if issued, as the implication is that there is something more important that needs to be coordinated on and attended to, even if it does not appear obvious to every trainer why. Once a Priority 1 has been established, a Priority 2 will be issued if some new concern appears that supersedes 1. Once it is handled, 1 is considered still in effect: if the situation changes and Priority 1 is no longer important, then further orders should be labeled as the
new
Priority 1. Any questions so far?”
The group stays silent. Blue’s mind is already racing ahead as he tries to think through how the priorities are determined by each ranking officer. “Are the first few of these common knowledge before an encounter?”
“Generally yes, if they have time to prepare, any Ranger squad worth their uniform will have at least two or three Priorities already in place, so people know the initial goals. They would then add new ones if needed.”
The gangly boy, Glen, raises his hand. “What if you set two priorities already, then something new comes up that’s between them? Would you say something like Priority 2.5?”
“That’s exactly right. It’s a system that allows potentially infinite on-the-fly accommodation of new circumstances. While it could get awkward to continue fracturing orders, realistically I’ve never seen anything more than a 2.25 or 1.75.”
Aiko pokes her hand up. “What if a priority shifts position? Do you rearrange all of them?”
“No. If there are four priorities and Priority 1 becomes the new most important one, you would say ‘Priority 1 upgrade to 5,’ and after that refer to it as 5. The exception to this is Priority 0, which despite being below 1, is also partially outside the hierarchy. At any point, if the leader calls for Priority 0, they mean forget all the previous Priorities and do what you can to keep yourselves safe and act as you see fit. Sometimes, if things get FUBAR enough, it’s basically a way to say ‘every man for themselves.’ For this reason it’s sometimes called Priority Alpha.”
Someone mutters something, and Sabra raises a brow at them. “Got something to say?” The young man shakes his head. “Come on Trainer, spit it out. We’re all here to learn.”
“I was just saying that this seems unnecessarily confusing.”
She smiles. “A common comment. Who else agrees that this system is too complicated?”
A few people raise their hands, then a few more, until a little over half of the participants have their hands raised. Blue keeps his down: on the off chance she singles someone out to offer something better, he’d rather wait until he has one.
“Well it’s your lucky day, because trying to come up with a better system is your next assignment,” she tells the class at large, causing Blue to smile. “Keep in mind what this system does well, and what it does poorly, and how you’d want to improve it without losing its strengths. If you come up with something novel, who knows, we might even adopt it officially and send it to the Rangers. Same groups as before, fifteen minutes. Go on.”
Blue congregates with the others again, all of whom were more or less still together. They discuss the system’s strengths and weaknesses, then try to come up with things that address its strengths while ignoring its weaknesses. This results in people mostly just discussing what they like or dislike in the original system again, and Blue remembers too late that he should have suggested everyone think on their own for a few minutes. Cal gets everyone back on track by reminding them that they’re supposed to be actively trying to come up with new ideas, and Jen takes out some pen and paper, using it to write out what they come up with and list pros and cons.
Blue remembers doing something similar when they were Goal Factoring, and suggests trying to draw things out that way. He’s not sure if it’s meant for something like this, but the others seem interested. He guides Jen in the process, and at the very least writing them down helps the conversation avoid going in circles. They isolate each strength, then try to come up with a plan that captures it, then go down the list of strengths to see if they apply too before seeing if it avoids the weaknesses. Glen argues that they should check for avoiding negatives first, so they try that for a while, but end up spending most of their time debating over what an acceptable amount of “complexity” is.
They run out of time before really fleshing out a system, but Sabra doesn’t seem upset, and the other two groups fared similarly. “It wasn’t a lot of time, so I would have been surprised if anyone came up with something stellar, but at least you have an idea of what goes into trying to make something like this.” A bell rings across the campus, and Sabra begins taking down the poster board. “If you can come up with something on your own that you think beats the default, shoot me or another of the instructors a message any time. We’re always looking to improve our systems. Class dismissed.”
As the group begins disbanding, he heads over to Aiko. “That was pretty fun.”
She grins. “Yeah, way more interesting than just another training drill. Did you sign up for anything else today?”
Blue checks the schedule on his phone. “Terrain assessment 101, after lunch. You?”
“Same. Let’s see if we can get Red and Leaf to join us.” Aiko glances past him, and Blue turns to see Glen walking toward them.
“Hey, Blue. It was good working with you.”
“Hey, thanks.” Blue struggles to remember something specific Glen contributed that he can mention, and just settles on, “Same to you.”
“I was wondering, why didn’t you ask for an Objection from Cal? It was your idea we went with in the end.”
Blue considers his answer. One of the first lessons in Nobunaga’s journey to win the respect of others was his willingness to make use of all resources at his disposal, including his soldiers’ every skill and scrap of knowledge. People saw that, and respected it, and wanted to follow him because they knew he would hear them out and make full use of their potential, so that even if his goals or methods were often brutal or seemed extreme, they still believed he had given it and any objections they had full consideration.
“The objections are for when a leader disagrees with someone under them,” Blue says at last. “Cal heard our ideas out, thought them over, then decided on mine. He did what a good leader should do.”
“Huh. Makes sense. You’re a pretty chill guy.”
Aiko snorts, ignoring the look Blue shoots her. “Didn’t expect that?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“I know the feeling. I thought the rich kid of a world famous Professor would be full of himself, but Blue hides it well.” She gives him a fond look and rubs his hair. “One of the reasons I joined up with them.”
Blue’s face is flushed as he tries to come up with something to say, but Glen nods. “Well, I think you deserve recognition for it, even if Cal accepted your idea. I’ve never really been much for coming up with plans, so…” He unpins an Objection and hands it to Blue.
Blue stares at the offered wooden disk. “You don’t have to do that.”
“My choice, right? Sabra said.”
Blue hesitates a moment longer, then takes the disk.
A “sociopolitical statement,” she said?
“Thanks.” It’s not the same as earning one through someone accepting his plan, but… in some ways it’s better. Blue pins it to his shirt, then smiles at Glen. “Hey, want to grab lunch with us?”
Glen looks surprised and smiles back. “Yeah, sounds fun. Lead the way.”
Red lies in bed with Pichu on his stomach and admires his glossy new Researcher License, basking in the sense of contentment that fills him and trying it to ignore the melancholy note beneath it.
Three months since he set out on his journey. In some ways not much time, but he’s gone through so much that he feels like a completely different person than the Red who spent his days doing menial lab work or preparing for his journey with Blue. Now that the first step of his journey is complete, it feels like it was almost too easy… an idea that he imagines Past Red staring at in disbelief, then holding up a single sore-from-typing finger.
The peer review process had Red worried, but the data from his pokedex registrations were clear, as were his notes. He knows replication trials are being attempted already, particularly because of the new ability to acquire large amounts of abra for research. He looks forward to seeing their results, but his nervousness has mostly faded.
The past few days have been relaxing, in an odd way. Without his research to work on he spent most of his time practicing his psychic abilities and training his pokemon in the Trainer House rooms. Blue recently became insistent that Red come to the Gym and try some classes out, and Red surprised himself by not rejecting it out of hand. Why not take advantage of the gym’s facilities, if he’s training his pokemon anyway? He has an electric pokemon, after all.
Red finishes admiring his license, and wipes a tear away as he tucks it in his wallet. He wishes he could call his dad and tell him about his accomplishments. That would make the day perfect.
Instead he gets out of bed and heads for the Vermilion Gym to sign up for their next beginner’s classes, as he promised Blue. When he arrives and looks over the schedule, he spots one that particularly focuses on trainers that have electric pokemon and signs up for that too. Blue said their more advanced classes helped him a lot with Ion, and that he thinks his shinx is close to evolving. Maybe Pichu is too, but learning to better train him seems important either way…
He puts his name down for a double battle in the meantime, wanting to get more familiar with instructing two pokemon at once. Watching Blue and Aiko’s battle on the road gave him an idea that he’s been practicing since arriving at Vermilion, and he wants to try it out.
It takes a while for the matchmaker to find another badgeless trainer that’s interested in the same format, and Red uses the time training Cerulean. The abra will be getting a name change soon, since their voyage is in about a week; Red wants to make sure she’s registered to the city in case he gets super sea sick or the boat is hijacked by pirates or sunk by a gyarados. Cerulean’s mind is becoming more and more familiar to Red, who can almost feel through his pokemon’s psychic senses now. It’s particularly odd sending an impulse to use a psychokinetic burst, since the sensation is one that he’s been trying to do with his own powers for over a month now, and continues to utterly fail at.
Indiscriminate bursts of force seem to be Cerulean’s limit at first, but as Red becomes more comfortable in her head, he begins practicing with lifting small objects, first by inhabiting her senses as she levitates berries to eat, then by instructing her to catch the ones he tosses to her. Her senses are incredibly sharp, all except taste… though that might just be him not appreciating the berries on the same level she is.
Twenty minutes later he’s able to reliably instruct her to catch and hover berries mid-air. Best of all, he doesn’t feel overwhelmed by his grief. It’s there, a steady tide that saps his will and distracts him, but a short rest now and then seem to fully recover him, and the cumulative build up, if there is any, is slow.
Red reminds himself not to be too optimistic, but it feels like he’s finally developing his emotional endurance, or weakening the emotions behind his partition, or
something.
Maybe it’s just because he’s in such a great mood after getting his Researcher license, but either way, Red finds himself humming as he withdraws Cerulean to bring out Spinarak for some web shooting practice.
He’s in the middle of unclipping Spinarak’s ball when the door opens and a pair of trainers appear, along with—
“Blue?”
“Red!” His friend grins as he follows the two in, all three dressed in similar clothing. Blue has four wooden circles pinned to his chest for some reason. “You came!”
“I… yeah, I signed up for some classes. Thought I’d do a practice match while I wait. What are you doing here?” He realizes he’s being rude and looks at the other two. “Hey, I’m Red Verres.”
“We know,” the two trainers say at the same time, and Red realizes they’re brother and sister, probably twins. “I’m Chie, this is Taro. We saw you on the news.”
“We just finished our second class together,” Blue says. “The first was yesterday. They’re from Pallet Town too!”
The boy, Taro, grins. “We moved to Lavender Town a couple years ago, started our journey a few months back. Haven’t gone far from the city yet, just toward the eastern coast and back, and to the north a bit.”
“So you wanted a double battle?” Chie asks, eyeing him warily. “Just you? But you don’t have any badges, right?”
“Yeah, but don’t let that fool you, he’s been in some scrapes.” Blue goes over to the wall and leans against it, arms folded. “This I gotta see. You two have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get Red into trainer battles.”
Red feels his cheeks flush as he tries to think of some defense, deny the unspoken charge that he’s a… ugh…
battle trainer,
now, just because he’s at a gym and signing up for trainer battles…
“Well, we’re happy to test ourselves against anyone that travels with Blue,” Taro says, and his sister smiles and nods, unclipping a pokeball.
…but he doesn’t want to insult them, and besides, he
is
here to become a better trainer first and foremost.
“So did you want to fight one of us using two of our pokemon at a time, or both of us using one each?” Chie asks.
“Um. I guess both of you together would be harder for me? So maybe individually—”
“No,” Blue says. “Red, two individual trainers will be better preparation for fighting wild pokemon. Taro, Chie, you guys should practice your coordination.”
“Sure!”
“You got it!”
Red blinks at the determination the two suddenly show. “Uh. Okay, sure.” He unclips two balls, wondering what’s gotten into them. “So, I’ve got four pokemon to fight with.”
“We’ll use two each then,” Taro says.
“First knockout?” Chie asks.
“Nah, all four,” Taro replies.
“Too risky, maybe two tops.”
“It’ll be fine, just don’t—”
“Three knockouts,” Blue says. “Or three blood. Whichever comes first. Either side that can’t fight with two pokemon is assumed done, as the other opponent can just get around them and attack the trainer while their pokemon is fighting. Ready?”
“Okay!”
“Ready!”
Red blinks again, then grins. “Sir, yes sir!” Whatever Blue’s doing in this gym, he’s not going to throw a wrench in it.
“Set… go!”
“Go, Charmander! Go, Oddish!”
“Go, Mankey!”
“Go, Drowzee!”
Red takes a moment to analyze his opponents, ensuring that his strategy is still sound, then-
“Hold First Ten!”
Three words that both his pokemon immediately respond to, Charmander tossing a smokescreen out from the end of his tail while Oddish spews Sleep Powder at the mankey, since drowzee tend to be very hard to put to sleep. Blue quickly pulls his gas mask off his backpack and tugs it on, but the trainers are too focused on the battle to worry about themselves.
“Mankey, Chop right!”
“Drowzee, Confusion right!”
“Charmander dodge!”
Charmander tries, but stumbles as the drowzee extends its arms and begins to sway. The mankey avoids the spores as it dashes forward, but thankfully it dove straight through the smokescreen to attack, and comes out just to Charmander’s left.
“Base!” Red yells.
“Chop!”
“Hypnotize Left!”
Charmander whips an ember at the mankey, who screeches in pain as it dives forward and delivers a blow to the fire lizard’s neck that sends it tumbling to the side. A moment later the Stun Spore Oddish sent out envelops the mankey, who begins twitching, its movements becoming jerky and erratic.
A moment later Red’s oddish keels over, and both he and Taro withdraw their pokemon together. Red watches Charmander get to his feet with relief as he sends out Whismur.
The smokescreen is fading as Taro summons a krabby, and Red grins, pulse kicking up. Excellent: two slow pokemon. “Down Two!” he yells, feeling a blaze of excitement as his pokemon snap to attention.
“Dodge!” Taro and Chie yell together, clearly unsure of what’s coming. But the krabby isn’t targeted at all, while the drowzee is too slow to avoid the burst of sound that Whismur sends at the drowzee, or Charmander flicking embers at it in rapid succession.
“Bubblebeam!” Taro yells as Chie withdraws her drowzee to send out a koffing. But Charmander didn’t pause after sending the embers out, instead immediately running toward the drowzee so that the bubbles pop harmlessly against the ground in its wake.
“Whismur, Supersonic Nine,” Red says, and his pokemon sends a new frequency of sound at the krabby. Charmander, meanwhile, is still executing his previous command, and Red watches in satisfaction as the fire lizard leaps at the koffing, claws extended.
“Sludge!”
“Bubblebeam!”
The krabby slams its claws on the ground instead, while Charmander takes a ball of poison to the face as it leaps toward the koffing, claws extended.
The koffing reels in the air as the fire lizard latches on, its extra weight bringing it down until the koffing inhales deep and rockets upward. Charmander falls, and Red’s heart is in his throat as he aims his pokeball and nabs him with the beam before he hits the ground. A surge of adrenaline makes him grin as he clips the ball and reaches for a new one as blood patters to the floor beneath the koffing, and Chie returns her pokemon too.
“Match end!” Blue yells, making everyone go still. He goes to the fan controls at the side and turns them on, causing them to whir to life overhead and suck up all the remaining gases and smoke. Red and Taro withdraw their remaining pokemon as Blue pulls his mask off. “Red wins, three knockouts to two. Nice job everyone.”
The excitement and adrenaline of the match is joined by elation. Not only was the first live test of his strategy a success, but he beat
two
trainers at once with it!
“What were those commands?” Taro asks as he clips his krabby’s ball to his belt and runs a hand through his hair. “You barely gave any!”
“I was wondering about that too,” Blue says. “Is this what you’ve been practicing all week?”
“Yeah. I got the idea after your battle with Aiko. Have you figured out her code yet?”
Blue shuts down the fans, other hand rubbing his hair. “No, but now that you mention it…” Blue’s gaze is distant. “You were using simple commands to convey strategies for working together. Strategies that work when they’re fighting alone too? Aiko’s commands furthered the same goal for each pokemon she put out…”
The twins are frowning, but Red grins. “Right. As long as the pokemon have some move that you can fit into a general strategy, you can carry the same command over and even link multiple pokemon to the same general goal, all with one obscure command.”
“And the opponent has to guess what you linked to which command,” Blue says, a mix of consternation and excitement in his tone. “You came up with all this by watching Aiko fight once?”
“Well, she did most of the work, I just built on the framework she provided. The hardest part was getting each pokemon to link a second command to their attacks.”
“Ero,” Blue mutters. “Erosion. And Ero 2 to cycle into a second stage of the strategy.”
“Wait,” Chie says. “I think I get it. Okay, so ‘Hold’ was the strategy, and you used attacks that would lower our accuracy or put us to sleep to do it, but what about the other words? Why both ‘First’ and the numbers?”
Red smiles and tilts his hat up to scratch behind his head. “I dunno, what were they?” He’s enjoying this, he realizes. Enjoying it the way he enjoyed the battle, something he never used to think he would. But testing his ideas in the field against other, thinking opponents… there’s something thrilling about it that’s even stronger than watching Blue’s Challenge matches, something more personal in the examination of the strategies and tactics used against other thinking opponents.
“There’s no way you recorded ten custom commands in both your charmander and oddish,” Blue says after a moment, and Red watches his face as his friend slowly gets it. “Those weren’t linked to the attacks themselves at all, were they?” He smiles, and turns to the twins. “I got it. How about you two? Figure it out if you can, then we’ll go over what you did in the battle.”
Taro and Chie glance at each other, then begin to talk quietly. Blue saunters over and holds a fist up, grinning. “Congrats on the win. We’ll get you some badges yet.”
“Let’s not go crazy.” But Red’s smiling as he bumps knuckles with him. “But thanks. My license came today too.”
“Nice! Double congrats. Guess it’s finally time to celebrate turning twelve for real, with an accomplishment like that.”
“Hey, you’re not doing so bad either,” Red says, glancing at the twins. “When did you get minions?”
Blue grins. “Privileges of rank and status. I’ll whip them into fighting shape so your rematch is more of a challenge. In return I can probably get them to do my laundry or something.”
Red laughs. “Try not to get used to it, unless you plan on having them join us too.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Red blinks, then studies Blue, who looks serious now. “I guess not,” he says slowly. “If it’s okay with Leaf and Aiko, it’s fine with me. Have they already asked?”
“Not them, no, but this other trainer, Glen, has been hinting about it. He’s got three badges, is old and strong enough to travel on his own, and he’s good at listening and following orders while still being creative in accomplishing them.”
“I… didn’t realize those were attributes we were looking for,” Red says, feeling odd. He always knew Blue one day planned to lead others… the whole of Indigo, eventually. Red just didn’t expect him to be working to make it a reality so soon.
“Hey, you’re the one that comes up with most of the smart ideas,” Blue says, cuffing his arm. “As long as you’re around to advise me, they can be both of our minions.”
Red shakes his head, smiling. “For PR purposes, I insist any minions I make use of be referred to as ‘research assistants.'”
“Now you’re getting it.”
They watch the two confer a bit longer, then Blue takes out his phone. “Gonna tell the others your license came so they can plan for the party tonight. Preference on restaurant?”
“There’s a Kalos district down by the southern pier that had some interesting looking places.” Red takes out his own phone to look up restaurants and notices he has new emails. He opens the app and skims them for anything important, eyes snagging at a particular sender:
Sabrina Natsume,
Gym Leader of Saffron and the strongest psychic in Kanto, received a couple hours ago.
Red quickly taps it and reads:
Hello, Mr. Verres. Congratulations on your recent research and accomplishments. I found the hypothesis suggested intriguing, and look forward to any future discoveries you uncover.
I’ve also learned that you are a Gifted with a particular gift. I will be visiting Vermilion on some business today, and would be interested in meeting with you to discuss your unique abilities and research. If you’re available, please meet me at the below address at 4:30 PM.
Red checks the time and sees that it’s almost 4, then plugs the location into his map to see how far it is, mind racing. Did Ayane reach out to Sabrina specifically, or did her asking around about his shield travel up the psychic community’s grapevine? Hell, considering the community, it might not have even been explicitly mentioned by her, but rather bounced from thought to thought.
About a twenty minute bike ride. He can make it, if he wants to…
Red lowers his phone, letting it sink in that one of the top five psychics worldwide wants to meet with him.
Nervous? Me? No sir, no ma’am, nothing to be nervous about here…
Just as a precaution, he closes his eyes and considers everything he knows and feels in case there’s something he doesn’t want anyone else to find out. Sure, he has his mental shield, but trusting that would be foolish without knowing the extent of Sabrina’s abilities, which he’s not sure anyone can claim.
Anything about my family? Friends? Have I broken any laws? Any new research opportunities? Secrets I’m keeping for others?
Shit. There’s one of those.
“You okay, Red?”
“Uh huh. I think I’m going to have to skip the classes I registered for though.” He replies to let her know he’ll meet her.
“Aw man, how come? You—”
“Sabrina wants to meet me in thirty minutes.”
Blue’s eyes widen, then he grins. “
Leader
Sabrina? Well what are you waiting for, go, go! I’ll let them know you can’t make the classes and sign you up for them tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” Red gets his bag. The twins are watching him with surprise. “Sorry, gotta go.”
“Is it direction?”
“What? Oh, my code.”
“Don’t tell them, Red!” Blue says. “It’s an advantage until they figure it out.”
Red shakes his head, smiling. “Yeah, they’re directions,” he tells the twins. “More precise than usual targeting, and faster.”
“Good idea!”
“Thanks for the battle!”
“Spoilsport!” from Blue. “Battle trainers don’t reveal their secrets!”
“You too,” Red tells the twins. “And I’m not a battle trainer,” he yells to Blue as he heads out the door. “I’m a Researcher!”
Red goes to meet Kanto’s “Mistress of Psychic Pokemon” at a cafe in the richer western portions of the city, where the buildings are all clean and gleaming, and there are noticeably fewer construction projects going on. As Red navigates the busy streets on his bike, he calls Psychic Ayane to get some quick advice for keeping secrets hidden when meeting with a powerful psychic. Bill’s human storage activity is the only real bit of information he has that he doesn’t want getting out… and not just because it’s not his secret to tell.
“Besides, you’re a smart kid. I don’t actually have to explain how hard I can make your life if you give me reason to, do I?”
Red curses as the phone goes to voicemail, and doesn’t bother leaving a message, simply switching to the next best thing.
“Hello, Red! How’s Vermilion City? Did your Research license arrive?”
“Hi Professor!” Red half shouts as he weaves through some pedestrian traffic and onto the bike lane in the road. “Yes, it’s awesome, but sorry, no time to chat, important question!”
“One moment.” There’s the sound of footsteps, then a door closing. “Go ahead, Red. What’s wrong?”
“I’m meeting Leader Sabrina in about ten minutes. Any advice would be highly appreciated!”
Professor Oak is silent for the time it takes for Red to ride back onto some sidewalk and cut across a shopping strip, then asks, “How much do you know about Sabrina?”
“Nothing, really. Saffron Gym Leader, powerful psychic despite her age… uh… I think that’s it.”
“Do you know how she became Leader?”
Red recalls something Blue said about it at some point. “She beat the last one there, right? When it was a Fighting Gym?”
“Yes. People believe it was easier for her than it might normally be, since her affinity for Psychics gave her a natural advantage against the previous Leader’s Fighting pokemon. This is obviously not the whole story.”
“Right,” Red says as he checks the map and turning onto the road that leads to the cafe. “Otherwise someone who’s good with Dark pokemon would just move in on her instead. I figured Gym Leaders would use their best pokemon, and a mix of Types, if being challenged for Leadership, wouldn’t they?”
“You’re right, though for most, their strongest pokemon will often be the type their Gym focuses on. However, the battle between Sabrina and Leader Kiyo had layers beneath the surface. Kiyo was an enormously skilled trainer, but not a particularly effective Leader. He was adequate at best in teaching his Gym members, and his grasp of wider strategy outside of individual pokemon battles was… lackluster. There were a number of incidents that made people question his capability to protect the city, but anyone who challenged him for Leadership was beaten. He became more and more draconian as people turned against him, and his gym lost members. In battles with challengers, his pokemon began to cripple and even kill their opponents on a somewhat regular basis, until people completely stopped attempting to supplant him, not wanting to risk their pokemon.”
Red’s eyes widen. A Leader may not be the best at everything, but a competent one would at least raise up other trainers who can advise them well. One that lets their ego get in the way, and then loses control of their temper like that, or worse does it intentionally… That’s the kinds of things villains in shows did, almost as bad as being a Renegade. “What happened?”
“There was something of a final exodus among his gym members, and over time, Saffron city and the outlying areas were hit with a number of pokemon attacks it was unable to contain. The neighboring cities and local Rangers did their best to pick up the slack, but it got to the point that people began asking when the League would intercede: I happen to know that Elite Bruno was preparing to challenge Kiyo, and step down from the Elite Four to take over Saffron Gym, when instead Sabrina, who was well known by that point for her powerful psychic abilities and devastating psychic pokemon, stepped in.”
“And beat him.”
“And
destroyed
him. I don’t use that word lightly, Red: it should not have happened. Sabrina was a powerful trainer with a handful of badges to her name, and she had type advantage for most of her team, but Leader Kiyo was a monstrous opponent. He wouldn’t have kept his position for so long otherwise. His defeat was so complete that there were suspicions, even amid the relief of the city and region, that the fight was fixed, or that he or his pokemon were sabotaged in some way.”
Red is so caught up in the story he forgets to check the map in time, and doesn’t realize until after he passes the place. He curses under his breath and skids to a stop, then turns his bike around, breathing hard. “And what do you think?”
“My best guess? Nothing so blatant. But by the end, Kiyo was a broken man, and I believe Sabrina knew when that point came. She did not arrive in the city before her challenge: she had been there for months, meeting with gym members and ex-gym members, organizing trainers in the city during nearby incidents, even opening her own classes, both for psychics and for training pokemon, within the city.”
“So she
did
bring about his downfall, in some purposeful way.”
“I doubt she gave him the alcohol that he allegedly took to bed every night, but… yes, that’s my belief. And I suspect she had advice and financial aid from some other Gym Leader, possibly multiple. Those in the nearby cities certainly had incentive to no longer carry the extra weight. Whoever was involved, it does seem that Sabrina worked purposefully to undermine Kiyo until only his most obstinate and incompetent supporters remained, his Gym all but collapsed around him. Her preliminary matches were painful to watch.”
Red sees the cafe, and quickly stops and dismounts a block away. “Okay. I appreciate the history lesson, but I’m still not sure what to take away from this. I don’t
think
I have anything she wants enough to turn my friends against me or drive me to drink, but in general, I should be aware that she’s manipulative?”
“A strong word, but perhaps fair. And I don’t want to give you the wrong impression: I have met her a handful of times, and believe her to be a good person, or I would suggest you not meet her at all. What she did to Kiyo,
if
she did it, was perhaps the best outcome for the city, and likely necessary for the region to avoid the embarrassment of requiring League intercession. I still do not know if the plan was hers, or someone else’s… I was in contact with the League fairly often then, and do not believe any of them assisted her.” Professor Oak sighs. “But regardless of all that, yes, most powerful psychics appear, ah, ‘socially strategic’ to
some
degree: I suppose it’s inevitable when you have so much more information than most do about those you interact with. So whatever Sabrina wants from you, be aware that she can be subtle, even if she offers something that seems fair in return.”
“Got it. Expect to get something out of this, but watch out for manipulation, or a long con,” Red says, heart pounding both from the quick ride and anxiety over the coming meeting. He takes his helmet off, then shucks his knee and arm pads into the box with the bike.
“She probably won’t try and corner you in any way, but if she makes you
want
to give it to her, you will be easier to deal with. As long as the exchange seems equitable, well and good. But I thought it was worth warning you, either way.”
“I understand. Thanks, Professor.” He checks the time and sees he has four minutes left. “I gotta go.”
“Good luck, Red.”
Red hangs up, and only then remembers that he didn’t ask for advice on keeping her out of his head.
It’s okay. I can do this.
He closes his eyes, and takes a few deep breaths, ignoring the few pedestrians that pass by and letting himself calm down little by little. Eventually his pulse returns to a normal rate, thoughts clearing as he feels more centered.
So. While I now have to worry about getting manipulated, my first priority is still to avoid spilling Bill’s secret. What do I know about keeping thoughts secure?
Few psychics are powerful enough to actually pick up words or full ideas from others’ minds, rather than just emotional states… but Sabrina is one of them, by all accounts. Still, the target has to be thinking about whatever it is for her to pick it up, and now that Red knows how psychic powers work, he understands that she would be joining her mind with his, which he would notice.
Or at least, that’s the common understanding. Red doesn’t actually
know
what the limits of psychic powers are, the best research is spotty and inconsistent, which means he doesn’t know what Sabrina’s limits are. If she can pick up more than just surface thoughts without merging their minds, it’s not in her interest to make that common knowledge.
Which means Red will need something to distract more than just his surface thoughts. He takes out his supply list and searches through it for anything that can help him. Whatever it is, it would preferably be something subtle, so he can’t just blare music into his earphones when he wants to…
Red is scanning through the Ts and pauses when he sees
thumbtacks
between
thermos
and
toiletries
. He remembers looking around his room and trying to come up with some obscure use for anything he saw that didn’t have too much mass, but he can’t remember what he thought justified bringing thumbtacks. Putting sheets of paper up on trees to leave directions? Something like that.
Red considers taking one out and putting it in the end of his shoe, carefully angled so he can prod himself with it if needed. If the pain registers on his face or in his mind, he might be able to play it off as having an injury… but that would be a lie, and she would probably be able to detect that if nothing else…
Forget painful things, do something pleasant instead.
Maybe if he buys some cookies when he goes inside…
Red’s watch beeps, and he sighs. Out of time, and any benefits from further thinking would be marginal compared to potentially irritating her by arriving late. He quickly takes out some wet wipes for the dried sweat on his face and neck, then straighten his collar and puts his hat on. He stares at his reflection in a curtained window to make sure he looks presentable, then puts everything away and walks to the cafe.
The interior is bright and clean, its walls lined with colorful booths and its front counter displaying all sorts of delicious pastries. Red sees some of the booths are in alcoves with curtains over them, and wonders if anyone is in them: if not, the place is empty save for the young man working the counter, an older man in a long coat and woolen hat, and the Gym Leader sitting across from him.
Sabrina is immediately recognizable, even dressed casually in a pink tank top and white pants, her dark hair sweeping down and out above her shoulders. It feels weird seeing a Leader in a cafe, fancy as it is, and he hesitates at the entrance of the sitting area, not wanting to interrupt. She glances at him and holds a finger up, and he nods and steps back toward the front counter, scanning their menu for something to use as a distraction.
Ah! Perfect…
A few minutes later his chocolate milkshake is ready, and the cashier refuses any payment, gesturing to the Gym Leader. Red turns to see Sabrina’s guest rising from his seat. He takes her hand and bows, muttering something, then leaves. Red waits until he’s out of the shop, then approaches again, feeling nervous butterflies in his stomach. He recognizes that he’s feeling a little star struck, like he was upon meeting Bill, then quickly takes a sip of his drink, letting the cold, overwhelming sweetness fill his mouth.
Damn. That’s good milkshake
. He’ll have to be careful not to finish it too quickly.
“Hello, Mr. Verres.” Sabrina inclines her head, stirring tea in a porcelain cup with a lotus on it. “Please join me.”
Red sits across from her and meets her gaze for the first time. Despite knowing she’s somewhere in her mid-twenties, as soon as Red notices the unusual rose-quartz color of her eyes, he feels what he did with Psychic Narud: a sense of weight, of years layered on top of each other, that makes him suddenly feel like he’s in the presence of someone much older. Red shifts his gaze to her nose, wondering why he never felt something similar with Ayane or Ranna.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Leader. Thank you for the drink. How can I be of assistance?” He sips the milkshake again, letting the flavor fill his mouth and mind. He’s tempted to bring his mental shields up too, but decides against it: even if it would work on her, it would be too distracting to maintain, and she might even consider it rude.
“First, I’d like to congratulate you on your Researcher’s License,” Sabrina says. “I’m curious, do you intend to continue pursuing psychic phenomena in particular?”
“Oh. Thank you. Uh, for now, yeah. I don’t want to limit myself, if something else comes up I might change tracks, but I think it’s worth pursuing at the moment.”
“May I ask why?”
Red wonders how much detail he should go into. “That’s kind of a long answer.”
“You’re worried I’ll be bored, despite me specifically seeking you out to speak with?” Sabrina sips from her cup, smiling slightly.
Red blinks, processing this. The gym leader seems very much at ease, and her gaze stays mostly on him without feeling oppressive, occasionally letting her gaze wander to her cup, or the window behind him. Red makes himself relax, settling into his seat and going through a quick calming technique.
“Good awareness and response time,” she says, taking him by surprise and causing him to become flustered. “Oh, and now I’ve ruined it. I apologize.”
“That’s okay,” he says automatically, and tries to concentrate on relaxing again. It’s a little harder, but as he breathes in and out, he lets his mind wander to his research until it calms. “Well, the short version is I want to discover the origin of pokemon species. Any deeper and more fundamental understanding of them will help with that, such as what makes them so different. We know that natural selection creates variation in species, but there are also pokemon that seem to spontaneously arise out of their environment. So did the pokemon we know already do the same, in ancient history? Or did they come about from biological changes over time?”
“Biological changes. You mean coming from the same ancestor, such as mew?” she muses, sipping her tea.
“I was thinking of even simpler life forms, but if mew existed, and was really the first pokemon, then yeah, learning about psychic pokemon might be important.”
“Then your interest in psychics is incidental to your interest in biology.”
“A little. The type system often seems incomplete or misleading, but psychic phenomena, and the related Dark type, are something we humans seem to share with pokemon, so it’s probably fundamental in a way that, say, studying Fire or Plant pokemon wouldn’t be.”
Also discovering how psychic phenomena work might help develop technology that mimics it and allow Bill to make something that spurs better machine understanding of human values mmmmm chocolate…
“Yes, I see.” Sabrina’s gaze is distant, and Red ignores her as best he can, gulping down his milkshake until he suddenly feels the sharp pain of brain freeze. He grimaces and stops drinking, one hand rising to rub his forehead.
Sabrina chuckles. “I apologize if that was on my account. I don’t mean to make you nervous, and have no intention of trying to connect deeper with your mind. If your emotional mood itself is what you fear me sensing, then we can end the conversation. I hope you didn’t feel pressured into coming.”
“Oh, no,” Red says as he puts his cup aside, cheeks flushed. “I’m just… still new to interacting with other psychics.”
“Why do you not simply use your shield? Or was I misinformed about your having one?”
Red shifts. “Would you mind me asking first, how
did
you find out about that?”
She smiles. “The psychic community is rather interconnected, for all our layers and divisions. My Third asked me if I ever knew of someone who could shield their mind while sensing others probing it, and I told him I had not and asked why. He reported that someone had asked
him
the same question, and from there it wasn’t hard to discover that Psychic Ayane’s new student had apparently exhibited the ability. Am I to take the question as confirmation of it?”
Red nods. “Yeah, I can do it. Or I did with Ayane, anyway. The reason I’m not using it now is I don’t know if it’s rude or not.” He hesitates, then says, “Or to be honest if it would do any good against a psychic of your caliber.”
“An understandable fear. But such a breach should be felt even by someone with a regular shield, and if such a thing were to happen, you could simply throw your drink in my face and run.”
She says it so matter-of-fact that Red grins. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh? And what would you do, then, if a psychic were to force a merge?”
Red considers this a moment, then purposefully remembers what it felt like to be attacked by his Spinarak. But while the memory isn’t pleasant, there’s no sudden, sweeping reliving of it. Using that as a double edged defense wouldn’t work.
But there is something that still has that power over him, however much he’s gotten better at dealing with it.
“I’d probably try drowning them in grief,” he says, smile fading. “Assuming I could tell they were doing it at all.” It’s not like she has an incentive to tell him the truth if she
can
breach people’s shields without them knowing…
Sabrina sighs, the age behind her eyes becoming more pronounced. “I see you understand why many psychics’ lives can be… difficult.”
Red is lost for a moment, then realizes she probably picked up on his suspicion. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Trust is a valuable thing, and it is completely understandable that others would withhold it from those who have power over them. But without it, true and meaningful relationships are difficult… and so the suspicion and discomfort that psychics face throughout their lives, particularly powerful ones, can often be quite isolating. Even from one another.”
Sabrina’s face is still calm, but there’s something in her words that makes him feel how personal this topic is for her. Red wonders who she’s thinking of, and feels wretched for being so suspicious of her even as he knows he shouldn’t, that this too can simply be an additional manipulation. Red suddenly wonders if she’s the reason the cafe is so empty. Who would want to sit for tea in the same room as the most powerful psychic in the region? “I didn’t mean to…”
“I know.” Right, she can probably sense his remorse too. But then she smiles, and the sense of sitting across from someone far older than she appears fades. “Believe it or not, it doesn’t often bother me so much, anymore. Today was just a particularly hard day. My previous meeting dredged up some painful memories.”
“Oh.” Red doesn’t quite know what to say to that. The Gym Leader appears to be confiding in him, which is probably as good a way as any to make him feel more at ease and trusting. He decides to reach out as well. “I know what that’s like.” And he explains, as briefly as he can, his partition and the difficulties it had caused him.
Sabrina’s gaze is sympathetic, but also speculative. “I don’t envy you the experiences, but… I can’t help but wonder what role they’ve played in your particular expression of your powers.”
Red frowns. “Because of the partition? Seems a stretch, unless you have a bigger sample size to draw from?”
“There are other psychics with unique, or at least very rare, extra abilities,” she says. “Whether they had experiences similar to yours, I don’t know. But this partition you describe is the root of a psychic’s ability to shield their mind while still using their powers. Normally it is something a psychic develops. To have it develop on its own, before you learn to control your powers, is what intrigues me.”
“What do you mean? And what sorts of extra abilities?” Red takes out his notebook, which seems to amuse Sabrina, who lifts her cup and sips as she thinks.
“Let’s see. Sufficiently powerful psychics can project not just feelings, but static images and monotone words to others, but Elite Lucian of the Sinnoh region has the ability to share moving pictures and a full range of sounds, as well as physical sensations and tastes and smells, into another’s mind. As far as I’m aware he is unique in this. He likes to use it to entertain his nieces and nephews, projecting mental movies of books he reads for them. An old woman I met once in a faraway region could move incredibly small objects, such as grains of sand, with a dexterity that most others cannot come close to. I watched her make beautiful mandalas in moments with her mind, and though I’ve practiced ever since, for all my strength I cannot emulate her. And I have a student whose psychokinesis can even reach through glass, which should be impossible. Seeing him do so broke all our previous understandings of the limit of telekinetic powers.”
Red listens in rapt fascination, scribbling each down for future investigation. Psychokinesis that can go through solid objects? “Is it just glass, or can he move things through other materials too?”
“Just glass, for now,” she says. “For various complicated reasons, it is difficult for him to find time to participate in experiments, but rest assured that we hope to get to the bottom of it soon.”
Red feels a stab of longing, he would
love
to be part of that research, his mind is already racing with ideas to test such a unique power’s limits… “And you? Do you have any powers like that? Unique abilities?”
Sabrina is quiet a moment, then says, “In a sense. Perhaps it is just my imagination, but… at times I can see psychic phenomena.”
Red’s eyes widen. “What does it look like?”
“Light,” she says, voice soft. “Light in many colors, often colors I can’t name, radiating off of a psychic in proportion to how much power they use. It’s… beautiful.”
“That’s amazing! Can you look at mine, tell me how strong it is?” Hell, he’s been looking for a way to measure psychic strength all this time, but if she could
see
it…
She shakes her head, smiling. “Unfortunately I can’t do it at will. It comes and goes.”
“Oh.” Red can’t hide his disappointment, and he puts a question mark next to that one. Still, worth looking into later. “Well, some of these abilities seem more unique than others. Like, Lucian or the woman’s, they’re just normal psychic powers with an unusual level of power or precision, right? But moving things from the other side of glass… that’s what I’m more interested in. Finding phenomena that break ‘rules’ are the ones most likely to teach us something really new about the world. Do you think I can meet your student some time? Or get their name?”
Sabrina smiles. “Perhaps someday, but he’s rather secluded, and quite busy.”
“Ah.” Someone like Bill then, who appreciates their privacy. He quickly takes another sip of the shake, careful not to drink too much. “I get it. Well, it’s still good to know that sort of thing is possible at least.”
“Indeed. The more psychic powers are explored, the more the ‘rules’ we believed inviolate, few though they were, are proving more flexible instead. It’s why your research has been so interesting to many… and your power.”
“Well, I think that has a lot to do with who’s trying to come up with the rules, to be honest.” Red shrugs. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in the psychic community’s ability to create meaningful beliefs about how their powers really work.”
It takes two full seconds for Red to realize he just said that, out loud, to one of the leaders of that community, who no doubt contributed greatly to generating such beliefs.
The gaze the Gym Leader has fixed on him, one dark brow raised, is suddenly hard to ignore. “Oh? And you feel this way due to your few months of lessons and single experiment on psychic phenomena?”
Red swallows, trying to backtrack. “I mean… ah… it just all seems very… unscientific.”
“Hmm. Granted,” Sabrina says as she pours some more tea into her cup, and Red lets his breath out. “Most psychics aren’t scientifically oriented in the slightest, or seem positively allergic to such ways of thinking. But I have seen more researchers than you might credit, well-funded and highly motivated, attempt to unlock its secrets, and produce few results as well.”
Red thinks carefully before he responds, determined not to stick his foot back in his mouth. “Okay, I didn’t know about that,” he says at last. “If they’re
really
motivated to find stuff, and aren’t being held back by sacred or deeply ingrained beliefs that prevent them from thinking outside the box, then maybe making new discoveries about it will be harder than I thought. I’ll update in that direction, thanks for telling me.”
Sabrina looks amused. “You’re quite welcome. But you still mean to pursue it?”
“Well, sure. I mean, I’m going to be trying to understand my own powers as best I can anyway, along with pokemon. Ayane was a great teacher, and she seemed impressed by my progress. Maybe I can find out something new.”
“And what progress was that?” Sabrina doesn’t appear skeptical, more curious, but Red still feels nervous.
“Well. My shield isn’t the only thing that surprised her. Because of my partition, it’s hard for me to really use my powers for a significant amount of time. Or it was, anyway, I feel like it’s getting a bit easier. But still, my solution was to just try mimicking the mental state I experienced in her, then adjusting them as needed. And it seems to work pretty well.”
Sabrina’s curious look has sharpened into real interest now. “So in a way, it
was
your personal experiences and impairment that led to your unique shield.”
“Maybe? Earlier you said the partition was important to making a shield…”
“Partitioning one’s mind is how a psychic accomplishes many of their feats, such as selective amnesia, or shielding while still being free to project or merge with others. By arranging the ‘outer’ portion of your mind in the right pattern, you can keep your thoughts and feelings hidden while the rest of your mind engages in other activities.”
“But… the shielded portion isn’t responsive? Normally?”
“Correct. It is a separate part of your mind that remains inert so as not to reflect your hidden thoughts and feelings. To be able to sense something from it should defeat the purpose, but the way your powers developed, the partitioned mind seems particularly connected to yours regardless. My suspicion is that your partitioned mind is the conduit through which
all
your psychic abilities have been channeled. Your development of your powers has in truth been the development of a second partition, distinct from the one that has held in it the bulk of your grief, and so you have felt it less as that grief is shared more and more between them, and lessens on its own besides.”
Red considers this new metaphor, finding it plausible even as he has a sinking feeling. “Does that mean I’ll lose the ability to sense others while shielding, when the partition fades?”
Sabrina stirs sugar into her drink, face thoughtful. “Perhaps a new, intentional partition would retain the ability. If so then it should be teachable to others, and that is, in large part, why I asked to meet you.” She puts her cup down, then takes a consent sheet out of the bag beside her, voice becoming formal. “May I examine your ability, Psychic Red, and try to breach it?”
Red doesn’t have to consider this long: the conversation has put him much more at ease with her, as it was no doubt designed to do, and if in some way this would help contribute to the world’s understanding of psychic powers… he holds a hand out for it.
Sabrina watches him sign, then inclines her head as she takes it back and tucks it away. She shakes her dark hair back, hands rising to tie it up with a band from her wrist. “By your leave.”
Red turns to a fresh sheet near the back of his notebook and prepares to repeat the line-drawing he did with Ayane, wondering if Sabrina’s mind would feel significantly different than his teacher’s. He dutifully closes his eyes and concentrates on his breathing, slowly sinking into himself until his powers feel like a central part of him, prepared for use. He constructs his mental shield with deliberate slowness, wanting to make sure he gets it right, then says, “Okay, ready.”
There’s no sense of anything for a while, but eventually he recognizes the now familiar feeling of not being alone in his head, and starts drawing the line. He feels her mind slip around his, as expected, but instead of surrounding him or fading, the sensation changes. It becomes a sort of pattern imposed on his thoughts, like a drum beat that he has to tap his foot to, a rhyming couplet he keeps completing in his head.
Red’s closed eyelids tighten, and he begins to jaggedly run the pencil up and down as it keeps moving from one end of the sheet to the other, not thinking much anymore, simply trying to resist the urge to give in to the pattern as it focuses more and more, like he’s being swept away in some dance that he need only take the first steps to, and the rest will flow, he will flow, flow into the pattern and become it…
The careful hold he had over his shield falls apart, and Sabrina’s mind is suddenly there with his. He stiffens, feeling the sudden flood of grief… but then he merely feels happy, and excited, and curious, and—
–
she’s Projecting these feelings to keep the sadness away-
-then he’s alone in his head again, and he lifts the pencil away from the sheet and opens his eyes, staring at the Leader in wonder.
“What was that?” he asks, eyes wide.
“What did it feel like?” Sabrina asks, gaze lifting from the sheet of paper to meet his.
“Like… I was compelled into dropping my shield.” A word suddenly occurs to him, and his eyes widen. “Was that hypnotism?”
“Not far off. The mental shield works by arranging your thoughts in a certain pattern that is, for reasons we don’t fully understand, hard for psychic powers to recognize. By tricking the shielded mind into changing to a different pattern, particularly one I can recognize, it was made visible, and thus reachable, to my senses.”
“Is that hard to do?”
“I did not find it difficult, but perhaps others would.”
“Yeah, Psychic Ayane didn’t try anything like that. So I just have to think about a certain pattern and it will reveal hidden minds around me?”
“Most people cannot sense psychic minds probing for theirs while shielding. But with you—”
“I can sense your mind in the first place, so I’m getting it directly.” Red frowns. “Huh. My shield feels a whole lot less impressive, suddenly.”
“It’s a weakness, to be sure, but perhaps one you can train against. In the meantime, as long as others do not know how your shield works, it still holds an advantage.”
“Right. Wait, does that mean you just came up with that attack just now?”
Sabrina nods. “It seemed an idea worth testing.”
Well damn. And Red thought
he
came up with novel solutions quickly.
Then Red realizes that the advantage his shield possesses might vanish by the end of the day. “Er. Leader Sabrina… are you planning on telling others about my shield, or how you got through it?”
Sabrina’s eyes watch his, two chips of rosequartz. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
Shit.
“Well, it would make it a lot less useful.”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Then it is up to you to learn to defend yourself against it, if you can.”
“Ah. Right.”
Sabrina smiles, not unkindly. “You are a psychic now, Red. One of the ‘gifted,’ as others would say. It has ever been a race between offense and defense, among our kind, unregulated and vital to the continued development of our powers.”
Red sighs, then nods. “I need to hire another teacher soon, then. And figure out how to do that hypnotism thing, in case others learn my trick.” He glances at her, then away.
Sabrina’s smile widens. “You can ask.”
Red suddenly worries about thinking of Bill, which of course makes him think of Bill more, and quickly swallows a mouthful of his shake. “That was more than a surface impression,” he says after his senses are flooded with the sweet taste, trying not to sound accusatory.
“Our abilities do not work in a vacuum. When you are more used to sensing people’s moods and emotions, you will be able to guess their thoughts or desires more accurately in a way that appears to be true mind reading.”
Which is exactly what she would say even if she can actually read deeper.
And now he’s back to being suspicious. But then why reveal the guess if she didn’t want him to suspect her?
Red takes a breath, then lets it out. This train of thought isn’t getting him anywhere, and he
would
still like to learn… “Can I inhabit your thoughts while you do it again?” Red asks.
“To be clear, you wish to merge with my mind as I repeat what I did so that you can try to mimic it, and thus become privy to
my
thoughts, as you were worried about me doing with you?”
Red tries not to fidget. “I know it’s presumptuous—”
Sabrina laughs. “Normally it would be. But, you indulged my interest, so I am happy to trade.” She closes her eyes, then says, “Begin.”
Red is surprised at her acquiescence for a moment, then suddenly more nervous than he can remember being in years. He feels simultaneously like he’s about to ask a girl to dance for the first time, while that girl is also a dancing master and judge and enormously important and influential figure besides.
Get a grip and just do it. It’s not like you’re about to pet a skarmory.
Somehow that thought is not helpful: he feels as though he’d rather be mauled by a skarmory than come off as an inept psychic to Sabrina, or worse, hurt her psychically in some way, laughable as that seems. But he notes the utter ridiculousness of that sentiment
,
calls himself a few pejorative names, and closes his eyes as he focuses on his breathing once again, before extending his mind outward.
He notices it immediately: the normal thrum a mind makes in the not-space between them is always distinct, once he focuses enough on how, but in this case the difference between someone walking by outside and Sabrina’s are like night and day. It’s not just because she’s psychic, he’s sure, he notices that as a separate quality: rather, the raindrops of Sabrina’s mind fall in a pattern that’s almost inhuman, its vibrations so distinct that as soon as he reaches out to enmesh with her and feel her thoughts and sensations, he’s swept up in the pattern.
—
a leaf spinning in the air, blowing in the wind, dancing gracefully from place to place, but looping in the same ways, forming a pattern of ideas—
For a while, Red simply lets himself follow it. He understands that it’s Projection, a simple and blatant sending out that brings back his metaphor of being about to dance with a girl. For that’s the metaphor that his mind latches onto, as his mind connects with Sabrina’s and follows the movement of her thoughts through eddies and whirls: a dance, one that the Leader gives herself to completely, an unabashed series of motions that she’s been immersed in since childhood.
And that thought is connected to others as her mind reflects his: a childhood that’s lonely, not understanding how different one is or why everyone treats her as
other,
only knowing in a uniquely intimate way that they
do,
even her non-psychic parents, and how those years of isolation make her relate to-
—
stillness so complete the ground below suddenly vanishes mid-step—
CRASH
Red blinks, finding himself on the floor and staring up dizzily as he reorients to where he is.
“Mr. Verres! Are you alright?”
Red looks around, taking a moment to come back to himself. “Fine…” He rolls onto his side out of his chair and gets up, checking for bruises. Just one on his shoulder. He smiles at Sabrina, who’s half out of her seat with concern. “I’m okay.” He turns to the barista, seeing the concern on their face even from across the room. “I’m fine!” Red realizes with detached interest that he didn’t feel the young man’s mind earlier, and wonders if he’s Dark, or a psychic who can shield his mind too.
He rights his chair, only noticing then that his chocolate shake fell over and is dripping off the other end of the table. Sabrina’s face is tight, and suddenly a flurry of napkins rises from the tables around them, descending like a flock of birds upon the mess to soak it up, the glass righting itself on the table.
“I’m terribly sorry about that, Mr. Verres.”
“What happened?” Red says as he slowly sits back down, eyes still on the moving napkins as they rise up, heavy with milkshake, to deposit themselves in his empty glass. It’s his first time seeing psychokinesis used outside of the basic lifting of objects that Ayane demonstrated in lessons, and it makes him feel both awed and frustrated at his own inability with it.
“I attempted to show you what a normal mental shield looked like, to see if you could mimic it. This closed my mind quite abruptly, which I imagine was a disorienting experience.”
“Yeah, it felt like… you know those dreams where you’re falling and abruptly wake with a start? Like that. But before…” Red smiles. “The hypnotic pattern thing, it was really cool. Like dancing with your thoughts.”
Sabrina’s eyebrows rise, and her consternation appears to fade a little. “I’m glad you got something out of it, at least.” She tilts her head. “Do you believe you can mimic it, now?”
“I’m not sure, but I can try if you’d like?”
“Please do, if you’re feeling up for it.”
So Red takes a breath and closes his eyes again, remembering what he sensed and locking down each part of it, bit by bit, until all that was left was the pattern. At first he tries mimicking the pattern she used, but it’s too difficult to remember properly without breaking, like knitting with cobwebs. He’s not sure if it’s his state of mind that’s off or if he just needs to experience it again to remember, but maybe it’s easier to try something more familiar to him… what if he follows a rhyme, some poem or couplet?
For some reason, the first thing the idea of forcefully concentrating on a rhyme brings to mind is something a classmate with a stutter used to repeat that stuck in Red’s head:
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Red frowns, eyes still closed as he tries to let his thoughts flow into a pattern, his own mental dance connecting one idea, one word, to the next to the next to the next, in effortless but repeating freeflow, the kind he experienced before. Just repeating the couplet isn’t enough, it becomes too rote, his mind wanders, he has to fully commit his thoughts to the pattern it makes, remove the words and let his ideas flow in that meter, and it’s
hard,
like lifting a door knocker that weighed a hundred pounds and trying to bang it at a particular rhythm (the metaphor coming to mind from his experience as a baby trying to lift a knocker while on his dad’s shoulder, to his general encouragement and laughter)…
…he THRUSTS his FISTS agAINST the POSTS and STILL inSISTS he SEES the GHOSTS…
Red wipes at his eyes, the grief finally rising to the point of distraction and breaking his concentration. He takes a moment to collect himself, and Sabrina says nothing as she finishes cleaning the spilled milkshake.
“Would you like another drink? On me, of course.”
“I’m okay, thanks.” Red looks around for a dry napkin to use, and one suddenly flutters over, causing him to smile as he plucks it out of the air and wipes his face. He would actually like something to drink, both for the sensation overload and to cheer himself up. Realizing that she probably picked up on that, he smiles. “Actually, maybe some masala chai?”
“Of course.”
By the time she returns with it, Red has enough presence of mind to feel awkward about a Gym Leader fetching him tea, even if she did inadvertently cause his first drink to spill. Just covering the milkshake that he bought wasn’t the same, but at least it gave him some time alone to recover, which he suspects was the real motivation anyway. “Thank you. So, did you feel anything? Was I doing it?”
“You were certainly doing
something,”
she says, and smiles as he snorts. “I think you managed to capture the mental state, the idea of what it means to form a mental pattern, but it will still take time and effort to replicate it, and psychic power to project it.”
“Oh yeah, it usually takes a lot of practice to get these right,” Red says, taking a drink and enjoying the warm mix of spices and flavors for a moment before he scalds his tongue a little, and begins to blow on it.
“It likely would from anyone else trying to learn it, so your shield still has value for a time at least. I am eager to see if it’s something others can learn. Perhaps your more valuable skill is in copying of mental states. If you haven’t tried teaching it to others, that must be the first thing you do.”
“You don’t think it’s a unique ability, then?”
“I hope it is not, and you should as well,” Sabrina says, sipping from her tea and watching him.
It takes Red a moment to get it. “If I can teach it, that means I have something valuable to offer other psychics.”
“Precisely.”
It takes Red
another
moment to put together the
real
reason for the meeting. “So… now that you’ve gone to such lengths to make sure I know the value of my ability, what do you want in exchange?” What she did is the opposite of what someone wishing to barter should do, and Red feels grateful for her transparency, as he knows he’s probably intended to.
I guess this is what the Professor was talking about. It’s hard to call something manipulation if it’s just using your natural incentives and feelings… even watching for it, it can still get you.
Sabrina smiles. “Do you know why you can’t move someone’s arm with a mental connection? Why it would take direct psychokinesis?”
Red shakes his head, unsure of the relevance but curious.
“Because everyone’s body works differently, even among the same species. The broad strokes of our brains are similar, but when it comes to individually moving a single finger, the wiring is different. The best we can do is interpret the sensations of similar appendages and movements that we’ve experienced. But because all mental communication is symmetrical, a mirroring of mental states and thoughts and images and feelings, it is something that can be communicated on a level beyond conscious understanding, theoretically.”
Red considers the act of catching a pokeball. “Like learning something by muscle memory without really understanding the physics of it any better.”
“Precisely. Our brains are constantly calculating and making predictions at a bottom level, while simultaneously our mind, our attention, what we consider
us,
is observing and matching experiences against what our brain generates. Psychic abilities, in a way, allow the mind to pass information down to the brain in a different way, or allow the brain’s upper activities to be consciously applied to the basic, invisible level.
“But still, every mind works differently in subtle ways,” Sabrina continues. “I often think that the more minds a psychic meshes with, human or pokemon, particularly those with psychic powers themselves, the more agile and versatile their ability to interface with their powers, with their own brain in general, becomes. And so I value finding promising students, not just for their sake, but also my own.”
Red blinks, then blinks again. “You want me… as a student? Like, a
personal
student, or just a gym member?”
“I occasionally teach some of the more advanced classes at my gym, and tutor individuals, but that mostly relates to training Psychic pokemon. I mean one of my personal students, for the development of your psychic powers.”
“I… don’t have a lot of money,” he says, still reeling from the offer. After a moment he realizes, “Wait, that’s not true, I guess I have money now… sorry, I’m still getting used to that. Um. How much…?”
“We can discuss price later. And because you have a unique ability that I would like to learn as well, if it can be taught at all, I am willing to remove the fee of some lessons in exchange for what I would learn from you.”
“You want
me
to teach
you?”
he asks, flustered for a whole new reason.
Sabrina’s tone is patient. “Such lessons would mostly involve being able to observe your powers while you use them, and fully investigate how you use them, as I guide you through specific tasks.”
“Oh. Of course.” Red can feel heat in his cheeks.
“However, this is not an open offer yet. I still need to know if you understand your own powers enough to be ready for lessons as advanced as I would give.”
Red’s heart sinks. “I’ve only been really using my powers for a month, and I’m still dealing with the partition thing, and… I still can’t use telekinesis at all, so… probably not,” he finishes, voice quiet.
“I see.” Sabrina looks thoughtful. “Perhaps a few more months would be better, then. But you are the right age for students I begin teaching, so it’s not a matter of maturity or intelligence, but practice.”
“I can practice a lot,” Red quickly says. “I already practice once a day, at least!”
Sabrina blinks at him, then smiles. “And what else do you do once a day?”
“Well, I try to fit in some pokemon training every day, and I go over my personal notes, and keeping up with the latest research publications, and I’ve been trying to get some physical training in but I often forget…” Red trails off, feeling foolish. “Right.”
“It’s not impossible for someone to become a psychic and a trainer,” Sabrina says, voice kind. “But it is difficult and demanding. To try to fully dedicate yourself to your psychic abilities, and your pokemon training,
and
your research,
and
other projects… the phrase ‘fully dedicate’ quickly becomes meaningless.”
Red can’t help but feel disappointed, but he stifles the urge to argue that he can do more, try harder. He knows she’s right, but the opportunity to learn from Sabrina… he can’t pass that up, can he?
This is why we talked about goals,
Red remembers.
Do I value my development as a psychic more than I do my journey with Blue and Leaf? Or more than my research? I finally got my license, am I just going to put it aside now for who knows how many months or years?
“Would I have to come to Saffron Gym?” Red asks, some part of him still seeking a solution.
“If you would have a predictable schedule, it isn’t necessary,” Sabrina says. “I’ve registered teleportation sites all over Kanto, certainly in every city and town. But if you’re traveling, you would need to be capable of free teleportation and have a registered point in Saffron.”
“I can’t do free teleportation yet, but I have two abra,” Red says. It would mean unregistering Bill’s house though…
“
And
you would need to be able to commit to appointments. Some exceptions can be made if an incident occurs, of course, but if you’re traveling between cities, your companions may have to wait for hours, or you would need to catch up to them another way. Generally speaking, most do choose to stay in Saffron, and if they’re also trainers, often become Gym members as well.”
Red gnaws his lower lip. “Is it okay if I have time to think about this?”
“Of course.” Sabrina says. “You may reach out when you have an answer. But try not to take too long: I may take other students in the meanwhile, and my time would become limited.”
Red spent the rest of his day in a bit of a daze, thoughts on the conversation and the choices ahead of him. He considers returning to the gym, then instead goes to the Trainer House to practice his psychic abilities, only trying his psychokinesis briefly before giving up on it again and focusing on sensing his partition. He still gets distracted occasionally by worries that he’s not trying hard enough, not making fast enough progress in that area as well.
Once night falls on the city, Red gratefully leaves to meet up with the others so they can celebrate the two birthdays and his Researcher license. His brain feels bruised, and he’s happy to occupy it with lighter things as the group travels to the Kalos district and checks out its various shops. They spend some time in the clothes stores to try out foreign fashions, then check out the video studio that offers them a ten second promo clip for each of them and one of their pokemon.
Red is too embarrassed at first, but after Leaf and Aiko appear to have so much fun trying out the various outfits and training their pokemon to pose properly, he and Blue decide to do one together, going completely over the top with a background animation of a fiery explosion on one side and a stormy sea on the other behind each of them, as Charmander and Maturin face off. They arrive in the lobby just in time to see Aiko’s clip show up, her and her Eevee dancing in a starlit sky, and then Leaf’s video of her doing a handstand with Bulbasaur holding itself up by its vines appears, which the others compliment her on until she blushes. Aiko and Leaf laugh at Red and Blue’s video, mimicking their poses as they leave and walking down the street in slow motion.
Eventually it’s time for Aiko to return home. She wishes them a happy birthday, congratulates Red again, and brings her abra out to teleport back to the ranch. After seeing her off, the trio continues through the district, focusing more on the restaurants now.
One of them seems to be advertising some kind of mid-meal pokemon battle entertainment. Leaf insists that they can go to it if Red and Blue want to, but Red knows it would ruin her appetite. He uses the exorbitant price as an excuse to turn it down anyway, and Blue remarks that the fights can’t be
that
good if they’re in the middle of a restaurant.
The night drags on as they pass one restaurant after another, unable to decide on anything among all the different, equally interesting choices available. Each suggests a different way to deal with it: Blue suggests just picking the next restaurant they come across, since they’ve all seemed pretty amazing, Leaf insists Blue or Red make the decision without consulting her, since it’s their night, and Red suggests listing their preferences and finding a preference that all of them share to use as their guide to choose.
Eventually Blue throws his hands up and says they can just go to
different restaurants
and get what they each want, which reminds Red that something which capitalizes on not having to make just one choice called
buffets
exist, and after a quick search on his phone they find one that offers a wide variety of Kalos dishes for a reasonable price. As an added plus it also happens to have small pens beside each table for their pokemon to eat in, as long as they’re well trained and not left unattended. After purchasing a table, the three release their starters into the pen, then take turns staying as the other two go back and forth from the buffet lines, each of them thoroughly sick of having to make choices and happy to just take everything they want.
Eventually, after multiple trips each, they’re all sitting together for an extended period, feeling absolutely stuffed. Blue lets out a sigh of contentment and tosses his last piece of seared magikarp to Maturin, turns to Red and says, “Well?”
Red doesn’t pretend to wonder what he’s asking about. “It was… interesting.”
Leaf looks between them. “What’d I miss?”
So Red launches into a brief recount of his conversation with Sabrina, including an even further summarized version of the story Professor Oak told him. By the end of it Leaf and Blue are staring at him in shock.
“You went to meet a
psychic Gym Leader with a history of being manipulative
? After what happened to me?” Leaf asks.
“You turned down
Leader Sabrina
as your psychic teacher?” Blue demands.
“I couldn’t have just walked away,” Red tells Leaf, then turns to Blue. “And being her student would mean giving up all this…” he trails off, doubt and uncertainty filling him again.
Blue rubs his chin. “There’s got to be a way to make it work. How long did she give you to change your mind?”
“Um. No specific time frame.”
“Try to figure something out before we leave Vermilion then,” Leaf says. “We’ve got the cruise convention coming up anyway, so it’s not like you could commit to anything before that.”
“Right.” Red didn’t consider that, and feels a little relieved that he
can’t
actually make a commitment for now.
That’s not really a justified motivation for indecision,
Future Red complains.
The actual factors aren’t likely going to change by then anyway, so you should still work on thinking of something now, even if you can’t make the commitment until later.
Sounds like a whole lot of your problem,
Present Red replies.
Tonight I’m supposed to be celebrating.
He drowns out his future self’s response by having some more tasty garlic-cream potatoes. “Still,” he says, “As cool as it is to be noticed by someone like her, I wish I could turn that interest into a different kind of value.”
“I said something similar, earlier,” Leaf says. “About taking advantage of all this influence we have, even if we’re getting too many opportunities that we can’t take at the same time. Aiko made a pretty great suggestion, and I checked with the Coordinator schools to see if any would let me write an article for their sites. One agreed, so I’m typing up a piece on what I did with the abra, and hopefully afterward I can pitch a second article on deeper pokemon ethics themes. You should try something similar, Red.”
Red rubs his chin. “You mean, what, check if Sabrina’s Gym has a blog?”
“Or start your own,” Blue says.
Leaf nods. “You’ve got a spotlight on you: anything you put out that others can read, they will. The interest is going to fade if you let it, or if the things you write aren’t interesting, but if they are you can start building an audience. Whether you commit to being one of Sabrina’s students at some point or not, you could end up getting a different teacher if you become popular enough, or others find out about your unique abilities.”
Red is already considering what his first post would be. Perhaps a journal of sorts on his experiences with his powers, something that could formalize the concepts that are so frustratingly vague among psychic circles…
Red is grinning, fingers itching to get to writing. “That’s a great idea, Leaf, thanks!”
She smiles. “Just don’t spend too much time on it that you fall even farther behind on practicing with your powers, if that was a concern with Sabrina. It might be with other teachers too.”
“Right. I’ll try to slot it into my usual writing and review time.”
“Oh, and you should fill out your online profile,” Leaf says. “Yours barely has any info about yourself, you have followers now who probably want to learn more about you. It would help people know to give you credit for the things you discover.”
Red blinks. “Why would I have trouble with that?”
Leaf hesitates. “Try not to get mad, but… I mean, Blue and I were raised by Professors, from the outside a lot of people
expect
us to be the ones making most of the discoveries. I’ve been seeing people give us more credit than we deserve for the abra thing, even with the interview, and I think it’s because people don’t really know who you are, the way you think, how much time you spent on it.”
Red is frowning as she speaks, being more bothered by that than he thought he would be. “Ugh. Okay, I’ll flesh out my profile too.”
“Yesss,” Blue whispers, steepling his fingers together. “Join us, Red… join us… on the PR side!” Before Red can reply, Blue winces, one hand going down to rub his leg as Leaf glares at him.
“Are you trying to get him to change his mind?” she asks.
“It’s not public relations,” Red insists. “I’m just sharing the ideas I have and giving context for them, like how I learned things and what resources I use.”
Blue smirks. “Whatever, my point is you’ll be actively building a following and public image instead of just letting it develop on its own. That’s all I’ve ever been asking you to do, and it’s about time.”
Red refrains from insisting again that it won’t be like that. Mostly because he won’t know if it’s true until he has a chance to see if he
actually
feels some urge to shape his own narrative and persona in his public writing.
“Is it that bad, for you?” Leaf asks, clearly reading his hesitation.
“It’s… it just feels…” Red tries to put it into words. “It feels insincere. I don’t want to care what other people think of me.”
“But don’t you?” Leaf asks.
“No!” Red says reflexively, then says, “Well, a little, but only by people I respect too, like you guys, or Professor Oak, or Bill, or Sabrina…”
“So people who can do things for you,” Blue says.
“You can make anything sound cynical if you put it like that.”
“Well, I care what others think of
me.
” Leaf says, voice a bit too casual. “And I care what others think of you guys. I’m always aware that the things I say online may reflect on the two of you.”
That gives Red pause, and he takes a moment to find his true objection. “Doesn’t that ever… feel restrictive?”
“You’re not getting it,” Blue says. “It’s not about looking for people to like you, or even agree with you all the time. You’re looking for people to
respect
you
,
and that means you’ll be doing things
worth respecting.
Like when I started helping out at pokemon centers, was that bad?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Or when I gave more abra to the centers and rangers?”
“Of course not—”
“So what’s the problem? I’m glad I started helping at pokecenters, it taught me a lot and I’ve been able to help a lot of people.” Blue’s voice is rising, face hard. “If I also got respect for it, isn’t that something people
should
be respected for?”
Red feels himself getting on edge from Blue’s tone, but… there’s a note of confusion as something in him agrees with Blue. It stops him from responding to his friend’s anger, and instead he frowns down at his plate for a moment. “I didn’t realize it bothered you so much.”
Blue huffs out a breath, hands rising to grip the back of his chair. “It doesn’t
bother
me, it’s just such a… it’s such a…”
“A cliché,” Leaf says, and they both turn to her. “All those shows and movies where people talk about being popular like it’s a problem, like being popular isn’t
important,
when it
obviously is.
”
And Red remembers, somehow he
forgot,
he didn’t really
think about it
: as Leaf said, both she and Blue have lived their whole lives raised by Professors. Some of the people with the highest status in their regions. They witnessed firsthand the doors that opened for them, and while they both want to step out from under those shadows and make their own marks on the world, there’s no part of them that’s confused about the value of being respected by others, of having people who will
listen
when you speak, who will go out of their way to help you.
“Just look around.” Blue lets the chair go with one hand and starts raising fingers. “Gramps, Lance, Giovanni, hell,
every
Leader worth a damn… Doesn’t matter if you want to be a politician or a famous singer or whatever, being respected by a lot of people? It makes things easier. It opens opportunities, it gives you privileges that help you gain even
more
power.”
“Hold, please,” Red says, putting a hand up. “I need to process this.”
“Take your time,” Blue says, getting up. “I’m grabbing ice cream.”
Leaf grins. “Oo, yeah, the dessert buffet’s almost as big as the other foods. Want anything Red?”
He shakes his head, then takes his notebook out and starts jotting down bullet points as he thinks…
Is
it okay to be driven by a desire to have others respect you? Why does it feel so… “slimy?” Is it
just
because of all the stories he’s absorbed over the years, all the narratives of heroes being humble and not seeking the limelight?
Or is it also because in
his
field, the ideal is that a person’s ideas change the world not through popularity, but their own merits? That’s a profession Blue didn’t list, being high status or low doesn’t help you discover new things about reality… a scientist can make a new discovery whether they’re in the public eye or some obscure research hobbyist… but he can’t deny that Blue’s right in pointing out that it’s easier to get the equipment, funding, and opportunities if you’re already popular and respected, not to mention easier to get others to pay attention to what you discover.
Red draws a box around those thoughts, then a line down to a new bullet point. Maybe there’s a deeper belief here, one that says something like “good actions are only good if they’re not done for self-gain?”
But the world
is
objectively a better place because Blue is the kind of person that wants to be respected. If Red could learn more, teach more people, and do the right thing more often because he wants to be the kind of person others respect, what’s the harm in that?
Red takes a deep breath and sinks deeper into himself as he tries to imagine the worst case outcomes.
The majority of people don’t always respect positive things,
he thinks, remembering how people are so afraid to test human-pokeball interactions that they made it illegal to research it further.
What if I get so attached to wanting status that I become afraid of doing the right thing?
Also, respect is fickle. I might have it today and lose it tomorrow because I didn’t do something people expected me to do, like condemn a politician loudly enough, even if I try to stay out of politics completely, or donate enough the next time I make a new catching technique because I need the money for something important.
Would he be worse off, in that case, than if he never gained their respect in the first place?
Possibly, he might not be
expected
to say anything if he’s not a public figure, if he just sticks to his research… he wants to be known for that.
But if his personal experiences can help others, shouldn’t he also share that too? Isn’t it okay to be known for that too? And if he sticks to just stuff he’s somewhat confident about, he won’t have to worry about getting drawn into unrelated things…
Or will he?
Red taps the page with his pencil a few times, then puts it down. The other two are still gone, and he tears a piece of pidgey meat into bits and tosses them underhanded toward Charmander, letting them sail up first so that his pokemon jumps for them. His pokemon’s growth has continued to increase his strength, allowing him to leap far higher than he used to. Once he proves he can leap as high as Red’s head, Red stops tossing the meat so high as he starts to notice nearby patrons looking nervously at his pokemon’s flailing, fiery tail.
Soon the two are back and begin digging into some ice cream and cake. They brought a third bowl and place it in front of him too, just a tiny scoop of ice cream and a tiny slice of cake, and he grins. “Thanks guys,” he says, and enjoys the offerings.
“So?” Leaf asks.
“I think I’m mostly worried about being in the public eye,” he says slowly. “I don’t
want
to have to think about how much status something will get me, or how much I might lose if I say the wrong thing.”
“If it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it better to think about it?” Blue says. “Instead of blundering around?”
“If I’m worrying about that stuff it feels intrinsically like changing who I am for the worse. Or at least, being put into uncomfortable positions more and more. But maybe that’s just me confusing something that
is
bad, as a judgement, for something that
feels
bad, physically. When I try to simulate myself being interviewed again, like when we got to town, I feel squeamish.”
“You know, being a Professor will mean having to be interviewed now and then,” Blue says in a dry voice before sucking some ice cream off his spoon.
“That’s different though, I’ll be talking about my research.”
“So just talk about your research,” Leaf says. “You can write about whatever you want: just be aware that you’ll be occasionally judged for it, and sometimes attacked for it. But that’s how you learn, right?” Her tone has changed, become contemplative as she gazes into the distance. “You give your perspective, and others point out why they disagree with you… and if there’s merit there, you engage… and if not, you ignore it…”
“Easier said than done,” Blue mutters. “Have you
seen
online discussion? What am I saying, of course you have.”
“I… think I just thought of a new thing to write about,” Leaf says, with a slow smile. “Standards of discourse. Rules to productive online conversation, or something like that. Not everyone will care obviously, but if even 5% of people start to follow it, and some sites begin adopting parts of it… Gah, there’s so many things to write about!”
“Oh, speaking of!” Blue says. “You should totally come to the gym tomorrow, Leaf. Not for pokemon battling, for the other trainings! It’s great, isn’t it, Red?”
Red is still trying to untangle his feelings. “I didn’t go to the classes yet, remember?”
“Right, shit. Well great, both of you can go to them together! It’s really amazing what Surge is doing here, I think you could get a great article out of it, Leaf.”
She looks surprised. “Why don’t you write it then? Don’t you have a bunch of ideas for how the gym system could be improved?”
“Writing’s not really my thing.”
“You share training tips with your followers, don’t you?” Red asks.
“Well sure, but that’s not formal or anything.”
Red grins. “You know, being Champion might mean having to write formal stuff now and then…”
Blue frowns. “Also, I’ve got training to do.”
“What, and we don’t?” Red asks.
“That’s different,” Blue protests. “I’m going for a badge.”
“It sounds like you don’t think it’s that important.” Red turns to Leaf. “Does it sound like that to you?”
Leaf nods, face sad as she fends off one of Bulbasaur’s vines as it tries grabbing the cake from her plate. “Too bad. All those trainers, not aware of how awesome Vermilion Gym is…”
Blue glowers at them. “I’m telling you, I’ll mess it up. It would be better if one of you wrote it.”
“It’s okay, Blue. We’ll help you,” Leaf says. “Won’t we Red?”
“You bet,” Red says after a moment, realizing that Blue might be legitimately insecure about his writing. “It’ll be good for… what’s it called? Public…” He snaps his fingers and holds a finger up, frowning. “Public…”
Blue rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “I’ll think about it. But you’ll come, Leaf? You guys will like the classes here, I promise.”
Leaf considers a moment, then nods. “Sure, why not. I’m not against gyms overall, I would have gone to Cerulean’s water classes, but I didn’t have any aquatic pokemon.”
“Great! And speaking of which, try to catch some Water pokemon before we leave the city and I’ll train you guys with them. Who knows when we’ll be near a beach again, after we leave.”
“I’ll check which ones are available around here.” A vine reaches around her chair and tries to sneak in from below, Bulbasaur now standing at the very edge of his pen. Leaf slaps the appendage away without looking, and her pokemon starts to make pitiful sounds, causing her to turn to him. “No! It’s bad for you!”
Her pokemon quiets, but somehow manages to continue to look pleading.
Leaf manages to look stern for another second, then melts. “Fine, I’ll get you something you can have.” She gets up. “Make sure he doesn’t eat my cake.”
But Bulbasaur just watches along with Red and Blue as Leaf goes back to the buffet tables and takes a small portion from a bunch of different desserts. She brings them back and holds the tray out to Bulbasaur. “Watch this, I’ve been trying to teach him… Bulbasaur, take one. Take one.”
“Aw, Leaf,” Blue says. “Why you going to go and inflict that torture on your pokemon too?”
Her pokemon reaches its vines out hesitantly, swaying it above the plate for a while as if about to sweep them all off… then one vine delicately curls around a small piece of honeycake and brings it to its mouth.
“Good
boy
Bulbasaur!” Leaf puts the plate aside and crouches to vigorously rub his head and ears. “Very good!
Very
good boy!”
Red is grinning as he watches Bulbasaur gambol about in his pen, and then grow even more excited when she takes a second treat from the plate to hand to him as a reward. “Who’s my best boy? Who’s the bestest-”
Her words are cut off by a burst of light that suddenly fills the restaurant. Red shields his eyes, heart leaping into his throat.
Is this… did it just….
When the light clears, Leaf is staring in shock at an ivysaur that looks enormously pleased with itself.
“Bulbasaur…” she breathes, eyes filling before she grabs her pokemon in a hug, ignoring the broad new leaves from his bulb that get shoved into her face. She laughs as four vines instead of his usual two wrap around her. “I guess it’s time to give you a new name.”
Someone starts to clap at a nearby table, and soon the whole restaurant is applauding. Leaf looks around in surprise, then smiles and bows before she sits, cheeks flushed and her pokemon on her lap, though he doesn’t quite fit.
“Congrats Leaf!” Red says. He looks at Charmander, who’s roughly as big as the average charmeleon, and resolves to help his partner evolve before they leave on the cruise convention.
It’s going to be a busy week…
“The perfect end to the evening,” Blue declares, and gets up, plates in hand as he heads for the dessert table again. “Now we all have something to celebrate.”
Leaf feels like a stranger as she enters the Vermilion Gym. Going to Pewter or Cerulean to watch Blue’s challenge matches was one thing, but it feels different entering one to participate in anything. She suddenly feels expected to know certain things or behave a certain way.
Red seems similarly uncomfortable at first, but warms up to the classes much faster. It isn’t until the personal fitness training class that she starts to have fun, running with Raff through an obstacle course like it’s just another day at the park, but with more interesting games to play. The newly evolved ivysaur has seemingly boundless energy, and has taken to his nickname without confusion. She had to explain it to Blue: Red understood right away, of course. She looks forward to when the pink bud on his back blooms in full and he comes into his name, but is happy to enjoy this intermediate form for as long as it lasts.
By the time they have their class on coordination and working with others, Leaf can see why Blue recommended she and Red attend. Neither of them get Objections in their first team building exercises, but by the end of it she
does
want to look into different gym cultures and policies to find out what the effects on the members and badge holders are, how the Leaders come to their philosophies, everything.
“I’m thinking of asking Blue if I can write the article on gyms after all,” she admits to Red between classes.
“Stay strong. Think of the pokemon that still need you to write about their well-being.”
She gives him the side eye. “Are
you
going to stop eating them if I write about it?”
He grins. “I might, if you write a sufficiently persuasive argument.”
Leaf tamps down her frustration at his flippancy. She knows he’s just trying to motivate her, and appreciates his support despite him not actually agreeing with her, but if she can’t even get her friends to take her ideas seriously, it’s hard to summon the motivation to get others to.
Still, maybe if she can demonstrate objective value from the perspective, like not scaring off abra, it’ll help. “I’ve been meaning to ask, the whole sensing what your pokemon feel… has it changed how you view them at all?”
Red shrugs. “A little? I mean, it makes it easy to remember that they’re living creatures that feel pleasure and pain, but at the same time their experiences
aren’t
as complex as ours. And my original point still stands: however tragic their deaths are, the ripple effects are still smaller.”
Leaf considers asking him to find some family of pokemon in the wild and see how they feel if one of their family members are taken away… but then considers whether that would change
her
mind, if it turns out the pokemon barely notice, or are sad for a while then get over it. More realistically, what if it differs by species? Would that mean it’s okay to eat magikarp but not pidgey? Or pidgey but not miltank?
“A half measure is still better than nothing,” she finally says.
“That’s something I wanted to explore eventually too,” Red says as they approach the next class. “Mostly to see if there’s some correlation between pokemon who are easier to tame or grow attached to their trainer.”
They reach the group of trainers just as their instructor finishes setting up a poster board, his movements slow and lazy. Falling into line with the other students doesn’t feel strange any more either, and she knows that the clothes they provided is part of that, a way to make her feel intrinsic equality with her classmates, despite never stepping foot in a gym class before while others have multiple badges.
Their teacher is a tall, thin man with long curly dark hair and eyes that look baggy from lack of sleep. The impression is reinforced by the bored monotone in which he says, “Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Tier Threat Assessment. My name is Leo Danton, and I work as the primary coordinator between Vermilion Gym and CoRRNet.”
He vaguely gestures to the billboard to his side, which depicts a map of some generic cityscape and the outlying suburbs, then the countryside around that. “Who here can draw a circle around a Tier 1 threat?”
Hands go up, and an older trainer walks over the marker dangling from the side of the paper to draw a circle around the city.
“Good. Where else could you draw one?”
The trainer pauses a moment, then carefully draws a circle between the suburbs to the west of the city and the edge of the map, where the road presumably leads to another town or city.
“And another?”
This time he draws one around the eastern suburbs.
“That’s enough. What made you choose those locations?”
“They’re somewhat constrained,” the trainer replies. “A Tier 1 threat is supposed to be localized, so… it puts an area at risk, but just that area.”
“And so you had to draw the boundaries somewhere, and conceptual boundaries like ‘city’ and ‘wilderness between towns’ made sense,” Trainer Danton says, somehow making it a question despite the lack of inflection.
“Ah, yeah. Basically.”
Their instructor nods and holds a hand out for the marker back, and the student returns to the group as Danton taps the poster board sheet with it. “Do pokemon know how to read maps?”
There’s silence for a moment, then everyone shakes their heads or says no.
“So what stops a Tier 1 threat from being, say, here,” he circles an area that captures part of the city and its nearby suburbs with his finger. “Or here?” He circles an area at the edge of the city that captures part of the suburb and part of the forests to the south of the city.
The class is silent for a moment, until Red raises his hand. “Habitat might? If the pokemon are rampaging in the forest, they might not leave the forest… or if they’re city dwelling pokemon, like the grimer and muk that overflowed Celadon’s sewers, they would be mostly concentrated in the city.”
Danton scratches the back of his neck, eyes up. “Not a bad answer. But while it’s true that even stampeding tauros will mostly stick to open fields rather than running through a nearby forest or into a city, towns can still be vulnerable, and other pokemon are less restricted. So what’s a Tier 2 threat? Anyone want to draw it?”
Leaf raises a cautious hand, picturing a circle with some arrows drawn away from it, but the instructor calls on someone else, who instead draws a growing outward spiral from the northern wilderness into the areas around it and the suburbs to the south, then even wider until the spiral goes to the edges of the pages and into the city itself. “It threatens all the nearby areas,” the trainer explains. “Either because it’s highly mobile, or because it’s a spreading threat that is likely to kick off other pokemon rampages or panics or migrations.”
“A textbook answer,” Trainer Danton says, and then seems to catch the wary look on the student’s face and says, “But correct.” He holds a hand out for the marker, and waits for the student to return to the class before looking them over. “Boundaries don’t exist in the real world. They’re all made up by us, concepts that only have meaning because we assign them. A lake can appear to be a boundary to a land dwelling pokemon, but some can swim. A mountain can slow them down, but others can dig through it. And then of course there are flying pokemon, who go where they will, or ghost pokemon, who, if their behavior isn’t as random as it appears, at least follow rules too obscure for us to easily predict.”
The class is quiet, and their instructor scratches at his neck a moment. “With that in mind, most people will call Tier 1 threats those that are confined to a certain location, even if the boundaries are fuzzy. Tier 2 threats, on the other hand, will spread from one location to another if left unchecked. Is that clear?” The class nods. “It shouldn’t be, unless you’ve all been working in this longer than I have. You, what’s the maximum flight distance of a pidgeotto without rest?” he asks an older trainer to the right of Leaf.
“Ah. Um.” The trainer’s surprise fades as their brow furrows. “Well, a flock can travel from one end of the region to the other in a day, and… Kanto is, ah, 200 kilometers across? So, at least that.” The trainer appears about to say something further, but then stays silent, gaze down.
The instructor waits a moment for him to continue, then says, “Good.” The trainer looks up with a surprised smile, and Danton nods. “About the level of answer I expected.”
The trainer’s smile slips, but Danton is already pacing in front of the class, deadpan voice once again speaking with some force despite the monotone. “Estimates like that happen all the time in the field, even among professionals. Not everyone’s a Professor, and even they probably can’t remember all the relevant facts for any pokemon in any situation in the thirty seconds to a minute that trainers usually have to assess an incident and report its threat level. Tier 3 are fairly obvious, they’re events that are not just large and dangerous, but inherently mobile. Something that will spread destruction on a massive scale if not stopped or slowed down in some way.” He draws a line sideways near one edge of the map, then parallels it on the other edge, and begins to shade in the space between them before drawing a line in a particular direction. “Most of you are thinking of the Stormbringers, and that’s not an accident. The system was designed with them at the unambiguous top.” He snorts. “Naively, as it turned out. But that kind of threat is big and flashy and simple to diagnose. Sometimes an incident that looks like a Tier 1 ends up being a Tier 2, while other times a Tier 1 threat is misidentified as a Tier 2. Who can tell me why that’s a problem?”
The class is quiet. Leaf considers how people might bring the wrong pokemon to the situation, but Red raises his hand before she does. “Because the threat assessment helps make sure we don’t overcommit on Tier 1 events, or not commit enough on Tier 2.”
“Another textbook answer. But right. Rangers keep track of these things, to determine if events were accurately called or not. Anyone wanna guess how often they’re mislabeled?” Red’s hand is the only one to go up. After a moment the instructor says, “Anyone besides the Ranger’s kid?” Some people chuckle. “Nothing personal, Verres, but I want a guess, not someone who might have been told or looked it up.”
Red lowers his hand, and Leaf is glad to see he’s smiling slightly. “Why don’t we all guess, then? Write it down first? People are more likely to internalize being wrong if they make a concrete commitment first.”
Their instructor scratches his neck a moment, then shrugs. “Makes sense. Alright everyone, take out your phones or whatever you have on you to write out a pair of numbers. First, some basics. Let’s say there are 100 incidents reported as Tier 1 or 2 in a year in Kanto. How many of that 100 would you each say is Tier 1 or Tier 2?”
The class is quiet for a moment, probably trying to remember, as Leaf is, the last yearly breakdown of pokemon incidents she’d read. Was it something like twice as many Tier 1? That feels right.
Another trainer raises their hand first. “Maybe 70 Tier 1 and 30 Tier 2?”
“Close.” He turns to the poster board and begins writing. “Last year we had 44 events that were later estimated as Tier 1, and 25 that were Tier 2, so scaling that up to a hypothetical 100 events brings us to about—”
64 to 36,
Leaf finishes in her head before the instructor writes it, already considering the next step. Of those 64 Tier 1, how many were reported as Tier 2? And of those 36 Tier 2, how many were reported as Tier 1? It’s a two pronged problem, since the end result would depend on the balance of the errors. If people were really good at estimating Tier 1 but bad at recognizing Tier 2, they might report something like 45 and 55, but if they’re bad at both, they might end up reporting 64 and 36, but
all of the Tier 2 are reported as Tier 1.
Or the opposite occurs.
Sure enough, Trainer Danton then says, “Okay, so write down how many of each do you believe were reported. You have a minute.”
Leaf thinks over the relevant factors. Red has talked about optimism bias enough, and she’s noticed it enough in her own estimations, that Leaf is inclined to list Tier 2 threats as underreported, and puts 70 and 30. Then she considers that once someone is
in
a scary situation, they might be more likely to panic, so Tier 2s might be overreported instead, and switches things back to 60 and 40.
Then she considers events she witnessed recently, and wonders who ended up reporting them first. Trainers? Experienced ones, if the Mt. Moon case, but maybe not in Viridian. Or were the Rangers there able to get the word out first? It would take a rather wide set of knowledge to accurately determine the risks involved in so many different scenarios. If newer trainers do some of the reporting, that might skew the numbers in both directions… but the question remains, which is skewed more? If anything, Tier 2 threats probably need more information to accurately diagnose…
She realizes that she should be thinking of these as percentages instead. If considering how accurate people are at estimating Tier 1 events specifically, there is some portion of false positive Tier 1s reported that are actually Tier 2, and false negative Tier 2s reported that are actually Tier 1…
She’s still working a few minutes later when the instructor speaks up. “Okay, whatever you guys have now is good enough. Anyone confident in their answer?”
Most stay silent. Red looks like he wants to say something more and more as the seconds tick by, and as soon as Leaf finishes rechecking her math, she raises her hand.
“I think something like 45% of reported Tier 2 events are actually Tier 1s, and 25% of reported Tier 1 are actually Tier 2,” Leaf says after being called on. “Meaning we end up with 51 reported Tier 1 and 49 reported Tier 2, while in actuality there are 64 Tier 1 and only 36 Tier 2.”
There’s another moment of silence as everyone absorbs this, and Leaf feels her cheeks flushing as she realizes she may have taken the question more seriously than she was supposed to.
But the instructor just cocks his head, brow slightly raised. “Pretty close, among the general population. You came about it the right way, but Rangers are more accurate on average, though still likely to overreport Tier 2 relative to Tier 1. That’s how we end up with 33% of reported Tier 2 that are actually Tier 1, and 21% of reported Tier 1 that are actually Tier 2.” He turns looks over the rest of the class. “Anyone find that surprising? Had much more reported as Tier 1?” Most of the class raises their hands. “Who had more Tier 2?” Trainer Danton watches hands fall and rise.
He scratches his neck. “Both Rangers and trainers on average tend to overestimate how much danger they’re facing, but it’s worth keeping in mind different reasons for the error. When a trainer thinks a Tier 1 is a Tier 2, it’s likely because they’re scared. When they don’t realize that the Tier 1 they reported is actually a Tier 2, it’s likely because of simple ignorance of the pokemon or area and how badly things can spiral out of control, how far the damage can spread. Rangers probably have a different motivation, like them being the ones on the front lines, when deciding how many reinforcements to call in. Regardless of which direction you were off by, remember not to make the same mistakes when you’re the one making the call or hearing others do so.” Red’s hand has been inching up, then going back down, for the last minute or so, as different questions are asked. Leaf suppresses a smile as her friend tries to estimate when a natural break in the lesson will occur for him to ask his question. The instructor may be taking pity on him when he finally says, “Yes, Verres?”
“I wanted to ask, is there an official rubric to decide what level of threat an incident is? I’ve never seen one, but if Rangers can make ultimate determinations after the fact…”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” The instructor sighs. “It’s been discussed before, but none have had enough agreement to be endorsed officially, and the Powers That Be seem to think an inaccurate one would do more harm than letting trainers make their own decisions on the spot, with all the context and data available to them. The determinations the Rangers make are done by committee, and by necessity would likely include information those on the ground who first call them in aren’t always privy to.”
Red is frowning. “But there has to be some basic guidelines, at least?”
“If there wasn’t these classes would be a lot shorter. First let’s test how well you all do without them. Split into groups, and I’ll give you some scenarios.”
Red and Leaf immediately step closer together, and let the inertia of the others forming groups draw them into one of them. Once there are five groups with roughly even numbers, and everyone has introduced themselves, Trainer Danton takes a timer out, looks back and forth between them, then clicks it on.
“An earthquake dislodges the pokemon from Diglett Cave. They burrow under the ground in every direction, coming up at random places to create potholes in Vermilion’s outer suburban roads, shredding electrical lines and dislodging plumbing. They even cause small quakes that erode at housing foundations. Is this a Tier 1 event, or Tier 2?”
Leaf turns to her group. Their member with the most Objections is a young woman named Bretta with curly brown hair and glasses, and she looks thoughtful for a moment, then starts listing things rapidly.
“They’re moving in every direction, so may not be contained. Their quakes may set other pokemon off, causing additional rampages. I’m going with Tier 2. Objections?”
Red raises his hand. “Diglett rarely stray from their territory for long, even if threatened. The key to a Tier 2 should be whether trainer intervention is necessary to prevent a spread, not the size of the initial spread itself.”
“What about the other pokemon being displaced?” another trainer says.
“That’s an if, not a guarantee,” Leaf replies. “I don’t know the pokemon in this area that well, but are there any others that are likely to cause a chain reaction?”
“The forests around the city are full of pokemon that might rampage,” Bretta says again.
“We should default to Tier 1 if we’re not sure,” Red says. “They’re almost twice as common, so unless we have
strong
evidence that it’s a Tier 2, it’s safer to guess 1.”
“We don’t know if the instructor is following that probability with his examples though,” Leaf points out. “He might give us an equal amount of each, or split them the other way around.”
“Ten seconds left,” another trainer points out, watching her phone.
“Right, executive decision, Tier 2,” the group leader says. “Last chance for Objections.” She eyes the two trainers with a couple tokens.
“I still say Tier 1,” Red says, frowning slightly. “For the rec-”
“Time.” Trainer Danton lowers his stop watch and says, “Group leaders who voted Tier 2, raise your hands.” Three of the five groups do. “Congratulations, you just over committed and left the area’s trainers unprepared for the next nearby disaster. Anyone wanna offer your rationale?” He listens as they offer their reasons, points out how they’re not applicable, then restarts the timer. “Next, a storm surge hits the docks, flooding the closest districts and filling them with tentacool, chinchou, shellder, and others. Figure out a response in 30 seconds.”
This one is a bit easier to label a Tier 1, since eventually the storm would die down and the waters recede, putting no other areas of the city or beyond it in danger. Someone raises the possibility that there’s something non-obvious they’re missing, but time is called before they can discuss it and they end up going with Tier 1, which is correct.
“Next, a particularly long spring leads to local combee hives aggressively expanding. 2 minutes to decide.”
This one seems more obviously a Tier 2 to Leaf, but after a brief discussion, Bretta suggests Tier 1. “It’s not like they’ll go into nearby cities or mountains, if there aren’t enough flowers there.”
“They might
try to
though,” Leaf objects. “And they could upset the local populations there and cause a chain reaction that might spread further.”
This starts an argument about the likelihood of that, which Leaf only half listens to. Her argument was actually born from a different realization, that the harm caused to the other pokemon would be massive even if no other humans are affected. She knows that’s not the point of the Tier system, though, so she kept it to herself. Still, even if this is determined to be a Tier 1 attack, she’s pretty sure she would label it Tier 2 if she saw it in the wild, and she’s not sure if that should bother her or not. She knows she shouldn’t intentionally use the wrong criterion, but she can’t help but care about what she cares about.
Red raises a hand eventually, causing people to quiet and look at him.
“We have forty seconds,” he says. “Whether it’s a long term problem is less important than whether they need to be stopped before they spread into other areas in the first place. Leaf is right, the risk of a chain reaction is too big. I vote Tier 2.”
“Come on,
combee
causing a Tier 2?” Bretta says. “The Viridian Fire wasn’t even labeled that.”
“Well it should have been,” Red says. “I think whoever made that initial call got it wrong, they thought it was just a fire from some riled up pikachu. The extent of the rampage was the real threat.”
“And the other pokemon that started panicking too, or took advantage of the chaos,” Leaf adds, thinking of the shiftry that attacked Blue. “Viridian was lucky, because it had two gyms on either side of it. If things weren’t addressed as well, the carnage could easily have continued to spread.”
“Fifteen seconds left,” someone notes. “I’m with them, Tier 2.”
The others around the circle agree, and the group leader frowns. “Anyone got an Objection to gamble on it?”
No one speaks up, and Leaf feels frustrated for the first time at not having one. “I don’t need you to give me one, but if 2 is wrong, I’ll admit it was my idea publicly,” Leaf says.
“Time,” the instructor calls just then. “Who got Tier 2, raise your hands.” Leaf looks at Bretta, who keeps her hand down, looking vindicated until the instructor then says, “Good job. The rest of you just doubled the casualties by not committing enough.”
“Hang on,” Bretta says. “Why is this a Tier 2 but the diglett one wasn’t? They could have riled up other pokemon and spread the rampage further too.”
“Their disturbance would have been confined to the ground, and very few pokemon would be driven to rampage from that,” Danton says. “Observations of diglett movements in the past have shown minimal effect on displacement of other species.” He turns to the group at large, scratching his neck. “Don’t feel bad if you get these wrong. That’s what the class is for.” His tone is still so bland that it doesn’t come off as particularly reassuring, but he puts his timer away and flips to a new page on the board. “The basics to keep in mind in any incident are the following…”
Leaf starts writing as he lists them out:
1. What pokemon are involved?
2. How far can they travel?
3. What pokemon are in their travel zone?
4. How likely are they to fight vs flight?
5. How far can THEY travel?
6. And so on…
Leaf blinks as she finishes writing the last point, ellipses and all. As far as basic guidelines go, this isn’t much, but she understands the underlying idea: every situation will be different, so much so that accurately calling every event would require an encyclopedic knowledge of local pokemon and terrain. She hopes she never has to be the sole person making that call in Kanto, but resolves to spend half an hour every night studying the habitats around them in case she is.
“There are more specific general guidelines that each region’s Ranger Corp puts out. I suggest you all study them, but they’re still no replacement for familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Yes, Verres?”
“Is the data of past incidents publicly available?” Red says. “I mean, after it’s been analyzed by the Rangers?”
“It is, and it can be a useful read too. A bit dry for most people. But remember that the analysis in them is reached after the facts are known. Unless you happen to be involved in the exact same kind of incident as one described there, it can be misleading to think it’ll prepare you for making those decisions yourself. Speaking of which…”
He turns to Bretta, voice and face as bland as ever when he says, “Those tokens you have, they don’t mean anything. When you leave this gym, people won’t remember how many you had. They’ll remember whether you accepted good ideas or held out for Objections. Just letting you know.”
He turns back to the class at large. “So the next step is to learn the most common types of pokemon attacks in a region, and how terrain can affect their chance of spreading…”
As Trainer Danton starts to list them, Leaf can’t help but notice Bretta out of the corner of her eye, face flushed and hands clenched as her jaw works. She can’t tell whether the older girl is holding in tears or anger, but eventually her hand jerks up and takes an Objection off her jacket before handing it to Leaf, not looking at her.
“I don’t…” Leaf whispers, then shakes her head. “Keep it.”
“Just take it,” Bretta hisses back.
“I’m not going to be here a lot, I don’t need—”
“I’ll take it,” Red whispers from her other side.
Bretta hesitates, and Leaf reaches out and takes the token before handing it to Red without comment. Bretta’s jaw stiffens, but she keeps her gaze on their instructor, and Leaf does the same, distracted as she tries to think of whether she should say something to the girl after class.
As soon as it ends, however, Bretta walks away, and Red is talking at her about statistics.
“What?” she asks after a moment as they walk toward the cafeteria. “Sorry, I was thinking about something else. Start over?”
“I think I finally get Bayesian probabilities,” Red says, voice excited. “Giovanni brings it up every so often—stop making that face, Leaf, regardless of what you think of him the blog is a
good information source—
and I only ever sort of got it, it was like holding onto water, I’d feel like I understood it one day but the next week I’d try applying it to something and forget the steps or misclassify the variables, but with determining the Tier of an incident it’s really obvious that we should be basing our judgement off of prior probabilities and adjusting them based on the specific instance’s evidence…”
It takes Leaf a moment to catch his train of thought, but as soon as she does her mind starts connecting what he’s saying with what she was doing in her calculations. “You’re talking about what you said earlier, bringing up how often Tier 1 or 2 is in general and weighing that in your decision of whether to judge a specific incident as Tier 1 or 2. So instead of saying ‘I’m 90% confident this is a Tier 2 incident,’ we’d first remember that only 36% of incidents in Kanto are Tier 2 and adjust downward in confidence.”
“Right! That’s why I wanted to know if Rangers have the figures by specific pokemon, because that would provide even more accurate prior probabilities to judge by. If you know that, of all incidents primarily involving beedrill
,
8 out of 10 in the past have been Tier 2, then your prior should be 80% that one you encounter is Tier 2, and
then
you can adjust for whatever other factors you see that may make it a Tier 1 instead, like the swarm is between the coast and a mountain range.”
“Sure, or Tyranitar only having 2 Tier 1 incidents out of 17 over the last 10 years.” She remembers that number surprising her, as the hulking rock monsters tend to be slow and solitary creatures, however powerful. “That makes it fairly easy to default to Tier 2 unless there’s a really good reason to think it’s a Tier 1.”
“But the more important point isn’t about people deciding if an incident is Tier 1 or 2, it’s with the
Rangers
trying to decide whether to respond
as if
it’s a Tier 1 or Tier 2 when one gets called in, based on how often there are false Tier 1 or 2 called in!”
“But that’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Red gives her an odd look as they grab a pair of pre-loaded food trays. “Who taught you math?”
“My mom.” Leaf takes the container of cold cuts off hers and swaps it with an extra salad bowl from a different one, figuring some meat lover would be happy to take that one. “Why?”
“I think you don’t understand how much trouble most people have with it,” he says as they find a table. “Because that’s
not
obvious, I didn’t think to do it until after I realized how useful the prior would be in the first place.”
“But the Rangers are a professional organization, Red, there’s no way they don’t take that into account.”
“I hope you’re right, but I doubt it. As far as I know, Rangers don’t undergo any math classes during their training. Look, let’s say a non-Ranger reports a Tyranitar rampage as a Tier 1.” They sit down, and Red takes out his notebook. He tears a pair of sheets out and hands one to her with a pencil. “You’re the ranger in charge of deciding whether to treat it as a Tier 1, or send a full Tier 2 response. Try writing out your process for figuring out the chance it’s
actually
a Tier 1, I want to see if I can do it too.”
Leaf does so, eating one handed as she writes with the other. According to what Trainer Danton said…
P(T1): The probability of a Tier 1 Event overall is 64%.
And if 21% of reported Tier 1 events are actually Tier 2, then…
P(T1 | R1): 79% of Tier 1 reports are actual Tier 1 events.
While he already gave her the odds of a false Tier 2 report:
P(T1 | R2): 33% of Tier 2 reports are also actually Tier 1 events.
So, first she wants to find the probability of a Tier 1 Report in the first place. She writes out:
And takes her phone out to use its calculator as she starts plugging in numbers.
.64 = .79 * P(R1) + .33 * (1 – P(R1))
.64 = .79 P(R1) + .33 – .33 P(R1)
.31 = .79 P(R1) – .33 P(R1)
.31 = .46 P(R1)
P(R1) = .31 / .46 = .6739
So 67% of incidents are reported as Tier 1. Combining that with the probability of Tier 1 events, she can find the probability of a report being T1 whether the incident is T1 or T2.
Leaf feels tension in her shoulders and straightens so she’s not hunched over, hearing her mom’s lecturing voice in her head. She pauses to take a bite of an apple and glance at Red, wondering how far along he is. His brow is knitted with concentration, so she forgoes asking him and just goes to answering the final question:
Given that:
The probability of a Tyranitar Tier 1 Event, P(Tyr1), is 2/17
The probability of a Tyranitar Tier 2 Event, P(Tyr2), is 15/17
The probability of a Tier 1 Event being reported as Tier 1, P(R1 | T1), is 83%
The probability of a Tier 2 Event being reported as Tier 1, P(R1 | T2), is 39%
What is the chance a reported Tier 1 is actually a Tier 1, P(T1 | R1)?
For the final probability Leaf finishes, checks it over again, then puts the pencil down so she can focus on her food. “Okay, I’m done. What’d you get?”
After a minute, Red stops writing and looks up. “It’s 29% right? Rounding up.”
Leaf quickly checks her numbers again. “No, I got about 22%.”
Red buries his face in the crook of his arm on the table. “I had it for a minute there, I swear.”
Leaf covers her grin with her hand. “Hang on, let’s see what you did…” She takes his sheet and checks his final calculation just to make sure it’s not something simple, but sees a completely different setup:
2/17 Tyranitar are T1 = ~12%. If we have 100 Events with Tyranitar as main threat that means:
12 are Tier 1
88 are Tier 2
For every 100 Events reported as Tier 1
79 are actually Tier 1
21 are actually Tier 2
For every 100 Events reported as Tier 2
67 are actually Tier 2
33 are actually Tier 1
Group A: 8.52 Tyranitar are Tier 1 and Reported Tier 1
Group B: 3.48 Tyranitar are Tier 1 but Reported as Tier 2
Group C: 66.88 Tyranitar are Tier 2 and Reported as Tier 2
Group D: 21.12 Tyranitar are Tier 2 but reported as Tier 1.
Group A / (Group A+ Group D) = .2874
“Huh.” Leaf blinks. “I see what you were going for, but your probabilities are wrong.”
“What do you mean? Did I miscalculate them?”
“No, I mean you confused what the actual probabilities Trainer Danton gave us were. You just took the probability of a Tier 1 report being a Tier 1 event and treated it as the same thing as a Tier 1 event being reported as Tier 1. They’re not, that just tells you how many True Positive results there are. There are also False Positives and False Negatives for Tier 1 and Tier 2 events that change things.”
Red sighs. “I knew that, I just forgot to apply it. I may have mentioned math isn’t my strong suit.” He rallies after a moment. “But I’m going to get better at it. No more using that as an excuse. Today is already a day of expanding our comfort zones little by little, right?”
Leaf grins. “Right.”
“So what did you do instead?”
“I had to find the actual probability of Tier 1 reports first. Look, here…”
She shows him on her paper where she uses the formula
P(T1) = P(T1 | R1) * P(R1) + P(T1 | R2) * (1 – P(R1))
to find P(R1).
“Once you have that, you can find what you
really
need to try what you were doing, the real rate of a given Tier 1 Event getting Tier 1 Report, or Tier 2, or the reverse.” She starts rewriting the given information, and underlines the key differences in what she found first:
The probability of a Tyranitar Tier 1 Event, P(Tyr1), is 2/17
The probability of a Tyraniter Tier 2 Event, P(Tyr2), is 15/17
The probability of a
Tier 1 Event being reported as Tier 1
, P(R1 | T1), is 83%
The probability of a
Tier 2 Event being reported as Tier 1
, P(R1 | T2), is 39%
“See how that’s different than “79% of Tier 1 reports are Tier 1 events?” she asks.
“I think so, yeah.
Now
I split them up into groups, right?”
“Right, if that helps you more than using the formula. Let’s also expand the number of events and be more precise…”
If there are 1000 Tyranitar events:
118 are Tier 1
882 are Tier 2
83% of the Tier 1 events will be reported as Tier 1, so:
Group A: 97.94 Tyranitar are Tier 1 and Reported Tier 1
Group B: 20.06 Tyranitar are Tier 1 but Reported as Tier 2
39% of Tier 2 events will be reported as Tier 1, so 61% will be:
Group C: 538.02 Tyranitar are Tier 2 and Reported as Tier 2
Group D: 343.98 Tyranitar are Tier 2 but reported as Tier 1.
After checking to make sure Group A and B add up to the 118 Tier 1 Tyranitar Events, and C and D add up to the 882 Tier 2 Events, she then finishes with:
Group A / (Group A+ Group D) = .2216
“Okay. I think I got it.” Red examines the numbers quietly for a moment. “Well, 22% isn’t that much higher than 12%. So it would still make sense to respond to a Tyranitar event as a Tier 2, even if it’s a little more likely to be a Tier 1 after someone reports it as one.”
“How many reports do Rangers usually get before they mount a response?” Leaf asks. “If the next few reports are also Tier 1, that would quickly bring the odds of it being at Tier 1 high enough that they should respond as if they’re accurate.”
Red shrugs. “They start mobilizing as soon as they get the report, but they continue to monitor the situation as that happens and adjust what they send as they coordinate with other Ranger outposts and nearby gyms. But they usually only get a handful of reports before everyone in the area knows about it and stops sending in new ones.”
“Huh. So they may not actually get a chance to update far enough for some really rare instances, if they were to second-guess the really rare events.” Something about that bothers Leaf, there
should
be a better solution…
“Let me try one with a different pokemon now,” Red says, grabbing a fresh sheet.
“Alright.” She hands him the pencil and watches him follow the steps she did. She’s in the middle of pointing out a difference when someone plops down on the bench to her left.
“Heyoo. This kid owe you money?”
Leaf looks up with a grin. “Aiko! What’s—oh.” She looks around with wide eyes as almost a dozen other trainers sit around them, Blue taking a seat next to Red.
“So?” Blue asks, as he digs into his food, mouth full. “H’wsha firsh deh?”
A teenager on Blue’s other side holds a napkin up to catch some of the food before it can spray across to Leaf and Aiko. “Swallow first, you small-town bumpkin. We’re civilized folk here.”
“Hi!” a girl to Leaf’s right says. “I’m Elaine. It’s great to meet you, I’m from Pewter, your article on the museum was awesome, are you writing another one?”
Leaf blinks. “Thanks! And hi, nice to meet you too, um, yeah I’m writing another, but not on Pewter—”
“Oh I figured, what’s it on?”
Blue finally swallows. “Hang on, I asked first.”
“Technically,” the boy to his right mutters.
“Hush, Glen. Spill, newbies. First day, how was it? Great, right?”
“Pretty great, yeah,” Leaf says, gaze lingering on Glen, who Red had said Blue was thinking of inviting with them on their journey.
He’s kinda cute…
“We were actually just talking about the latest class we took—”
“Red!” Blue exclaims, staring at his friend’s chest. “You got an Objection! Congratu-mph!”
Red’s hand shoves blindly up and covers Blue’s mouth. “Leaf gave it to me,” Red says, gaze still on his equations. “Now hush a minute, I need to get this right.”
“What’s with the math?” Aiko whispers to Leaf.
“Bayes’ Theorem,” Leaf says, still looking around at all the trainers, most of whom are watching them with interest.
“From Giovanni’s blog?” an older boy on Red’s other side asks. “Why are you—”
“Because literal lives may be at stake someday if I misjudge the severity of a Tier 1 or Tier 2 incident,” Red says as he finishes writing, then turns the paper toward Leaf and removes his other hand from Blue’s mouth.
Leaf studies the sheet. “You tried to shortcut the calculation of Group D, didn’t you?”
“Uh. Yeah. How did you know?”
“Your C and D add up to 100 instead of the frequency of Tier 2 events.”
Red curses and takes the sheet back to erase it while Blue shakes his head. “Literal lives at stake, and you shortcut.” Red tries to cover Blue’s mouth again, but he fends him off and turns to Leaf as their arms shove against each other. “Oh, I should introduce everyone… this is Glen, that’s Chron,” the boy to Red’s other side raises his hand. “Elaine introduced herself, and over there is Taro and his sister Chie…”
Most of them are eating and talking among themselves now, stopping as their names are mentioned to look up and smile at her. She tries to keep up with all the new names, ten in total, as her head spins from everyone talking over and under each other. Clearly this is what Red meant by the group Blue and Aiko had started hanging out with, but she didn’t realize it was this big.
“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she manages to say before Elaine starts asking questions about what she’s writing again, which Aiko interrupts by asking if she found a blog for her abra article, letting Leaf answer both at once.
“What about you, what have you been up to?” Leaf asks Aiko before she can get asked another series of questions. “Other than making the gym uniform look good, somehow.”
“Oh hush, you flatterer,” she says while taking Leaf’s untouched carrots and replacing them with her own shredded radish, which Leaf happily starts munching on. “I’ve been great, actually! My sandshrew evolved today, and I can say for sure as of this morning that we’re going ahead with the petting zoo/therapy idea! My dad and I finalized the business details with Mrs. Ino, we should start with a couple trial clients tomorrow!”
“That’s fantastic! And congrats on the sandslash.” Leaf wants to ask how her dad is doing, but isn’t sure how much private information Aiko has already shared with the others.
Red looked up from his paper upon hearing about the ranch, smiling wide. “We’ll be heading out on the cruise soon, but do you think we can go visit?”
Aiko beams at him. “You guys are always welcome.” She turns to the others. “The rest of you too, as long as you tell your friends and family.”
“If I’m going to be a walking billboard,” Glen says, “I demand payment in the form of petting cute pokemon.”
“Oh man, there are
so
many cute pokemon there,” Leaf says, grinning at him. “You should totally come with us.”
“And the billboard idea’s not bad,” Aiko says, examining him while tapping her chin.
“You’ve done it now,” Elaine says. “She’s got That Look. We’ll all be fitted with wearable boards by the end of the week.”
Blue snorts. “Not me. I can do some sign twirling though, if you want.”
“The wearable one would let you advertise while battling, though,” Leaf points out.
“No advertising during official League matches,” Elaine says. “You’re from Unova, right?”
Leaf blinks. “Yeah. I don’t watch the matches but I know trainers there wear company shirts and hats and bags all the time during recorded matches.”
“Well not here,” Blue says. “Because Kantonians aren’t sell-outs, right everyone?”
“Right!” the group shouts as one.
“I’m from Connacht,” Glen says. “I’m happy to sell out.”
“I’ll pay you five bucks to wear a shirt that says Connacht Sucks!” one of the other trainers from farther down the tables says. Leaf has already forgotten their name.
“Make it fifty!”
“Ten!”
“Fifty-five!”
“What?! Who taught you how to haggle?”
“My grandmother, and now it’s sixty for insulting her by implication!”
“Alright, time out!” Blue says, hands cutting the air to both sides. “This slight clearly has only one solution: duel at sundown.”
“Don’t let him boss you around like that,” Red says. “I like where the haggling’s going.”
“I’m curious if he’d actually take fifty now,” Chron says. “Also, you put the wrong denominator.” He points, and Red looks back down with a frown.
“The ship of fifty has sailed,” Glen declares, arms crossed.
“I’ll give you forty,” Aiko says, sounding completely serious. “To wear it around the city for two days.”
Glen hesitates.
“The ship of forty, apparently, is less decisive,” Blue says.
“And
I
didn’t insult your grandmother’s haggling skills,” Aiko reminds him.
Leaf’s phone chimes, distracting her from the back and forth, and she lets the conversation flow around her as she takes it out to check if it’s anything important, enjoying the banter. She’s not used to big crowds of people, and would probably find it tiring if she had to deal with it all day, but she has to admit she can see the appeal.
Her slight smile fades as she sees who sent the email, and she quickly opens it, mind jumping between scenarios that would warrant him contacting her again, few of them good…
Hey Leaf. Your prediction came true: Zoey Palmer has been poking around. Reached out to me just today, asking a lot of the same questions you did in your last visit. I was honest, but didn’t mention anything beyond what she asked about, but she seemed suspicious of what Giovanni’s men are doing here. I’ll let you know if she reaches out again, but I’d be surprised if she doesn’t. Hope you’re close to cracking this thing.
Stay safe,
Ryback
“Leaf? Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry, I’ve got to run.” Leaf sees the looks of curiosity and concern, and forces a smile.
“You’re not going to join us for Advanced Formations?” Aiko asks. “It’s one of the funnest classes!”
“Maybe another time. It was nice meeting all of you,” she says to the rest of them, then looks at Red and silently apologizes for leaving him alone. Their joint venture wasn’t as bad as they feared, however, and she thinks he’ll be fine. “Can I rely on you to make sure he learns that?” she asks Chron with a smile.
“Yes ma’am.” He salutes her, and it takes her a moment to realize he took her request seriously.
What has Blue been doing to them? Or is it from my own fame?
“Thanks. Call you later,” Leaf says to Aiko, squeezing her shoulder in a quick hug, then heads out of the cafeteria.
She quickly goes to the Gym’s locker room to retrieve her things, then returns to the Trainer House, thoughts already on Ryback’s message and its implications as she bikes through the city. If Palmer is on the right track now, Leaf’s window of opportunity is shrinking. She needs to step up her game, which means finally pinning down her next step in the investigation of Yuuta’s death.
The Trainer House’s work room is quiet but for the clack of keys. It’s a bit crowded considering the time, but the noise from the others doesn’t bother her. While Leaf has her own computer now, she’s found it easier to concentrate on work related things when she’s in a work related environment, and so her strategy for avoiding getting sucked into arguments online lately has been to put up as many barriers as possible for it. As long as she’s doing research on a public computer, and not logged into her own accounts, she doesn’t have to see all the notifications and messages that are no doubt piling up.
She thought of asking Professor Oak if he’s learned anything a few times over the past week, then realized if there’s something he’d wanted her to know he would have told her already. The next obvious choice was to ask Laura for help, but Leaf still isn’t sure that talking with another reporter wouldn’t violate the “agreement” she made with Giovanni, deceptive though he probably was when she made it.
So she started trying to answer the central question herself, the question Leader Giovanni implied was at the center of the mystery: who benefits from chaos in the dig site?
According to the Viridian Gym Leader, whatever had happened to Yuuta was an intentional act of sabotage for the dig or those connected to it. The strange thing is that the same could be said of Yuuta’s theft, so even if the person or people who killed him were not connected to him at all, there were still two attacks on the dig regardless of whether they were by the same people. She can untangle rivaling motivations later.
So the question she’d been investigating since leaving Cerulean was simple:
Who benefits monetarily if the Mt. Moon dig falls apart?
Thankfully her investigation there did most of the legwork in answering that, and as it turned out once she put the data together, quite a lot of people would. The mountain, being a highly valuable pokemon habitat, had a lot of rules and regulations imposed on it that made it hard for most to do business there. This venture only worked because all three cities worked together to facilitate it, but that meant even more red tape, which made the costs go higher.
If it ends up working out, it will prove that projects like this are financially viable while still abiding by the uniquely high standards. Which means, Leaf both surmised and read others assert, those standards would likely be spread to any future digs that open on the mountain… or similar places. Which puts the organizations currently there who have already proven themselves capable in a much better position to take advantage of those later agreements.
Which means in a sense that any organization that tried to outbid the current ones working there, or couldn’t afford to, and even the private security company that competed with the “organizing gym” (the article didn’t specify which, but Ryback confirmed that it was Viridian’s), might all benefit if it falls apart. There are also fossil suppliers that would see their prices undercut if such a major new source of fossils became available to certain groups but not others… but such zero-sum thinking would implicate far too many organizations, and besides, Leaf doesn’t think a rivalry between
paleontologists
would get so cutthroat as to warrant murder.
Well, most of the time. Maybe. It might if the monetary sums are large enough.
In any case the web of suspects is still too large, so she moved on to the next layer:
Who benefits politically if the Mt. Moon dig falls apart?
Environmental groups who were against the dig. Politicians who want to embarrass their city’s Leaders… something she wouldn’t have considered before her journey, but which seems at least plausible now. Would someone like Mayor Kitto stoop to murder just to make Brock look bad? Probably not, but there’s no way Leaf has the whole picture. The only way she would get to the bottom of this is by assuming that whoever killed Yuuta had motivations that make sense. If that’s not the case then she’ll have wasted a lot of time, but she has to narrow the possibility space
somehow.
Once she starts investigating them she can start striking out the ones that are unsupported or too improbable, but until now she’s still been in the mode of generating hypotheses rather than trying to prove or disprove any of them yet.
Her last additions were adding Mayor Kitto to the list, as well as Tonio and Mangal, the mayors of Cerulean and Viridian, and it struck her that if it was someone Misty interacts with they would have to be very stupid or careful to plot against her. Unless of course they’re Dark…
This is where prejudice comes from you know.
Still, Leaf checks to see if any of the mayors are Dark, which is surprisingly easy to find out. Apparently any time a politician runs for office there are tons of people wondering what psychics think of them, which leads to a lot of activity on forums where psychics claim this or that mental state that the politician had while they were giving speeches meant whatever the psychic then extrapolated it to mean. Since an actual mental connection needed to be formed to pick up thoughts, however, only those unwilling to give up anonymity would admit to such a breach in privacy laws, which means their assertions of what politicians said were always in doubt.
Leaf loses an hour to that fascinating rabbit hole before she stumbles on the answer to her question as a matter of course: some group fighting for equal rights insisting that Dark people shouldn’t be discriminated against quickly led her to the revelation that apparently Kanto doesn’t have anyone in public office that’s Dark, since, as Leaf’s own suspicions supported, the capability of hiding something made them inherently suspicious in an arena where one could at least usually rely on psychics weeding out the most blatantly dishonest or emotionally unstable.
That just makes Leaf wonder whether someone good enough at concealing their inner mental states, or who didn’t feel any sort of guilt for lying, might not slip through. But that’s a question for another day, and right now she has her answer: Mayor Tonio probably isn’t in on the attack, and neither is Mangal, if Giovanni uses psychics to monitor the people he talks to regularly, which Leaf has no reason to think he doesn’t, stupid sneaky snake that he is…
Anyway.
That leaves just Kitto, who she puts on one side of the suspect list. She starts to fill it out with everyone else who has a political reason to want the dig site to fail, and then starts filling out the financial side of the list until she can plot them in a venn diagram.
When she finishes, she has a list of nine names or organizations in the middle, with both political and financial motives. The real culprit may be in the purely financial or political motivation side, or even someone she didn’t even think of with personal or complex motivations, but with what she knows now, these seem best to investigate first.
And as for who she’s investigating, well, every staff member at the dig shouldn’t take
too
long…
She’s still engrossed in that when her phone chimes with a message from Red. It isn’t until she sees the time that she realizes her stomach is sending unhappy signals to her and has been for a while. Rather than meet up with the others, however, and as tempting as it is, she sends an apology and heads downstairs to grab food from the cafeteria so she can keep working until bed.
She moves through the Trainer House without seeing it, in a state of flow that makes her steps feel light. The temptation to check the forums and emails pops up occasionally, but is quickly carried away by her drive to look into the next staff member, and the next, and the next, into the late hours of the night.
Days pass, and Leaf barely leaves the Trainer House other than to give her pokemon some exercise. She returns to the Gym a couple times for classes that Aiko, Blue, or Red insist she joins them for, and it’s always hard to leave once she’s there, but before long the investigation calls her back.
It’ll be worth it,
she tells herself as she turns down another dinner invitation with a pang.
Getting to the bottom of this will be worth it…
It goes slowly but steadily, and little by little she puts together a shortlist of dig employees that have worked for or with some of the primary suspects, including big names like the Cinnabar Archeology Institute, the Silph Company, and Rand Tanaka, an excavation magnate who recently got into politics and became the mayor of Celadon City: apparently he’d tried to get his city in on the action at Mt. Moon, but was unable to.
Normally this many potential leads would excite Leaf, and there is some of that, but as the days pass that excitement is tempered by a growing suspicion. Throughout her investigation, what she’s found are not just people who have reason to sabotage the dig, but also some who have reason to strike at Giovanni as well. Throwing his political weight behind a decision that limits Silph expansion in Viridian, speaking out against Tanaka’s campaign… What was it he said, while trying to convince her not to publish?
I’ve learned to recognize the actions of an enemy, and I’ve made plenty of enemies.
Something like that.
Not all the companies and people on the list have obvious enmity with Giovanni, but he’s been a powerful figure in Kanto for so long that it seems he’s interacted enough with almost all of them at some point that searching for his name and theirs brings
something
up.
At the time Leaf just believed that Giovanni was saying what he could to convince her not to publish. Calculated, sure, but only for that obvious goal. Since her investigation is guided almost entirely by the information he revealed to her, however, she’s started to consider again what his goal in that conversation was. If he wanted to throw her off track, he could have lied to her. Maybe he did, though if so there’s enough truth laced into what he said that she can’t easily ignore it.
Instead, it seems more and more like what he said was exactly what she would need to hear that, not only would she not publish the story, but if she
continued researching it anyway,
she would know where to look…
Until Leaf had to finally wonder if the Gym Leader intentionally told her everything he did, not just to keep her quiet about what little she knew, but also to increase her chances of finding more. After all, he professed to be searching for the culprit himself. Would he not also benefit if she found them?
The strangest feeling began to grip her as she worked day to day, like she was being watched. Leaf resisted the urge to look around often, calling herself silly. But she couldn’t ignore the source of the feeling: the eerie idea that she’s just a puppet whose strings are being pulled.
Does it matter? Won’t you want to find out even if Giovanni set you up to? In a sense he might be doing you a favor at the same time, making use of you in a way. He did talk with you as if forming a business agreement: in fact he even offered to repay you for services rendered!
Leaf scowls at that particular inner voice, distrusting its appeal. One thing’s for certain: her excuse to not tell Laura about what she’s getting into doesn’t feel justified anymore. Even without going into specifics, she needs the advice: she feels like a tympole swimming in the shadow of something large and hungry, and while she’s not scared, exactly, she wants to know for sure if she’s imagining it or onto something.
After finishing the list, she closes down her work at the public computer room and moves to a more private work room where she takes her laptop out and, after weeks of wanting to, calls Red’s mom to tell her everything. It feels good to have an excuse anyway, since aside from what she’s been working on, she hasn’t had the chance to talk to her much since they arrived in Vermilion, and she’s curious to know what Mrs. Verres has been up to.
“Hi there, Leaf!”
“Hey Laura! How’s it going?”
“Wonderful, dear! Everything’s great. Just great. What have you kids been up to?””
Well, Laura certainly seems more cheerful than usual. Maybe it’s from not having spoken in a while, but it makes Leaf loath to bring up something more serious, so she happily launches into a summary of her past couple weeks, including her visits to the gym and how surprisingly enjoyable she found it. This leads into Laura explaining that
she
recently started going to the Celadon Gym to learn how to train her new tangela, which led to them comparing notes about the differences between the gym cultures. Leaf is a bit surprised to hear that Laura is suddenly interested in training pokemon, but she supposes that the grimer attack may have made her feel unsafe living without any.
Eventually the conversation topics start to wind down, and Leaf runs out of excuses not to bring up her main reason for calling. “By the way, I have something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
Laura chuckles. “I figured as much, with how busy you all must be from the abra sale. What’s up?”
“It’s actually not related to that. There’s something I never told you…”
Leaf haltingly explains her investigation at Mt. Moon, the visit with Giovanni, her agreement with him, the research she’s done since then, and what made her finally decide to break it, listing the names of her primary suspects and the workers at the dig that they’re connected to.
“I just feel like I’m suddenly really vulnerable, like it’s not my investigation at all any more. I don’t know if I’m being paranoid or not, but I just had to check and see what you think. Even if he prodded me into continuing the investigation, should I?” Leaf waits a moment, hand nervously moving her computer mouse to open and delete various emails, barely seeing them. “Mrs. Verres? You there?”
“Yes. Leaf, can I call you back?”
Leaf’s hand stops moving. Laura’s voice was… completely different. Flat, almost angry. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Something just came up. I’m sorry, I’ll call you later.”
“Is—” Leaf stops as the call disconnects, then stares at her phone. She knows Laura’s anger probably wasn’t directed at her… maybe Giovanni, for tricking Leaf? Unless she’s being honest and something came up, maybe she got an email or something just hit the news…
Leaf opens some Celadon city news sites and scrolls for anything that might have happened within the past few minutes, then the past hour, then anything from earlier in the day.
There’s nothing. Maybe it was something even earlier that Laura’s been looking into that she got an update on. Leaf keeps scrolling, barely paying attention at this point as she passes by stories on politicians speaking for or against new housing policies, progress on repairing the city’s sewage system, some weirdo in a mask who escaped police by jumping between rooftops, a notice about construction being done to Cycling Road…
When half an hour passes and Laura still doesn’t call back, Leaf texts Red.
Hey, is everything okay with your mom?
What do you mean? I think so? Why what happened?!
Woops. Leaf quickly types,
Nothing, sorry! I just called her and she acted really cheerful, then suddenly became super serious and said she’d call me back. That was half an hour ago.
Don’t scare me like that. Maybe something came up for work.
Yeah. Sorry for bothering you.
Leaf puts her phone down and stares at the wall, mind wandering, but her phone chimes again after a moment.
What was she cheerful about?
I didn’t ask. I guess she was just having a good day. That’s why the shift took me by surprise.
Why did you say she “acted” cheerful then?
Leaf is taken aback a moment, and checks to see that yeah, she did write that.
I didn’t mean anything by it. Just the word choice that came out while typing.
You sure? She might have been in the middle of something, and pretended everything was fine so you wouldn’t feel like you were imposing.
It would be quite a coincidence if she just happened to get interrupted when Leaf brought something so important up.
It’s possible I guess.
“
It’s possible” is a polite way to say you don’t think so 😛 I can check in with her if you’re worried.
No no, that’s okay! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t interrupt something important that you might know about.
Ah. We haven’t really talked much since I got to the city. Quick call after the arrival interview, and that was about it. Sorry.
Leaf remembers her conversation with Red after the surprise visit on the road from Cerulean, and reminds herself to check in with him later about whether he and his mom are doing okay. The thought makes her think of her own mom, and she decides to write to her while she waits for Laura to call back.
No prob. Thanks anyway! How’re you doing with Bayes?
I think I’m close to mastering his secrets.
Really?!
I think I’m close to comprehending one of his secrets. Possibly. Gotta get to a training session though, let’s go over it later?
Sure! TTYL!
She puts the phone away and starts emails to her mom and grandpa. She writes to her grandpa fairly often, so his goes by quickly as she mentions funny things that happened recently or new tricks she taught her pokemon, but she never had that kind of relationship with her mom, so writing to her is slower. Eventually Red’s idea for her to return home briefly and register a teleportation spot there comes to mind, and she gratefully decides to end the email by bringing that up as a possibility she’s considering.
After both emails are written and sent and she
still
hasn’t heard from Laura, Leaf decides to just switch to one of her other projects. She still needs to finish the piece on what she did while catching abra, so she gets to work on that.
It’s engrossing enough putting herself back in the moment that she actually forgets she’s waiting for Laura’s call by the time the phone rings, and Leaf feels a jolt of shock when she sees that it’s already past seven. Then a wave of disappointment hits her when she sees an unknown number. She leans back in her chair as she answers it, despondent.
Leaf frowns. Despite her words, Laura’s voice is as serious as Leaf has ever heard her. “What happened?”
What happened to your phone?
“Listen… Leaf, do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then please, please don’t react the way I’m afraid you will to what I’m about to say. Please, trust that I have good reasons for it.”
Leaf’s heart pounds in her chest as she tries to imagine what’s coming and fails. “Okay. I’ll try.”
“You need to stop researching the murder of the Renegade.”
Leaf stares at the wall, face blank.
After a moment of thought, she continues to stare at the wall.
In that moment, a dozen ideas surface and then peter out, replaced by new ones.
I found something important
Dangerous
No she knew
Did she find it first?
Did I miss it?
Did she find it out today, after hanging up?
What was it?
Leaf’s blood runs cold as a new line of thought intertwines and brings up new possibilities.
Did Giovanni get to her first?
Threaten her?
Is she working with him?
“Leaf, do you trust me?”
“Leaf?”
The girl blinks. Takes a breath. “I’m here. What’s wrong, Mrs. Verres? Why do I need to stop?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry, but you should know why I can’t.”
Leaf closes her eyes and rests her forehead on one hand. Somehow, some way, she has to find the time in her schedule to train against psychic intrusion. It won’t help if she doesn’t know it’s coming, but it’s better than nothing. Right now what she can’t stop thinking of is all the opportunities she gave up at the gym, to spend time with the others, to work on this story… just to be told, again, to walk away from it. “Laura… the past few days… I just spent most of my week on this, and more time before that, I… can’t just give up on this, Laura, not without knowing why. I can’t.”
“I understand, honey. Believe me, I do. I just can’t tell you
yet.
I need you to promise to stop looking into it for… I was going to say two months, but realistically it may take longer.”
Anger starts to make Leaf’s head pound, anger at being given such an unarguable ultimatum after being asked if she trusted her. “You’re treating me like a child again. Don’t say you’re not, I know you are, it’s something dangerous and you said you
wouldn’t-
”
“
Leaf.
Please,
listen
to me.” With an internal wrench, Leaf realizes that Laura sounds on the verge of tears.
That’s not fair, that’s what mom used to do, you can’t use that against me too…
“Don’t tell Red this, I’m only telling you because I understand how you feel, because you deserve to know… I’ll tell him on my own, I promise, I was just waiting until I could… could give reassurances…”
“Reassurances about what? What happened?”
“Remember what I told you? About getting involved in political things?”
“I do. I also remember what you said after: that I was already risking my life every day.”
“I was stupid to say that. No, more naive than anything. I’ve had my eyes opened rather rudely to just how much, recently. The tangela I got, that I started training with…”
Leaf frowns at the topic shift, still impatient to hear what had happened, then puts it together, eyes widening. “Oh, Swords of Justice,” she whispers. “Someone
attacked
you? Who? When?”
There’s silence on the other end, enough of it that Leaf’s imagination supplies some truly frightening scenarios of Laura being mugged, or worse… Her skin runs cold as she physically flashes back to the seconds of terror and minutes of numb shock that came from her encounter with Yuuta, but then Laura says “Not exactly,” almost begrudgingly, and Leaf has a moment of sweet, sweeping relief, followed by gratitude that Mrs. Verres didn’t lie, as tempting as it must have been. “But I got the tangela because I was informed, under no uncertain terms, that I needed to be prepared to defend myself. And I thought I listened, but I was wrong. I got hit in a direction I wasn’t really expecting, and
I should have been.
Do you understand? I’ve been in this industry for years, but I still had to take a hit, had to get hurt, for that training and experience to kick in. You have neither of those things.
Yes,
you’re going out there and risking your life in your journey, but you’ve
trained
for that. You haven’t prepared for this, not really.
Please
tell me you understand that, it’s not about your
age
, Leaf, it’s about what you’re
prepared for
. Small flare ups like Pewter were a good way to get experience, but not this, you walking into it thinking you’re ready would be like me deciding to go to… to Victory Road, for me to go through the caves at the Plateau after having my one pokemon for all of a week!”
Leaf’s eyes are closed, forehead against one palm. “Give me a minute, please. I need to think about this.”
“Of course, hon. Take your time.” Laura sounds nervous and distraught, but Leaf can’t think about that right now, she can’t let her mom’s… she can’t let
Laura’s
emotional state influence her decisions…
“I’ll call you back, I just need some time… is this number…?”
“No, not mine. It’s a friend’s I know is secure. I’ll be here for a little while though.”
Leaf wants to know more about the friend with the secure line and the need for it at all, but she just says “Okay,” and hangs up. Then she packs her things up, goes to her dorm room, and lies on the bed, eyes closed to examine her motivation as best she can.
It doesn’t take long to realize that her thoughts are circling without use. She needs to talk to someone about this, but realizes she can’t. Her mom and grandpa and Professor Oak would agree with Laura, and she promised not to tell Red, and Aiko… after what she told Aiko, how could she possibly say that she’s considering letting this go because it’s too dangerous?
“
It’s not about your
age,
Leaf, it’s about what you’re
prepared for!”
And a part of her understands that, understands it very well, because isn’t that why she called Laura in the first place? Why have a mentor if she won’t listen to her at the time when she really, truly needs guidance, and her mentor is so clearly adamant?
Because it would hurt, to give this up. Again. To let this go, again, to let Zoey win…
I found something, who was it, which of the people at the dig killed him…
I have to know…
Leaf’s eyes burn, but she takes deep breaths until it fades.
I’m stuck in a role,
she realizes.
This is what Laura was afraid of. I’m in the role of the hotheaded child who thinks she knows better.
Knows better than Mrs. Verres? Who’s spent years in the field, been through so much more? What are the odds, of that? What’s the prior, that a 12 year old who just started in a vocation would have better instincts, better insights? What are the sheerly lopsided odds against it?
Leaf calls Laura back, fingers moving slowly. “I won’t pursue it,” Leaf says, the words feeling leaden as they emerge.
“Thank you, Leaf.” The relief in Mrs. Verres’s voice is palpable, and oddly makes Leaf feel a little better about it.
There’s no one else in the dorm at the moment, but Leaf keeps her voice low anyway. “But you have to promise me that you’ll tell me what you discovered. You said two months, and I won’t hold you to that exactly, but I can’t promise I won’t get impatient eventually.”
“I understand. I can also promise that when all of this comes to light, you’re going to get the whole story, and credit for helping expose it. And it wasn’t something small, Leaf, I had a lot of information with little to connect it, but what you told me… you have to keep building your name, in the meantime, get some protection through recognition, build contacts, get more experienced. That way when the fallout comes, you’re ready to handle it.”
“Mrs. Verres,” Leaf says, trying and failing to keep her voice calm. “You’re
not helping
me beat my curiosity down to a manageable level.”
Leaf grunts something that may conceivably be taken as a goodbye and then flops onto her bed face down with a sigh. She stays there for a few minutes and tries to convince herself she’s done the right thing.
Only a few minutes, however: she has to get to work, after all, so she’s ready for whatever’s coming.
Red bikes to the Vermilion Gym with his metapod in the basket. Its emerald body gleams in the sun as its half-lidded eyes stare at the shifting world around them, occasionally moving to track his bellsprout as its sinuous body climbs around it through the gaps in the plastic, shifting to keep its leaves in the sun as he turns through the city streets. His legs pump faster as he sees a stretch of empty sidewalk ahead, and he stands on the pedals for a moment, enjoying the morning breeze against his face.
It’s a week after he met with Sabrina, and his days have become filled with attending Gym classes and testing battle strategies against other trainers. With the Cruise Convention just a few days away, however, it’s time to finally check “Attend Electric Pokemon Class” off his list.
Of all the things he’s going to miss about the city, the most unexpected one by far is its gym. Despite originally going mostly to humor Blue, after his second visit with Leaf he ended up staying long after she left, attending more classes and signing up for another battle to test his command code. He felt out of place at first among the group that Blue and Aiko had gathered, but the others were so friendly, and the gym staff so knowledgeable and supportive, that he quickly began to enjoy himself. There’s an atmosphere of camaraderie that he didn’t expect, a very real sense of belonging that comes with being surrounded by people dedicating themselves to the same goals and helping each other along the way.
He tried focusing on his psychic training the following day, but it was difficult and emotionally taxing enough that progress was slow, and the entire time he was distracted by thoughts of what he learned at the gym the day before. After lunch he talked himself into going back for a quick “break” of a class or two that ended up lasting the rest of the day, and then trainer battles into the night, which he justified by remembering his promise to help Charmander evolve. By the time he returned to the Trainer House that night, he already had plans to return as soon as his pokemon recovered, and that’s exactly what he did the next morning, writing some quick thoughts down as he sat in the Pokemon Center waiting room before dashing off to meet up with the others again.
He never realized how much the Gym classes had to teach beyond just pokemon battling, but that’s not his only reason for going day after day: he always looks forward to the next one, but in truth it’s the pokemon battles that have been dominating the majority of his shower and biking thoughts. It started from just wanting to try out his ideas on efficient command use, but once he started seeing each match as a puzzle that he had to be smart and creative and quick enough to solve, the allure of facing new opponents and optimizing his strategies became addictive.
Red even watched a trainer battle online, which he never expected he’d do of his own free will. He found himself curious after the Professor’s story about Sabrina, however, and decided to find the video online.
Even knowing the outcome ahead of time, it had Red on the edge of his seat. Leader Kiyo didn’t bother with any of the showmanship or lessons that Brock or Misty engaged in with Blue: he spoke nothing but commands, his pokemon attacking without restraint. But Sabrina and her pokemon were always one step ahead, driving Kiyo to greater and greater extremes. Great chunks of the arena began to crack and split as Kiyo’s final pokemon, a gargantuan machamp that was almost three meters tall, struck the ground in what would likely be killing blows if any of them connected with Sabrina’s alakazam.
She must be reading the Machamp’s intentions before it attacks,
Red thought as Sabrina simply kept dodging until the machamp collapsed to its knees, unable to withstand the invisible psychic assault from her pokemon.
But she can’t be joined fully with her pokemon at the same time, can she? It must be trained well enough to pick up what to do from what she senses…
Unless of course she simply joined with her alakazam as
it
reads the Machamp’s thoughts while attacking, but to split her attention that many ways and still be able to think straight, let alone well enough to battle, is ridiculous. Red can still barely distinguish his abra’s physical sensations from his own.
The video was both humbling and inspirational. It’s why Red has been incorporating his psychic powers into his training sessions as a way to add some psychic practice into his days, so he can try using them in combat again. He hasn’t done so since his battle with Blue in Cerulean, but he’s developed his abilities a lot since then, and his strategy for tonight’s battle will rely on him maintaining a connection throughout the battle.
Red reaches the gym and dismounts, then places his pokemon carefully on the sidewalk and withdraws his bike and its gear. He also withdraws his bellsprout, but keeps the metapod out so he can lift it into a new sling he bought for his bag. It’s hard to read the metapod’s emotional state even if he’s using his powers, but it settles into the sling without fuss as Red lifts his bag onto his shoulders and carries his pokemon through the lobby and toward the locker rooms so he can change into the gym clothes. Since the pokemon is so bad at battling, its best bet for evolution is to just spend as much time out of its ball as possible so it can finish its metamorphosis.
Once he’s clad in khaki and olive, he heads onto the open field and breaks into a jog toward the building the class is located in. Red’s head doesn’t turn on its own to watch the various classes and activities going on around him anymore, but he does occasionally spot someone from the group and exchanges waves with them if they’re not busy.
Red feels a surge of satisfaction as he reaches the Electric Training building without being out of breath, pleased that the extra weight of his metapod hasn’t tired him. Unlike his time in Pewter and Cerulean, he’s been staying much more physically active, and it’s paying off.
Red feels a brief surge of disorientation as he walks through the door, similar to the feeling of teleporting with his abra. One moment he’s in an open field, with an implicit understanding that the buildings around him will each have the same basic, utilitarian aesthetic as the rest of the gym. The next he finds himself in a very high-tech facility, everything from the light sources to the floor made out of unusual material.
He makes his way to the class he’s attending and finds a large room with wide stalls to each side of a central walkway. The floor of the stalls looks strange, but Red recognizes the thermoplastic polymers and teflon covering almost everything else. About a dozen other trainers are already inside, most milling around the front of some of the stalls, so Red picks an empty one to place his bag beside. He looks inside and finds a range of strange objects around the target dummy in the center: a tree branch is protruding out one of the walls, and a rod of some metal is sticking out of the ground near the dummy, as well as a few boulders of varying sizes.
Red looks around. No one else is exploring their stall, and he hopes that doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to. He unslings his metapod and puts it beside his bag, feeds it some berries, then walks in to look around.
There’s just enough room for himself and a pokemon to circle the pokedoll at the center, in this case a machoke with its arms outstretched and its mouth open in a yell. Red wonders what the point of the various objects are, and takes the ultraball from his belt.
“Go, Pichu!”
The electric mouse materializes and looks around in confusion, nose wiggling. He registers the machoke as a potential threat, but Red claps twice, and Pichu relaxes. He turns to Red and immediately bounds over to climb up his pant leg and onto his shoulder.
Red laughs and nudges him down his arm, then flings him up in the air. The mouse tumbles and lands on its paws, then runs back toward Red to do it again, squeaking excitedly all the while.
After a few iterations of this, Red is ready to tell his pokemon to attack the pokedoll, but realizes some of the other trainers are gathered at the front of his section to look in at them. He let Pichu rest on his arm rather than flinging him up again, walking back into the main aisle with a slight blush.
“Aren’t you worried it’ll get hurt?” one of them asks as he approaches.
“Nah, I’ve already looked up safe heights for him to fall from. He and my charmander both like jumping, so I’ve been letting them compete for treats to see who can go higher.”
“Oh. Why?”
One of the other trainers answers before he can. “Because it’s easier for the pikachu family to fire stronger attacks downward than laterally or upward.” The girl notices everyone’s attention on her now, and adjusts her glasses. “I mean. I’m guessing that was why?”
Red smiles and shifts his shoulders as Pichu runs along them behind his neck. “Yeah, I figure the more he gets used to jumping and leaping from tall objects, the easier it will be for him to use height in attacks.”
“What about shinx?” one of the other students asks. “Do they work that way too?”
“Or magnemite?”
“Or-”
The other trainers are all talking at once, and the girl and Red try to answer questions as best they can. The rest of the trainers in the room gravitate toward them to listen and occasionally ask their own questions.
“I heard absolute height matters too,” one says. “Like they get more charge if they’re higher up—”
“I don’t think that’s right,” the girl says, “But maybe it depends on the pokemon—”
“You might be thinking of specific moves,” Red interjects. “Summoning an actual bolt of lightning with the Thunder attack is easier at higher elevations, so maybe other electric attacks occur quicker too.”
“Oh.”
“Is it true the pokemon’s size influences how much electric power it can produce?” someone else asks.
Red blinks. “Uh… I’m not sure, actually, I never heard of—”
“It can affect the amount of current they produce,” the girl cuts in. “But voltage is just as important for power, and different pokemon generate different amounts of voltage, so some benefit more or less from being bigger. You can check how much in your dexes.”
This prompts most of the students to start taking out their pokedexes and looking the information up, and the others to argue among themselves. Red and the girl both exhale as all the attention shifts off them, and after a moment he notices her glancing at him.
When he turns to her, she has her hand out. “Hi. I’m Lizzy.”
He shakes it. “Red.”
“Oh!” She adjusts her glasses as she sizes him up. “No wonder you look familiar. I thought you’d be taller.”
Red blinks. “Taller?”
“Did you get your Researcher license yet, from the abra study?”
“A week ago. You’ve read it?”
“Just the abstract so far. It’s on my List.” Red hears the capital L in her matter-of-fact voice. “I’m terribly jealous, you know. I’m hoping to get my Researcher license too.”
“That’s awesome! What are you working on?”
“Power generation by electric pokemon. That’s why I’m here.” She narrows her eyes suddenly, gaze speculative.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Red quickly says, hand going up to stroke Pichu. “I’m just here to train my pokemon and learn more.”
“Well
that’s
a relief. So what are you working on next?”
Red is in the middle of explaining his psychic practice sessions when the instructor comes in, an older man with a full mustache and beard, and a scar under his right eye. If it wasn’t for his clothes, which mirror the rest of the gym members’ outfits, Red would peg him as an old fashioned pirate stereotype, and as soon as he thinks it Red can’t help but imagine him at the prow of a boat, eyepatch over his scarred eye and a chatot on his shoulder.
“File in, everyone,” he says as he takes a poster board and easel from the side of the room and sets it up. His voice rough from a life (Red assumes) of yelling orders at his crew. “Pokemon away unless they can stay quiet and still.”
Red looks at his pokemon as some of the other trainers withdraw theirs. Metapod will be fine, but Pichu might get impatient. Red snaps his finger at Pichu and holds his hand out so the mouse can leap back up and climb to his shoulder, then extends his mind to his pokemon’s and breathes deep, arranging his thoughts into a relaxed pattern that quickly calms his pokemon down. Pichu doesn’t fit in Red’s collar anymore, but he’s able to snuggle up to his neck from the side and doze on his shoulder as he lines up with the rest of the class.
“Name is Otto, and I’m here to give you the basics on Electric Types, both for safety and combat. If you don’t have an Electric pokemon with you, you’re wasting your time here, because the lecture part’s nothing if you can’t participate in the practical training. With that in mind, anyone want to leave and come back another time?” He waits a moment, but no one steps out of line. “Good. Training and battling with Electric pokemon isn’t like doing so with any other types. Rock pokemon get to just fling stones around. Water pokemon point and shoot. Even Fire pokemon are pretty straightforward, as long as you’re aware of what in the environment is combustible. But Electric pokemon are tapping into a much more unpredictable force. To utilize them to their full potential, you have to learn at least the basics of how that force operates… a force that can
kill you
if you do not understand it properly.”
He looks from one trainer to the next, meeting their gaze for a moment until he’s sure he has everyone’s attention.
“So. You all know how static electricity works, yes? Anyone want to explain it simply?”
Red notices some eyes turning to him, and raises his hand, but Lizzy had hers up first. “The ground is naturally negatively charged,” she says. “And if you build up some positive charge by rubbing against the right things, you create potential energy. The spark you feel when you touch some piece of metal that’s grounded, meaning it provides a pathway for the charge to reach the ground, is the equalization of that energy.”
“Good. Everyone understand that?” The instructor holds up two hands, one palm open, the other as a fist. “Any time you get negative charge and positive charge near each other, the electrons making up the negative charge want to get across to balance things out. That flow of electrons is electricity, and the space between them can channel it.” He smacks his fist into his palm. “Lightning works on the same principle: the bigger the difference in charge, the more powerful the spark.” He takes a black marker out and begins to draw a large cloud, then a horizontal line. He uses a blue marker to draw a bunch of negative signs under the earth. “When a thunderstorm forms, the clouds begin to get both negative and positively charged areas.” He draws more negative signs near the bottom of the cloud, and then uses a red marker to draw plusses in the top portion of the cloud. “There are actually layers of both within big thunderclouds, but the important point is that the majority of lightning you see is electricity being discharged from one part of a cloud to another, or between differently charged parts of the air.” He draws yellow lines between the positive and negative charges in the cloud.
“But.” He brings the red marker down to draw a bunch of plusses on the ground beneath the cloud. “The concentration of negative charge at the bottom of a cloud also positively charges the ground beneath it. Downward leaders ionize the air as they begin to branch out beneath the cloud, too fast for our eyes to see, and when they meet upward leaders, often from whatever’s tallest in the area, they overcome the resistance of the air between them in an explosive discharge.” He draws another jagged lightning bolt between the cloud and ground. “Rarely, a positive lightning bolt will arc from the higher parts of the clouds, off toward the negatively charged ground far from the base of the storm.” He draws a long lightning bolt diagonally across the page from the top of the cloud to the ground. “These bolts are very rare, but
much
stronger.”
He turns back to them. “Your pokemon’s electricity,” he says, and knocks his knuckle against the cloud, “Follows this same principle. Each of them do it differently, but the first step is that they’re capable of building positive and negative charges. The second is they’re able to shift the charge of whatever their target is, thus creating that pathway for the energy difference to stabilize… in a bolt of electric energy.” He lowers his hand and examines the class. “Why is that important?”
Red thinks of the way he and Leaf used the lightning rods to redirect the electricity of the pikachu in the forest, and raises his hand. “It still acts as electricity, so it’s still seeking the path of least resistance toward the nearest opposite charge.”
“Right, but not the whole story. They actually have even more control than that: the third step is that they make an ionically charged ‘path’ of sorts in the air, increasing accuracy and adjusting the power of their attacks. It’s not perfect, however, and can still be interrupted, which means you all need to start studying different materials’ conductivity so that, at the very least, you’re never taken by surprise by something in your environment drawing away your pokemon’s attacks before they can reach their target, like some amateur who doesn’t understand how they might be stupider than their pokemon’s instincts.” Otto snorts.
“You mean the pokemon know how electricity works?” one of the other students asks.
“Do they ‘know?’ By which you mean, do they understand about electrons and resistance and how exactly a bolt of electricity will travel?” their instructor asks. “I have no idea. Perhaps they do, in some way. Or perhaps they can see the forces fundamental to the world more clearly than us, or feel them, and so it’s as easy to navigate as walking a path in a garden is to us. Whatever the case, they’re far less likely to screw it up than their ignorant trainers are.”
Red is thinking again of the way the ‘chu were stymied by the rods in the forest, for a while at least, and is about to speak up in hesitant challenge to the idea, but Otto continues before he can. “Of course, that’s not to say they’re perfect. I’ve seen wild pokemon make mistakes that an informed trainer wouldn’t. But I can also tell you I’ve never seen a pokemon stand too close to whatever they were attacking and end up shocking themselves through the ground, and I
have
seen countless trainers, who should have known better, command their Electric pokemon to attack something too close, or without a clear path. Remember, your pokemon are conditioned to
obey.
Even if their instincts are better than yours. If you want to master the Electric type, you need to immerse yourself in knowledge until it ascends to an instinctual level as well, until you can avoid the amateur trainer’s mistakes and the wild pokemon’s too, even spotting opportunities they would not.”
Otto waits for any questions, then gives a stiff nod and caps the marker in his hand. “So, everyone pick a dummy and bring your pokemon out. There are various objects and protrusions in each one, and you’re going to learn about the ones in yours, figure out the effect it will have on your pokemon’s attacks, and then everyone is going to rotate to the next one over.”
Red takes up position at the lane where his metapod is, and withdraws it so it’s not in the way of the next person who takes the lane. Who, it turns out, will be Lizzy: the girl steps up to the aisle beside him and summons a flaaffy. The pink sheep bounces around in glee before its trainer can get it to focus, and Otto speaks out a moment later.
“Everyone, pull out your phones and go to the gym site, then find the page listing materials by conductivity. Then command your pokemon to use a basic ranged attack against the pokedoll in front of you. Your lanes are filled with either conducting materials or insulated ones. Raise your hand to signal when you can get your pokemon to strike the doll. Begin whenever.”
Red gives Pichu a brisk rub to rouse him, and is about to clap once to signal battle readiness, then decides to use his powers once again to Project a sense of
battle readiness,
focusing on the pokedoll as a threat. Pichu goes rigid after a moment, then leaps down and stands between Red and the doll, letting out a squeak of challenge as his cheeks begin to glow.
Red smiles, then starts giving commands along with the other trainers. The snaps and crackles of electricity fill the room as each pokemon tries and often fails to hit their targets, being diverted by one of the objects in the way. What immediately interests Red is the floor: it lights up around the objects struck by Pichu’s electricity, signalling, he assumes, the danger zones of where the current is flowing once grounded. He begins to move around the room with Pichu and try attacking from different angles, noting the changes in the electricity’s behavior.
Otto goes around explaining the mistakes from one circumstance to another, and eventually everyone manages to get it right, only to shift to the next stall and try again with the knowledge of what worked and the new array of obstacles. By the third room Red can tell Pichu is getting tired, and lets him rest for a bit as he feeds him one of the leppa berries that Red recently bought. They’re not as effective or fast acting as the concentrated ether made from them, but also not nearly as expensive. It takes a few minutes before Pichu is back to his energetic self, and Red uses that time to think through what he’s learned so far.
Some metals in the environment are so good at conducting electricity that they’ll “catch” any electricity sent by them, while other materials will only do it sporadically. Red soon finds himself treating insulated objects like wood, rubber, and plastic as if they’re not there, but this comes back to bite him on a couple of occasions. Red starts to recognize that objects touching each other can also affect whether a material develops a positive or negative charge.
“Friction, contact, and induction,” Otto eventually calls out. “These are the methods by which an object’s charge will change. Remember, like charges repel! If your pokemon generates a negative charge, it will positively charge the surfaces of objects nearby it, moving their electrons to their other side. If the object is then grounded briefly, some of the electrons will flow out of it, leaving it positively charged as a whole once ungrounded. In a battlefield where things are moving, these rules need to be second nature to you.”
Red tries to keep this in mind as he moves to the next chamber, but it’s hard to juggle all the different ideas, and he finally decides to try and see what Pichu thinks of the challenge. It takes a moment to enmesh his mind with his pokemon’s and keep it in a purely receptive state, but once he does he gets used to just feeling the mouse’s instincts as it faces the pokedoll and readies itself for battle.
For a minute all Red can feel is his pokemon’s body, its racing heart, its trembling legs, the adrenaline pumping through it. He’s competent now at distinguishing these sensations from his own, even the much stronger sounds that echo in Pichu’s ears, the sharp scents that threaten to overwhelm him if he’s not careful to track them seperately.
As he practiced in his training sessions, he begins to focus more on the felt-senses of his pokemon rather than the purely physical ones, the heat in Pichu’s throat, the intangible sense of tension along his spine, and tries to match them to emotions Red can understand as he starts to give commands, starts to move around the pokedoll and see how Pichu’s sensations shift.
He’s still reaching for some insight when Otto calls out to them to switch again, and it takes another minute to get back into the same level of sync. It isn’t until he commands Pichu to use a thundershock in front of a small shrub that he realizes he recognizes the feeling his pokemon has… sort of.
Skepticism? No, simpler than that. Hopelessness? Red thinks back to the last time he felt something similar and realizes it’s the way he felt on the field with the abra, the sense of having a plan that he didn’t believe in. An instinct of
anticipated failure.
It feels almost like something clicks inside him, a shock all its own at how thinking of that feeling resonates with Pichu. Did he just tap into his pokemon’s instinctive grasp of its own electric abilities?
Only one way to find out.
Red takes his notebook out and begins writing out how the sensation felt and what triggered it. He has to move to a new section before he finishes, but once he’s there he starts to test it out. Move here, order an attack, record the feeling and result, move there, order an attack, record the feeling and result…
Red notices in his periphery that the instructor is staring at him as he passes by, but Otto doesn’t interrupt, merely calling out another switch. It goes on like that until Pichu is tired out again, and Red feeds him a full meal and pours some water into a bowl for him. He sits down to take notes about his experience, his nose finally adapting to the smell of ozone in the room as the electric attacks continue to snap through the air around it.
With practice I may be able to tap into pokemon’s understanding of what won’t work.
The challenge lies in incorporating that information mid-battle, in the time between giving the command and feeling the response, so that he can abort an action that the pokemon knows won’t work…
I also can’t rely too much on this, since there are plenty of attacks that didn’t work that Pichu didn’t anticipate.
But no attacks succeeded once he felt they would not, so at least there are no false positives.
“A lot of your pokemon are getting tired,” the instructor bellows. “The energy they produce, the current, is getting low, meaning more materials will be able to effectively insulate against their attacks unless you use one with higher voltage to overcome it. Now that you have some experience, try to conserve their strength. Two tries in each room, then rotate to the next one. Starting… now.”
Red lets Pichu rest a bit more for the first room, then only tries one attack in each of the following ones, feeling out which attack routes his pokemon is sure won’t work first, trying to feel for some kind of preliminary
anticipated failure
just from Pichu’s positioning. If he trains his pokemon like this enough, he’s sure it’ll manifest eventually, but then the question is whether the skill is transferable to a real battle.
Red is also impatient to try this out with his other pokemon. He wonders why he never read anything like this while looking up tips for psychic trainers, but the answer is pretty obvious: if it’s a tip that might actually help someone out competitively, they’d want to keep it to themselves. Still, Sabrina should propagate the information, right? Why hasn’t he heard
something
about it before? He needs to ask a psychic he can trust, but for now he’s eager to see what else he can find out like this. By the time the class ends, he resolves to try using this in battle tonight.
“Okay, that’s it for today,” Otto calls out once everyone has tried out each chamber. “Remember how tired your pokemon are right now. This is in part because you as their trainers asked them to attack targets that they couldn’t hit. The better you understand these forces, the more efficiently your pokemon will fight. Study up. Dismissed.”
Everyone begins to leave their rooms, many of them not withdrawing their pokemon to let them rest a bit. Otto goes around to converse with a few trainers, and Red brings Metapod back out and sits beside his two pokemon writing in his notebook until Otto approaches, as he suspected he would.
“Fresh insights, Verres?” the instructor asks.
Red wonders if every gym member here knows who he is, then feels a touch of surrealism as he remembers that he was on TV for donating dozens of abra to gyms, so it’s not unlikely that every gym member of
every
gym knows who he is. “Yeah, a few.”
“Mind sharing any? Or you got another big heist to pull off on nature first?”
Red is relieved to see the scarred man smiling, and returns it. “Can’t think of any yet, this is more to do with my psychic powers. I noticed what you were talking about, the instincts of my pichu knowing when he wouldn’t be able to land an attack. A kind of futility.”
Otto scratches his beard. “Interesting cheat, that. You still missed a lot of the attacks though. Sure you’re not imagining it?”
“Yeah, right now it only comes to me as he’s attacking. You wouldn’t happen to know any electric trainers that are psychic would you? Outside the gym, even?”
“Some psychics that use electric pokemon, sure. Ones with a focus in it? Never heard of one. Aren’t most into Psychic and Ghost types?”
Red sighs and nods. He can understand why, after seeing Sabrina fight. How much more effective would his powers be in battle with his abra?
“Still, there are at least a few of them that are partially electric, right? Maybe check in regions with a lot of them.”
“I will, thanks.”
“And let me know if this line of thought pays off,” Otto says. “Or anyone at the gym. Surge would be interested too, for sure. We’ve got a pretty firm grasp of what our pokemon know through trial and error, science, and passed down wisdom, but we don’t imagine they can’t still teach us something new.” The instructor reaches a hand out to stroke Pichu along the back with one finger.
To Red’s surprise, his pokemon doesn’t flinch away or become wary. Possibly because he’s so tired. “I will. Thanks for the class.”
Otto nods and moves on to the next student. Red gets back to writing out his ideas for what to test with the other pokemon, and suddenly remembers the girl Lizzy as a question occurs to him. He looks up and searches the room for her, just in time to spot her heading toward the door. It takes a moment to grab his pokemon and head out the door, and he catches up to her just outside.
“Hey!”
She blinks at him. “Hi. How was your lesson?”
“Good. Learned something new about using my psychic abilities. What about you?”
“I’ve been practicing regulation of voltage output for my pokemon. This was the first time Marigold has tested it against different materials.”
Red assumes Marigold is her flaaffy. “I was curious about that, from what you said earlier. Mind if I walk with you?”
“Feel free. I believe my schedule put me at a physical training next.”
“Oh, cool, same here.” They walk together out of the building and start across the center field.
“So you said something just now about altering your pokemon’s voltage as if it’s a decision you can make. Earlier I was wondering about how to adjust pokemon getting tired, but don’t stronger attacks just cause the pokemon to use higher voltage naturally?”
“Not always. Power is voltage times current. Some attacks use more voltage, some use more current, which takes more energy.”
“And it varies by pokemon.”
“Right. Being able to push the pokemon’s voltage higher would increase power, but also overall efficiency if current output is steady.” She shrugs. “That’s the theory, at least. We know it works that way mechanically, but pokemon are still something of a mystery.”
Red considers the problem, trying to spot some failure mode as Pichu climbs onto his hat and curls up there. “You mean if adjusting their voltage takes something else out of them, they might get tired sooner? Produce less power?”
“Oh, if only. Even if the power output ends up being the same, higher voltage or higher current can both cause different problems, you see? Pokemon follow instinctual limits, but not always optimally so. If we want to find the
true
limits, we still have to take care not to hurt them in some way while doing so.”
“Huh. Yeah, I can see how that would be hard. Still, the benefits of figuring it out would be big, right?” He smiles. “It’s really cool that you’re tackling something that important.”
She blinks, and her fingers fiddle with the hem of her shirt. “Yes. Well. It interests me, you know?”
“I do.” Red gives her a curious look. “Is it hard, teaching your pokemon to adjust voltage manually? I’m surprised you’re in a beginner class if you’ve already worked with an electric pokemon so much.”
“It was hard, but I did it alone,” she explains. “And I figured it would be good to get the basics as I work up to more advanced classes. I’ll be here for a while, so it would be silly not to. And my sister insisted they’d take me more seriously here, if I do.”
“Oh, is she a Gym Member?”
“Ex. She’s helping run the family business now.”
“Neat, what business?”
Lizzy adjusts her glasses, the lenses sheening in the sunlight briefly. “Power. My last name is Takada.”
Red blinks. “Takada as in Takada Power, Takada? Wow!” He frowns. “Wait, but why did you have to teach yourself if your family is in the energy business?”
“Oh, my parents aren’t trainers,” she says. “My older sister was the first in the family to go on her journey, against their wishes. They threatened to groom me to take over the business, but I told them I was leaving too and to find someone outside the family, you know.” She shrugs. “My sister was passionate about electric pokemon. She wanted to be a breeder or coordinator. She would still be here at the gym, if Dad hadn’t died last year.”
Red’s chest aches in sympathy, and it takes a moment for him to respond. “I’m sorry.”
Lizzy nods, and they circle around the obstacle course in silence for a bit. “I hope I can help the family anyway, when I finish my research. My sister believes in me enough that she gave me my starting pokemon.”
“Well, I hope you succeed. Are you planning on joining the Gym eventually? Or are you here for a badge?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I just wish I could find some trainers to test my ideas with.” She glances at him briefly.
Red feels embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I’d love to help—”
“I understand. You must be very busy.”
They reach the spot where the other trainers are gathered before class starts. “Well, yes, but it’s not that. I’m actually leaving town in a couple days.” He explains about the Cruise Convention, and her disappointment takes on a cheerful tone.
“That’s a great reason. Very well, you’re excused.”
Red grins. “Thanks. But my friend Blue might be up to help. He’s got a shinx, would probably love to learn what you did.”
“Blue Oak? Work with me?” Her hands move to the hem of her shirt again, straightening it. “Well. Yes. I mean, if he agrees. That would be delightful.”
“Well, I’m meeting him and some friends tonight after dinner, if you want to join us.”
“Splendid. Thank you.”
“Alright trainers, fall in!” their instructor bellows as they approach. “Class hasn’t officially started yet, which means you early birds get extra training! Aren’t you the lucky bunch? Two laps around the course for warm up! Bags stay on! Left right, left right, let’s go people! Remember, your pokemon can be swapped out, but you cannot! A tired trainer is a dead trainer! Is that going to be you?”
“No sir!” they chorus as they run. Red struggles to keep up as he mentally calms Pichu down, his nap unceremoniously interrupted.
“You are the central link that holds your team together! Will
you
be the one to break?”
“No sir!”
“Prove it with your sweat! Stay in
step
, speed it
up
, you can
do it
, let’s
gooo!
”
A match is underway as Red enters the battle room that evening, Lizzy trailing right behind him. They stay near the door to watch with the dozen other trainers around the room as the super-talkative Elaine battles an older teen named Shigeki. Elaine’s tangela struggles against a burst of icy wind from Shigeki’s piloswine, then swings a pair of vines out to grip it. The piloswine leaps forward at its trainer’s command, and the tangela has to break off its attack before it can get gored by the icy tusks that form over the piloswine’s ivory ones.
Should have taken the hit and started draining it,
Red thinks. It takes another few near-misses before the piloswine manages to corner the tangela with a hit that leaves it too frozen to respond to commands, and the battle ends as Elaine withdraws her pokemon.
“Nice job guys,” Blue says from the side as Shigeki brings his pokemon over to Glen, who appears to have a triage center set up in the corner of the room for injuries that aren’t so intense they need a pokemon center. “Elaine, remember that your Tangela is a tank. It’s not going to be able to do much if you won’t let it get hit in exchange for setting up a bind or spreading some powders onto them.”
“I know,” she moans, hands gripping her hair. “I was just so worried that an ice hit would take her down, piloswine’s physical attacks are so strong, I wanted to try and weaken him first, it was stupid, tangela can take physical attacks well, I need to…” she wanders off, still talking, and Blue notices Red and Lizzy.
“Yo, Red! Glad you could make it!” Most of the others turn and yell greetings as Taro and Chie walk onto the arena to square off against each other. “Okay, two pokemon each, first blood or knockout. Ready… start!”
Red walks over to Blue as the battle starts, only half watching as they summon their pokemon and begin shouting commands.
“Hey Blue,” Red says, voice low. “This is Lizzy, she’s looking for others to test out some ideas she has for electric pokemon combat. I told her you might be interested.”
“Sounds good,” he says, and sticks a hand to the side, eyes never leaving the match. “Nice to meet you. Let’s talk after the match.”
“Charmed,” Lizzy says, and takes it without looking as she watches the match with interest. He leaves them to it and goes to Glen and Shigeki.
“Hey, Red,” Glen says as he checks the piloswine over, potion bottle in hand.
“S’up Verres. You here to battle?”
“Hey guys. Yeah, meeting Aiko here.”
“A single battle?” Shigeki crosses his arms. “Got something new up your sleeve?”
Red smiles. “Assuming it doesn’t horribly backfire.”
“Nice,” Glen says. “I don’t think I’ve seen you do a single battle yet.”
“Why
do
you focus on doubles so much?” Shigeki asks. “For wild encounters?”
“That’s half of it,” Red admits. “Since I’m not training for badge matches or anything. The other half is that it’s kind of a long-term investment. Eventually my psychic abilities should help a lot with commanding one pokemon at a time. I may not even need audible commands eventually.”
Glen nods. “But fighting with two or more is going to be harder. That’s why your command system is built with group battles in mind.”
“Right.”
They watch the match to its conclusion, then Red helps take care of the pokemon, following Glen’s lead and building off what he learned with Aiko. He’s careful not to use his powers too often, since he’s been using it a lot today and plans to use it more soon for his battle, but so far the grief he feels from using it is vague and fleeting, not yet the crushing waves or steady drain of despair.
There’s a lull as Blue and Lizzy talk and the others propose various matches between each other. Red takes the time to get in his daily Bayes Theorem practice. Someone in a math forum named Masasin taught him an even simpler method using odds ratios, and Red quickly goes through the Tyranitar event math again with it:
Prior odds * Relative likelihoods = Posterior odds
Relative Likelihoods = Posterior Odds / Prior Odds
Posterior Odds of R1 are 79:21
Prior Odds (T1:T2) are 64:36
So the relative likelihoods (R1 | T1:T2) are 79/64:21/36
Next the Prior Odds are 2:15, so
79 : 21
÷ 64 : 36
× 2 : 15
79 : 280
So P(T1 | R1) = 79/(79+280) = 22.01%.
By the time Aiko shows up, he’s back to feeling like he’s not quite sure what he’s doing, but he gets a similar answer to the original method so he can’t be
that
far off. Right?
Red stands to greet Aiko as she approaches. “How’s the ranch? We still on for the visit tomorrow?
Aiko’s grin is radiant as she puts her bag down and prepares for their match. “Absolutely. I can’t wait for you to see my dad again, Red, he’s like a completely different person! Well, not completely, he still spaces out at odd times and has trouble talking about… you know, me being here and stuff, but lately while they’re around he’s more
there
than he’s been in years.”
“That’s great!” Red withdraws Metapod so it’s not confused by any commands and goes to stand opposite Aiko in the arena. In his last couple battles with Aiko, she’s beaten him both times: her main pokemon are a little stronger than his, and it takes him a while to piece together her strategies by interpreting her commands. She usually does better near the start of fights, before he manages to land a prediction and take the tempo of the match from her and catch up in pokemon knock outs, though not enough to win the match. “So just a heads up, I’m going to be using my powers during the battle, so if I act strange in some way, just ignore it.”
Aiko’s eyes widen. “Cool!”
“Didn’t you throw up last time you tried this?” Blue asks from his seat at the edge of the arena. The conversations around the room have quieted as people prepare to watch the match.
Aiko winces. “Ooo, less cool.”
“That shouldn’t happen this time,” Red says. “I know what caused it, and I’ve been practicing.”
Glen gives Red a skeptical look, then starts pulling out some extra equipment from his Container box of medical supplies. “Maybe you should tell us what ‘strange’ looks like, so we know if something actually does go wrong?”
“Good point.” Red scratches beneath his cap. “Basically I may move oddly or seem spaced out at times. And I may act like I’m hurt, but it’s all in my head. Don’t worry about me being actually injured unless you see me get hit by something.”
Aiko frowns. “You’ll be feeling what the pokemon do?”
“Some of it. And only some of the time.”
“I don’t have any pokemon with mental attacks, but what about those? If it’s all in your head anyway, wouldn’t that still count as
you
experiencing the attack?”
“Yeah, that’s one of the risks. I mean, feeling a lot of pain and stress can have mental effects on its own, you know? But I’ve got to bear them to get better at it.”
“But there’s no lasting harm?” Glen asks.
Red hesitates, but Blue’s the one that answers. “Beyond the risk of an attack accidentally going past your pokemon and hitting you?”
“Much less,” Red confirms.
Aiko nods and puts a hand over one of the balls at her belt. “Good enough for me. Ready when you are.”
Blue looks between them from the sidelines, hand raised above his head. “Ready…” He slashes it down. “Start!”
“Go, Charmander!”
“Go, Krabby!”
Their pokemon materialize across from each other, and Red immediately merges his thoughts with those of Charmander’s, feeling the fire lizard’s momentary disorientation, then the rapid series of insights that prepares it for battle: the scent of its trainer behind it, the sight of a pokemon straight ahead and facing it, and the lack of any command to relax all adding up to Charmander’s attention focusing on the krabby ahead as an enemy.
More than the shared senses, it’s that shared, rapid orientation that amazes Red. He feels a synchronization within himself and his pokemon, a shared focus that almost feels like he’s both projecting and being projected onto, despite Charmander not being psychic.
All this happens within a second, and Red is ready for Aiko’s command as soon as she gives it.
“Wide!” Aiko yells.
“Dodge!”
Red feels his pokemon’s jolt of adrenaline as its body obeys the command by conditioning, a heartbeat before a wide spray of bubbles are emitted by the krabby to cover the field. His pokemon reacts to them faster than Red can intellectually follow, its instincts moving it in just the right way to avoid the pattern it sees in the oncoming attack, which Red only gets the vague understanding of second-hand.
“Rapid!” Aiko says next, and part of Red wants to focus on the command, try and interpret it and predict what her pokemon will do next, as he usually does, but it’s hard to focus on it and interpret his pokemon’s sensations and “thoughts” at the same time. Instead he just lets Charmander continue to dodge on his own, hopping away from each quick clump of bubbles that are sent toward him by instinct.
It seems to work at first, but soon there are too many to avoid, and Charmander grazes one. It pops with explosive force, sending him tumbling into another one, the water droplets a cold pain against his dry skin.
Red grunts in shared pain, hand clapping over his side where Charmander was hit the worst.
“Red! What happened?”
“Are you okay?
“Fine!” he yells, and sends his thoughts plunging back into Charmander, who’s bouncing back to his feet, pain already fading to a dull ache. “Charmander, Hold!”
“Dodge!”
Aiko knows by now what’s coming, but her krabby isn’t fast enough to avoid the smokescreen entirely, as Charmander has started firing three of them rapidly by default. One solid hit on its left claw keeps it from being able to see clearly, and Red opens his mouth to give an attack…
…then stops. He feels it: Charmander’s impulses, barely restrained by his conditioning. Like with Pichu earlier in the day, Red can’t actually read Charmander’s thoughts, different from his own as they are, but he can feel his pokemon’s felt-sense, a tension in its legs, a twitching in its arms, a
desire to act.
The guides he read talked about the point when the psychic achieves harmony with their pokemon, and this may not be quite that depth yet, but identifying the sensations he’s felt from Pichu, and now Charmander makes Red think of it more as a connection to their instincts, at least. And that’s something he can use.
Through the surprise and triumph, Red remembers what he’d planned to do next if this worked: assess the instinctual drive to act and determine what useful information it provides for his strategy and next commands. But there isn’t time for that, the krabby is still shooting bubbles blindly out, and what he can interpret of the instinct sort of matches what he wants Charmander to do anyway…
Red almost doesn’t do it: he’s worried about what might happen, unsure of giving up control in such a way. But a voice inside that sounds like Blue reminds him of how often he’s lost matches from being too cautious, from not committing on an uncertainty… so Red rearranges his mind into a state of acceptance. More, a state of permission, one in which there are no wrong answers, nothing that’s not allowed.
And in response, Charmander attacks with a flurry of Embers. The krabby just barely avoids them and shoots another trio of bubbles out at Charmander, who dodges and returns fire again, not just faster than Red would have commanded him, but with more precise timing than an oral command would allow. Two globs of fire land on the krabby, and its hard chitin is no match for the sudden heat: it begins to scramble around in pain despite its resistance.
Aiko withdraws it, leaving the burning oil to fall to the ground and gutter out a moment later, and Red grunts as his pokemon’s forward charge is aborted, confusion flooding his and his pokemon’s heads. The next instinct his Charmander had was hard to understand other than
hunger,
and Red’s imagination supplies him with the mental image of his pokemon rushing forward and using his sharp claws to pierce and crack open the krabby’s blackened shell so he could eat its cooked innards… except there’s no krabby around, and—
“Charmander, return!” His pokemon melts into light and returns to his ball.
Aiko stops herself from throwing her next ball out, staggering forward a step at the abrupt switch in momentum. The smoke is slower to fade than the fire, still spreading out from the globs on the floor, and Blue goes to turn on the overhead fans so the room begins to clear.
“You alright?” Aiko asks.
“Yeah, just… give me a sec.” Red takes stock, physically and mentally. He feels okay, mostly. The memory of Charmander’s pain is dull, but the connected senses and echoed impulses is still sharp.
Red wipes a hand across his face, feeling a cold sweat there. No tears, thankfully, the grief is still mute, but he’s shaken all the same. That moment when he Projected to Charmander the permission to follow his instincts allowed him to tap into something powerful, but dangerous. He can’t remember reading anything about that in the articles and guides by other psychic trainers. Why wouldn’t they warn people about this?
Maybe because it’s dangerous,
part of him says.
That’s what happens when you let go of caution!
Or maybe because they didn’t do what I did,
another part responds.
That projection allowed Charmander to forget his conditioning, at least some of it… does that only happen if there are specific instincts being triggered?
“Red?”
His head jerks up. “Yeah. I’m okay. Sorry, just… making sure I understand what I just did.”
“What
did
you just do?” Aiko asks. “Charmander never reacted that quick in our last battles.”
“It was something instinctual, for both of us. I think it might have been specific to the krabby, though? Which is weird, since I didn’t think charmander and krabby interacted much in nature.” Red takes his pokedex out and checks for areas where they share habitat. The pokedex highlights the Sevii Islands to the south of Kanto, where charmander have been found raised in caves not far from the shore. “Huh. Guess they do. Still, it might be a generic response.”
“You should try it with a pokemon that charmander would never encounter naturally,” Aiko says, tapping her lip. “I don’t think I have any we can be sure of that qualify, though. Maybe Eevee, just because they’re so rare?”
“Right.” Red summons Charmander, who looks like he’s still in battle mode when Aiko brings her shiny eevee out. Red quickly merges minds with his pokemon, and feels Charmander’s general combat readiness. “Nothing yet,” he says, eyes closed in concentration.
“Might need them to fight to know for sure,” Aiko says. “Just go easy on her though, she’s still new to battling.”
“Right,” Blue says, and raises his hand. “Aaand start!”
“Test!”
“Fast!”
Both pokemon leap to obey the similar commands, Red’s more geared toward using safe attacks that test for weaknesses or vulnerabilities, while Aiko’s is a directive to move quickly and only strike if it can be done quickly and without compromising movement. As a result, Charmander tosses a couple Embers out while Eevee dashes back and forth in a zigzag, then begins circling the fire lizard, who turns in place and rapidly backs up to maintain distance as the silver fox closes in.
Within their combined felt-sense, Red once again notes the instinctual desire warring with the command he gave, similar to Pichu’s
anticipated failure,
though not as strong, more of a frustration than anything. There’s no hunger this time, nothing that gives Red an idea of what Charmander would do if let off his “leash”… but as Eevee manages to leap around an Ember and get a strike in, Red knows suddenly that his command is holding his pokemon back, keeping Charmander from taking tactically superior actions moment to moment, even if it lets him plan for a stronger overall strategy.
Red staggered to the side from the pain of the impact, but he quickly rights himself as his pokemon does. “Aiko,” he says, voice rough as Eevee circles around for another attack and he feels the tension in Charmander rising. “I’m going to try it again. Be ready.”
“Do it!”
Red breathes deep and relaxes, letting the words echo in him and the sentiment propagate outward.
Do it.
The tension in Charmander snaps, and he leaps forward and up, powerful legs kicking him into a flip, the flame on the end of his tail burning a circle through the air and whipping Eevee in the rear as it dashes beneath.
The thrill of savage triumph is so strong that Red doesn’t manage to catch what happens next in time: Charmander no sooner lands than spins around and sends an ember out at the pokemon from point blank range—
“Dodge!”
—only to miss as Eevee thankfully leaps aside at her trainer’s command, avoiding a nasty burn and giving Red a chance to yell “Stop!”
Charmander immediately halts its motions, and Eevee does the same after Aiko commands her to.
The room is silent for a moment but for the sound of the two pokemon’s breathing, Eevee’s a little pained, and then Blue yells “Match!” He’s on his feet, grinning. “Whew! Okay! So that was pre-”
A flash of light makes them all recoil, and Red feels a fierce grin stretch his lips even as he covers his eyes. The two pokemon are really close, it’s hard to tell definitively where the light is coming from… but he knows. He
felt
it in that shared surge of triumph.
When the light fades, Charmeleon stands tall and proud where Charmander was. With scales of dark red, a sharp profile, sharper claws, and a tailflame that seems twice as bright, the fire lizard lets loose a high pitched roar that causes its flame to blaze briefly.
“Niiice,” Glen says, and the spell is broken, everyone offering their own congratulations at once. Red’s smile fades as he notices Aiko rushing forward to heal her eevee.
“Sorry, Aiko,” Red says as a twist of wretchedness goes through him. “Is it bad?”
“No, she’s okay,” Aiko says after a moment of inspecting the wound and spraying it. She withdraws Eevee and smiles. “Good match. That attack was really unexpected.”
Unexpected for both of us.
“Thanks.” Red goes to meet his metamorphed pokemon, reaching tentatively out with one hand as he reaches out with his mind as well.
It takes effort to process the two streams of data simultaneously: the hotter, tougher hide under his palm and the hungrier, sharper thoughts engulfing his mind. Red quickly brings some food out of his pouch and offers it to his pokemon, who sniffs at it as Red rubs around the spur of bone growing back from the front of his skull.
“Eat up, Charmeleon. You deserve it.” Red drops the food to the floor.
Charmeleon lets out a
skraa
that shows off its newly sharpened teeth, and throws a small glob of flame at it, letting it cook the food before he chows down.
Aiko, meanwhile, is watching them speculatively. She seems to come to a decision by the time Charmeleon finishes eating. “Glen,” Aiko says. “Get in here.”
“Bwuh?” Glen says.
Red blinks. “Should I—”
“Oh no, you stay,” she says with a sharp grin. “Glen and I need to work on our teamwork, and you need two opponents. The only thing I have to beat that,” she jerks her chin at Charmeleon, “is my sandslash, and even with your new psychic bond thing, that wouldn’t be a fair fight one on one. Or do you want to try it?”
Red considers it, but shakes his head. “No, it’s too dangerous, both ways.”
Aiko crosses her arms. “Both ways? You really think he could win?” She sounds both skeptical and impressed.
“Not sure, but I only ever practiced with him as a charmander. For all I know Charmeleon’s thoughts and instincts will respond differently to even basic commands, let alone psychic ones. I’d rather practice with him first.” Red gives his pokemon one last rub, then withdraws him. “Let’s do doubles.”
“Wait,” Chie says. “I’m still not sure what actually happened there. Why was Charmander acting differently?”
“What did it feel like?” her brother asks.
“I’m also curious,” Lizzy says from beside Blue. “Is it related to what you did in class earlier today?”
Everyone starts asking questions at once, until Blue raises his hands, quieting the babble down.
“Red, be careful what you reveal here. You might be giving up a powerful edge, even if not everyone can reproduce it themselves.” Blue folds his arms. “No one will think less of you for keeping it secret.” Lizzy looks like she might respond to that, but instead stares off with a thoughtful expression.
Red looks at everyone as they watch him, and for a moment, surely no more than a breath, he feels the urge to stay quiet. To keep the secret to himself, at least for a little while longer, to use it as a secret weapon to win the upcoming matches.
No. Down that road lies madness.
He’s a researcher, not a battle trainer. He’s getting too caught up in these battles if he’s seriously thinking that winning them is what’s important. It’s fun, but it doesn’t
matter.
Learning matters.
“Okay, so here’s what I’ve been up to lately…” Red starts to explain, and everyone listens attentively as he describes the psychic connection he began learning to feel, how he explored it, and his ideas for tapping into it during training and combat.
He’s too caught up in the moment, trying to describe things he doesn’t quite have words for yet, to realize how he starts to pace, how animated he becomes, how he mimics some of the mannerisms of the various teachers he’s had at the gym. He’s too busy recognizing how the work of finding those words solidifies the concepts, rough and crude as they are, and only notices in the moment that he wishes he had an easel and poster board to write the ideas out, give them more structure, connect words and ideas so they can be processed together.
It isn’t until after the questions are over and his battle with Glen and Aiko is about to begin that he realizes how much better he could explain it if he tried again from scratch, and thinks,
And teaching. That matters too.
A stray thought that feels like the completing of a circle, and the opening of a new door.
Before leaving Vermilion to visit Aiko’s ranch again, Red and Leaf register an abra to the city for their return trip. Red has to overwrite Cerulean’s teleportation point, and ignores Leaf’s scowl as he renames the abra to Vermilion. He expects her to say something about it, but she’s been quiet ever since she finished her recent research binge. Red picked up the thread of frustration and sadness in her thoughts when he asked how the investigation was going and she just said it hit a dead end, so he’s been giving her space, knowing how frustrating it is to put so much work into something and fail.
Blue packs more than they do, since he and Aiko plan to travel to the Diglett Caves after visiting her ranch. Glen and Elaine decided to join them too, so on the morning before the cruise, Red, Blue, Leaf, Glen, and Elaine pile into an extra large taxi to begin their trip to meet her there. Red spends most of the drive to the southern subway entrance writing out his process of exploring his powers, while Leaf and Elaine go over the article about her abra catching and Blue frowns through a piece on the Vermilion Gym’s unique culture and teachings. Glen has a pair of headphones on as he watches recordings of his recent matches.
They’re underground and shooting past Saffron City when Red finishes. “Aaand, done,” he says as he writes out the last line. “Who wants to hear it?”
“Wait till we’re topside,” Elaine says, voice raised over the clatter of the train, and points to her ear.
Red nods and does some quick editing before they arrive at the northern terminal, then stands and files out with everyone. The five of them jog up the stairs and into the sunlight, then make their way past the crowd to find an empty space where they can bring their bikes out.
“Okay, what have you got?” Elaine asks as they walk.
“And is it something people without powers will actually understand?” Blue asks.
“Yeah, I think so. That’s partly what I’m curious about… tell me if this makes sense to you guys.” He clears his throat. “‘There are five general trends to my developing new abilities. First, I had to gain awareness of my own cognitive states. Once I knew the usual things that make me angry or upset or excited, it’s easier to recognize them when they occur. Second, I cultivated different dispositions and thought patterns. Focusing a lot on the experience of certain moods or feelings or thought processes, and what triggers help me get into them, lets me more easily inhabit them when I want to.'”
“Oh!” Elaine snaps her fingers. “That sounds a lot like… uh… what was it…”
“Hold up, E, let him finish first,” Glen says.
“Right! Sorry!”
Red smiles. “No prob. Third… ah, ‘Third, I practiced deliberately moving from one mental state to another. This usually included reminding myself of memories and sensations that triggered a change, and focusing on each aspect of the state until I was firmly in it. Fourth was retraining my cognitive reflexes, so that as soon as I noticed a trigger for a mood or thought pattern I didn’t want to inhabit, I could actually do step three. As an example, if I noticed myself getting upset, like when my voice gets raised or my pulse kicks up, I could deliberately invoke a state of mind that’s calmer. And fifth was kind of an umbrella step, working over time to deeply integrate the thoughts and responses above to slowly move them from conscious thought to automatic.'”
Red looks up at the others, who each have some range of thoughtful expressions on. He takes this as a good sign over something like confusion, but still feels a bit anxious to hear what they think. “Is that confusing? These are just the bullet points, there’s more explanation for each, obviously.”
“Might be too much all at once to process,” Leaf says. “Maybe it would help reading it.”
Red passes his phone to her while Elaine makes a humming sound. “You know, I actually liked it a lot, it was really interesting, I think I can even try some of it out myself, even though I’m not psychic I mean, I think it might work anyway, it reminded me of something, like I said earlier.”
Red blinks, still getting used to her verbal stream-of-consciousness. “What part?”
“Right, so like that thing about noticing yourself getting upset, that’s like, really important to calm yourself down in general, you know? And I can remind myself of pleasant things and maybe not be as upset if I just think of them for a while instead?”
“Oh, yeah. I used to deliberately think ‘I notice I am upset’ to start my mind going through my flowchart for figuring out why, and calming down that way. Now I just invoke the desired mental state psychically, but the principle is the same.”
“No, I think she means something else,” Glen says. “Like, that sounds more cerebral, she’s talking about something more like meditating on the emotion itself to invoke it. Right?”
Elaine smiles and shrugs. “Maybe?”
Red considers this. “I think the flowchart actually is more meditative than it seems, but I get the point. Is it something you can do without psychic powers? Like, deliberately go into a different mood than the one you’re in?”
“Sure,” Blue says. “I can think of things that make me angry or happy and feel those things again.”
“Music does that well too,” Glen says.
Red nods. “Kind of like that, yeah. If you can remember something from a show or your life that makes you feel a certain way, you can re-experience it, a little at least. That works for inspiring quotes and things people tell you too. With my power I can just do it more deliberately.”
They’re finally far enough from the market to take their bikes out and put on all their equipment. Red summons Metapod and Bellsprout and puts them in their usual positions, then checks on Bellsprout’s mood to make sure he feels secure before they begin to slowly make their way through the rest of the crowds and toward the open road.
“What was that thing you were going to say?” he asks Elaine. “It reminded you of something?”
“Right! Um. I don’t remember. Some kind of therapy?”
“Oh, yeah, the skills at the root of a lot of that are similar to the ones taught by cognitive-behavioral therapy. That’s why I’m hoping they’re useful even to those without powers.”
“I’ll try it and see,” Leaf says as they clear the crowd and begin to pedal. “I think I’m practicing the same core skill, with the mindset that keeps the abra calm.”
The rest of the ride goes by quickly, and Red’s thoughts drift to what’s ahead. Aiko told them that there’s a partnership of three therapists that come to the ranch, and they each usually have two to four kids for each visit, which are more like all-day series of activities rather than the hour-or-two therapy sessions Red is used to. When Red asked about funding, Aiko delighted Leaf by explaining that she reached out to a local pokemon welfare organization, and they agreed to help fund the treatment as part of an exploratory program to raise awareness of pokemon’s benefits in areas other than combat, industry, or food.
They reach the ranch before noon, and dismount to walk through the paths between the grid of pokemon pen clusters in search of Aiko. Red can see two adults in the distance to either side, each with a group of children, but they’re too far to hear or see what’s going on with them.
Aiko spots them first, jogging down a path that connects to theirs with a wide grin. “Hey everyone!” She calls over the pens between them. “Welcome!”
As soon as they’ve exchanged greetings, Elaine’s rapidfire questions about the ranch keep Aiko occupied, letting Blue, Red, and Leaf show Glen around. After a quick tour of the grounds, Aiko mentions that they should probably leave those visiting the ranch alone for now, and they make their way into the house and upstairs to say hello to her dad and put their bags away.
Mr. Sakai isn’t inside, however. Instead some young men and women are in the kitchen and living room, each wearing a shirt with the logo of a pokeball with a heart stamped on it. Above it is written
Regional Alliance for the Welfare of Pokemon.
Red tries the acronym out in his head with different stresses. Rawp. RAwp. RAWp.
It looks like they’re preparing lunch for everyone at the moment, and a new round of introductions is made as they catch sight of the trainers. “We’re here to help out, if we can,” Leaf says to the guy that seems to be in charge, a lanky Unovan with bleached hair named Adom. “Do you guys have anything for us to do?”
“Cool, yeah.” He wipes his hands on his jeans and shakes her hand. “So, we’ve got this almost taken care of, but let me think. You’re all trainers, right? Okay, so the next event starts in a few minutes, and can always use more hands. The kids are going to be wandering around looking for pokemon to learn about and interact with, but they need to be supervised, you know? Sound like something you can do?”
They agree that they can, and the group dumps their bags in Aiko’s room and take turns washing up before they go back downstairs with Adom and the others. Everyone splits up to find kids to chaperone, but Aiko tags Red to come with her. He follows her with a curious look.
“I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” she asks once they’re outside. “My dad should have some kids with him, so I figured we can take a couple off his hands… and while we do, could you do a quick check on him? With your powers I mean. Let me know if he’s… you know, how he’s doing?”
“Oh! Sure, yeah.” Red can still remember the distinct sense of Mr. Sakai’s heavy, slow thoughts. He casts his mind out to its limit as they wander the paths around the ranch’s pens, but his range isn’t that far, and they have to rely on their vision to finally spot him near the ranch’s small lake. When they approach they hear him speaking to a young girl next to him. She’s holding a bidoof in her lap, looking both excited and nervous.
“Oh. Hello, Aiko. Red.”
“Hi Dad. We’re not interrupting, are we?”
“No, no. We were just over into how Asha likes her coat to be brushed.” He returns his gaze to the bidoof and the girl. “Now, you can see by the tail that she’s very relaxed right now… try stroking her back…”
The girl does so, slowly and gently, and the bidoof nestles closer against her. The girl’s eyes widen, and her fingers sink a little deeper into its fur.
Red opens his mind to those around him, sensing their different rhythms and beats. Aiko’s mood is engaged and ready, the girl’s tinged with hesitant wonder, while Mr. Sakai…
His mind still feels ponderous, but there’s something calm about it, now, too. Relaxed, rather than lethargic. No, not just relaxed, something more…
Red realizes with a start that there’s a fourth human mind nearby. He steps to the side a bit and sees a younger boy hiding behind Mr. Sakai and looking with dull eyes at the bidoof. Red briefly entangles with the boy’s thoughts and gets a brief sense of his apathy, mind wandering beneath a numbing cloud of grief.
Aiko crouches beside the girl. “Hello. What’s your name?”
The girl doesn’t look up from the bidoof, merely continuing to stroke it.
“Asha is one of my favorites. Want to know a secret about her?”
The girl’s eyes flick up to her, then back down.
“You just scratch a bit behind her right ear. She
loves
it when you do that.”
The girl keeps petting the bidoof for a few moments… then reaches a hand out and scratches its ear.
The round, furry body squirms, and it emits a croon of pleasure, the sound surprisingly deep and rough. The girl freezes for a moment, then smiles for the first time. Red senses the boy’s curiosity increase, but not enough to overcome his apathy or come any closer.
Seized by an urge to help lift that haze, Red goes over to the boy and kneels down too. “Hey there. I’m Red. Want to go look for some other pokemon to play with?”
The boy looks at him solemnly, then shrugs, gaze down.
“Okay. Let’s go this way?” He looks up at Mr. Sakai, who stands.
“A fine idea. I’ll see you two at lunch.”
Red isn’t sure if he should take the boy’s hand or not: he looks about seven, and might resent being treated like a baby, but as soon as Mr. Sakai leaves he moves over to Red, practically clinging to his legs without touching him.
Red starts walking, passing by the various pokemon in their pens as he keeps skimming the boy’s mood. He’s careful not to go too deep and get caught up in the grief he feels mirrored there, aware of how even the brush of it beckons his own toward the surface.
“So, let’s see… over here there’s a meowth that I’m surprised is staying in its pen, to be honest. It likes to find precious metals and eat them, which makes the coin on its head grow. That’s why this one’s coin is so small. Do you want to pet it?” The boy is silent, so Red moves on to the next pen. “Here’s a stantler that was unfortunate enough to have its horns cut off, probably by some poachers…”
Red goes from pokemon to pokemon, tossing out whatever trivia he can remember about each. The boy’s mental state barely fluctuates through all this. Red’s descriptions become more and more listless as he trudges from one pen to another. Eventually he stands before a sentret, one of the most boring pokemon around. He tries to think of something interesting to say about it, grief dulling the colors of the world as he wonders what the point of all this is…
Red blinks. That thought wasn’t one of his normal ones. He realizes he’s been too immersed in the boy’s thoughts, even at a surface level. He draws back into himself and shakes the gloom off. What was he doing? Right: sentret. Interesting facts.
The sense of boredom returns, and this time it’s his own. Sentret aren’t particularly interesting, even to him. But he remembers being young enough that, before battle trainer culture irritated him quite so much, he was himself more interested in things about pokemon’s battle abilities or survival traits than other facts about them.
Red clears his throat, hoping the boy isn’t weirded out by his long silence. “Um. This is a sentret. They like to stand on their tails so they can see farther and know if danger is coming.” He tentatively brushes up against boy’s mind again as he moves on to the next pen. “Here’s a baby doduo. Only one head sleeps or eats at a time, so it can’t be taken by surprise. Over there is a female nidoran, it doesn’t have a horn like the males but its spines are poisonous…”
Little by little, he feels mild curiosity bud in the boy’s mood, tendrils of it spreading out until his boredom is somewhat alleviated. Red warms up to the new angle, glad he has a near endless supply of facts about a pokemon’s dangerous abilities, which are always at the surface of a journeying trainer’s thoughts.
“And
this
is a venonat, it likes to stun its prey and then suck the blood out of them—”
A sharp spike of fear comes from the boy, and Red flinches. Was that one too close to some bad memory? Red realizes that he doesn’t even know the boy’s background, or what brought him to the ranch… He may have gotten a bit carried away. Maybe it’s better to stick to safer descriptions after all.
“Do you, ah, want to try feeding any of the pokemon we’ve seen so far?”
The boy shakes his head. Red feels at a loss for a moment, then decides to just be forward. “Sorry if I said something scary. Do you want me to keep talking about what makes pokemon dangerous, or should we stick to what makes them cute?”
It doesn’t seem like an answer is forthcoming, but the boy eventually wanders back over to the pen with the silcoon attached to a bush in it and points.
“You want to know more about them?”
The boy shakes his head.
“You… want to touch it?”
The boy nods.
Red swallows down his discomfort with bugs and sits cross-legged beside the hatch. “Alright. Just be careful where you put your hands, okay? Nowhere near the eyes.” Red carefully extracts the silk cocoon from the bush, then lifts it out of the pen and holds it on his lap. The red eyes of the pokemon peer sleepily out of the slits in its white outer layers.
The boy peers at it in fascination. His hand moves up, trembles, goes back down.
“Go ahead, you can touch its back,” Red says, and demonstrates. “I know it’s big, but it won’t attack you. ”
The boy tentatively reaches out and feels the compact outer layers of silk, then smiles.
Red smiles back. “Feels weird, right?” The boy nods, and Red remembers his own hesitation to touch the skarmory on the roof, followed by his fascination with how its metallic feathers felt beneath his hand. “Pokemon are amazing, you know? Dangerous, but amazing. Do you want to be a trainer someday?” The boy nods. “Cool. Want me to tell you more about silcoon?”
He nods, so Red does, and they sit there with the silcoon until someone calls out that it’s time for lunch. Red puts the pokemon back in its pen, and they make their way back to the house, where the boy walks toward the crowd of other kids, still without saying a word. Red watches him go, and senses his mood quickly returning to what it was earlier. Red hopes he helped somehow regardless.
The bottom floor appears to have been converted into a dining area, the center filled with a buffet and tables set on either side for eating. A pair of lines form on either side so everyone can grab their food, and as Red waits he spots the head therapist who’s leading the initiative on the other side. He keeps an eye on her, and once he fills his plate, he goes over to where she’s sitting.
“Hello. You’re Mrs. Ino, right?”
The therapist smiles. “I am.”
“I’m Red Verres.”
“Hello Mr. Verres. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a confidentiality-respected lot about you from Dr. Seward.”
Red grins. “Nice to meet you too. I wanted to thank you for helping put this together.”
“Oh, no thanks needed. It’s the sort of opportunity I’ve been dreaming of.”
“Have you been using pokemon in your practice for long?”
“Years. The difference here is like night and day though: this allows such a better environment for groups and children to connect and support each other, as well as providing more variety of pokemon for them to interact with. Things look promising, so far.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I actually wanted to offer my help, too.”
“Oh?”
“I’m psychic.” He taps his temple. “Still learning, but I can get a quick read on emotional states pretty easily now. If there’s someone who you’re having trouble reaching, maybe I can give a hint for what can help?”
To Red’s surprise, Mrs. Ino looks taken aback. “Oh, no, I’m afraid not, Red.”
“Oh. How come?”
Her brow creases. “If you’ve been through therapy, Red, you should know.”
It takes a moment for him to realize. “OH. No, sorry, I think I gave the wrong impression… I won’t be actually reading their thoughts.”
“I’m afraid it would still violate confidentiality.”
“But…” Red takes a moment, wanting to make sure he words it right. “It’s just like reading an expression. It’s imprecise, but a bit deeper and more nuanced.”
“Yes, I understand that you see it that way. But people are used to having their expressions read. Most develop some level of control over what they show, and at least are on an even footing with the person reading their expression. I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to refrain from using your powers on any of the clients here.” Her eyes suddenly widen. “You haven’t done so already, have you?”
Red blinks, and without thinking says “No, that’s… I came to check with you, first. That’s why.”
Her expression softens. “Good. Well, I appreciate you wanting to help, and it’s not a bad idea, you just need to make sure they’re consenting first. You don’t happen to have any of the appropriate paperwork?”
“Oh, uh, no, I just thought of it while I was here. But I’m sure they have a printer here?”
“No need, it would be for their parents. I was just hoping to look it over, and perhaps bring it up with the others. I can get it later.”
Red nods, feeling awkward. “Right. Well. Thanks for your time.”
“Of course. I’ll see you around, I’m sure.”
He nods again and wanders away, eyes down. He finds a secluded place to sit, fork moving aimlessly through his food.
Why did I lie?
To avoid getting in trouble, obviously. But was he wrong to? He hadn’t meant any harm, and no harm has been done. He
should
have asked for permission first, but admitting to it now wouldn’t help anything. It would just make psychics look bad.
Like lying does?
Guilt and indignation make Red put his plate down and rub his face. Just weeks ago he was thinking about how unfortunate but understandable it is that psychics are treated with suspicion. Now he’s acting in exactly the way that justifies suspicion of psychics! How did he make such a shift so quickly?
The thing is… he really does feel like using his powers this way is as natural as reading expressions. It’s become a reflex, just as someone said it would… was it Ayane, or Narud? He hopes it wasn’t Narud.
And then Red wonders if he would find Narud as irritating if he met him now. Is he turning into a haughty elitist?
“Heya.” Red looks up as Aiko sits beside him. “Not a fan of the food?”
“Huh? No, just thinking.”
“Ah. Well, I’m happy to interrupt. Your face looked a bit horrified for a second there.”
He smiles and forces himself to take a bite of the stuffed mushroom. He finds himself once again surprised by how tasty the food here is, and begins to eat with more gusto. “How was the girl you were talking to?”
“Okay, I think? It’s been awhile since I interacted with kids, but she seemed happy enough to just play with the bidoof and learn about them.” She shrugs as she eats, then lowers her voice a bit. “So. How’s my dad doing?”
The conversation with Mrs. Ino still fresh on his mind, he wonders for a moment whether he should feel guilty about this too. But… well, it’s not like Mr. Sakai is a patient, and Aiko just wants to help her dad.
“Better,” Red says, trying to remember the sense he got of Mr. Sakai’s mood. He opens his senses and finds the rancher’s mind again from the other side of the room. “He’s more relaxed than distant. Something about all this makes him feel… comfortable in a way that he wasn’t before.”
“Oh, good.” Tension leaves Aiko’s frame in a rush. “I know it’s a lot of extra work for him, I was hoping it wouldn’t cause him more stress, he
seems
more lively, but—”
“Aiko. It’s fine.” Red smiles. “I think he’s doing okay.”
She breathes out and finally seems to really relax against her seat. “Okay. Yeah. Thanks Red.”
“Is there something in particular that makes you worried about him?”
“Not really. I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?” She dips some carrot sticks in dressing by the handful and munches on them all at once. “The past few weeks have been great… meeting you guys, learning at the gym, making friends… and still being here so I know my dad’s okay… I just don’t know how long it can last.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
Aiko shrugs, dragging the remains of the carrots through more dressing. “Because it has to, someday. I won’t always be able to pursue my goals while porting back home every few hours. I don’t want to rush things, though. As long as Dad’s not reacting badly to me being out of the house so often, maybe in a few months I can try missing lunch now and then, with forewarning. Maybe by then he’ll even be able to talk about it with me.”
Red considers this. “A few months seems like such a short time, but a lot has changed for Blue, Leaf, and I in the past few. I hope you’re right. It would be nice to have you around more.”
She smiles at him. “It would be nice to be around you guys more too. I can’t wait to test out your new fighting style again.” One of the staff from the organization walks by. “Oh, I wanted to talk to them about something. See you later?”
“Sure.” He watches her go, then continues eating, thoughts quickly returning to what he was worrying about before. He takes his notebook out and begins to eat with one hand as he writes out his worries and reminds himself to come up with measurable aspects of “haughtiness,” and get feedback on his own soon.
By the time Red finishes his food, lunch is winding down. Red stuffs his notebook in his back pocket and gets up to throw the rubbish away as the kids and therapists file outside. He spots his friends helping clean up the buffet.
“Blue! Have I been acting different, lately?” he asks as he lends a hand.
“Uh. Can you be more specific?”
“Like, have I been becoming, ah, haughty, or elitist?”
Blue’s brow rises. “Why, no, Red, you haven’t been becoming either of those things.”
Red’s relief is interrupted by the slight stress on the word
becoming,
and he switches a stack of paper plates from one hand to the other so he can punch Blue’s arm. “Whatever, from
your perspective
have I been acting that way
more than usual?
”
“Nah, you’re about all that stuff as ever. Difference is you’ve actually got some reason to be, these days.” Blue finishes tying off a full garbage bag, then punches his arm back. “Hey, we’re going to go do some training battles away from the ranch, maybe catch some pokemon nearby. You in?”
“What, everyone?”
“Yeah. Well, Leaf’s probably staying, but Aiko’s coming. There’s going to be some group therapy stuff here, so we aren’t needed for a while.”
Red hesitates, not wanting Leaf to feel left out. But he really wants to explore his powers in battle more before the cruise, and he and Leaf will have plenty of time to hang out and chat once they leave.
“Yeah, I’ll come!”
They help finish the cleaning, then run up to grab their stuff with Glen, Elaine, and Aiko before heading off the ranch and riding toward an empty field by the road, distant from any of the tall grass or woods where pokemon might be lurking. Regardless, they keep their eyes peeled for any pokemon along the way, but other than some pidgey and spearow flying in the distance, don’t spot anything new to catch.
They put their bikes away and begin discussing what to do. Red asks for some time alone first, so Elaine and Blue pair off to train his rhyhorn against her graveler, while Aiko pits her sandslash against Glen’s donphan. Having worked their way through the gym’s lower ranks over the past few weeks, everyone’s preparing for their battles against Surge by strengthening the Ground Types that will be their most valuable pokemon.
Each MVP can’t be expected to take Surge alone, however, as the Leader is sure to have countermeasures among his team. Which is why they keep their ground types for last, and start their battles with other pokemon that can take on whatever their major Ground Types would be weak against.
Red is only aware of this in his periphery, however, as he spends his time practicing with Charmeleon against a pokedoll. Right away, Red can tell that his pokemon’s new form is faster, muscles stronger, claws sharper: the doll’s thick outer layer, already much abused over the past months by the scratches of a charmander, are soon deeply scored and at places torn out in chunks.
“Stop! Back.” Red frowns at his pokedoll. He’ll have to get a tougher one, but maybe the fire retardant on this is strong enough for that at least. He rubs Charmeleon’s head as he returns to him, fingers moving around the bony spur at the center. He’s a little sad that he can’t rub the whole top of his pokemon’s head as easily anymore, but Charmeleon seems to appreciate it anyway, so Red continues and feeds him a pokepuff for good measure.
Instead of cooking the puff, as Red expected, Charmeleon simply gobbles it up. As he chews, smoke escapes through his teeth, and Red grins. Charmeleon aren’t quite capable of breathing out streams of fire, but the internal organs and physiology are at least more developed now, and his pokedex has been running a program to try and take advantage of it for other attacks.
First to make sure the doll is up to it though. “Ready, Charmeleon. Ember!”
Charmeleon flicks his tail and sends a bright glob of fire onto the doll. It burns there for longer than Charmander’s did, and when it fades the pit it leaves behind seems bigger, but overall the doll failed to burst into flames or melt, which is all Red needed to know.
“Charmeleon, Fire Fang!”
His pokemon leaps forward and bites onto the doll’s shoulder, worrying at it with vicious tugs of his strong neck. “Back!” Red watches as Charmeleon’s sharp teeth dislodge from the material for any sign of smoke or burning. He steps closer, calming his pokemon’s distress with a hand gesture, and examines the teeth marks carefully. There might be some extra scarring, but he can’t tell if it’s from a previous attack.
Red kneels to find rear sections of the doll that are less damaged. He spots a mostly unblemished part of the pokedoll’s thigh, studies it carefully, then gestures Charmeleon over. He points to that section of the doll, and says “Fire Fang!”
Charmeleon chomps on it again, and again Red tells him to back off before studying the spot. Nothing but teeth marks.
Red stands and brushes the grass from his pants with a sigh. Seems his pokemon isn’t grown enough yet. He watches the battles of the other four in the distance for a bit, thinking.
Or maybe…
Red closes his eyes and reaches out with his thoughts, refreshing his sense of his pokemon’s new mood and senses. After his explanation of what he did with Charmander yesterday, he tried out the new mental state of
full permission
with each of the pokemon he had with him. Surprising no one, Metapod and Pineco had no immediately dangerous instincts beneath all their conditioning, though the latter was more wary and ready to defend itself if needed. Bellsprout was similar, though there was something more there as well, too alien for Red to understand. Spinarak just felt hunger, neutral and merciless, while Nidoran was the first one that had a similar level of identifiable vicious instincts bubbling beneath the surface, similar to Charmander’s. His abra, Bill, was extremely skittish. Red didn’t dare project the full acceptance state to it, certain it would teleport away if he did.
It was Pichu that turned out to be the most interesting: what Red sensed from him was something his mind interpreted as a live wire running through his thoughts, a vibrating alertness that seemed safe to unleash in battle, so he tested it against Aiko… until he began to lose. Then Red felt a desperation in pichu’s instincts that closely mirrored the charmander’s viciousness, and quickly forfeited before his pokemon could act on it, so swept up in how it felt that he forgot that he had to actually give it permission to unleash it.
Now that he has his newly evolved pokemon in front of him again, he realizes that Charmeleon is the most unsettling to entwine with. Red has been developing more and more proprioception through his link with his pokemon, their sense of their own bodies, where their limbs are at any given time, as well as their innate sense of balance, and Charmeleon feels
tense
in a way that none of his other pokemon do. Like his wires are all drawn near their snapping points, even while relaxing. Like he could explode into deadly action at any moment.
Red senses that coiled tension now, and once he feels fully melded with Charmeleon’s thoughts, he opens his eyes, backs up to a safer distance, and points at the spot again. “Fire Fang,” he says while projecting a feeling of
letting loose.
Charmeleon pounces on the pokedoll and tears a mouthful of its dark material off. Red quickly releases the projection, but he has to call “Stop!” for Charmeleon to quit chewing at the material. Red, mindful of the advice to never try and pull anything away from inside a Charmeleon’s mouth, takes out a pokepuff and places it on the ground beside him. “Eat,” he says, pointing at it, and his pokemon finally lets the dark material drop from his jaws so Red can inspect it.
No visible blemish besides the teeth marks, rougher though they are, and he still didn’t see any smoke.
Ah well.
It seems his pokemon isn’t ready for that attack yet.
Just as he has that thought, he sees Charmeleon cook the food in his mouth yet again, as if taunting his failure. Red shakes his head and gets some industrial glue out to place the piece back where it was torn out of the pokedoll, then returns it to its container ball.
Once Charmeleon has finished eating, Red gives his head another quick rub, then returns him as well and goes back to the others. Glen and Aiko have already finished their match, while Blue and Elaine are still pitting their final pokemon against each other.
The graveler uses its hands to grip the ground as the rhyhorn charges it, tanking the hit and then throwing its own body weight against its opponent. The grind of stone-against-stone fills the air as they clash again and again, a test of endurance more than anything.
Eventually Elaine commands her graveler to back up, and Red predicts what she needs the distance for: “Graveler, Rollout!”
“Rive, Ba!” Blue yells.
Rather than try to dodge the graveler as it throws itself into a roll directly at it, building momentum all the while, Blue’s rhyhorn lifts its legs and slams them onto the ground. The effect is somewhat reduced by the soft, grassy terrain, but the shockwave still makes Red and the others brace their legs, while the graveler loses most of his momentum and barely budges Rive when he slams into him. A quick “Atah!” by Blue has his pokemon lower his head to hook his horn beneath the graveler, preparing for a toss, but when Elaine claps her hands in a quick pattern above her head, its four arms grip the rocky head around the neck and snout.
“No—”
“What the—”
“Way,” Red finishes as he, Aiko, and Glen watch the graveler twist, roll backward, and lift the rhyhorn over itself to slam it onto the ground beside it, using its own body as a pivot and driving them all to their knees briefly.
“Was that a Seismic Toss?” Aiko asks as everyone scrambles back up. Elaine calls her graveler back, and they all watch Rive to see if he gets back up. After a few shaky attempts, the rhyhorn manages to right himself, though his movements have slowed.
“Yeah, must be a TM.” Glen rubs his neck. “I guess that’s her trump card for when Surge brings out a magnemite or magneton.”
“Does that happen often?” Red asks.
“Oh, yeah. From the videos I saw, anyway: it’s one of the few electric pokemon that can hold up well against both Rock and Ground attacks, once it’s floating.”
Soon Rive and the graveler are squared off again, and their attacks continue. Blue is careful not to let his rhyhorn get slammed a second time, fighting much more defensively to compensate for his pokemon’s slower movements. Elaine’s attempts at a more aggressive fight seem to fall flat every time, however, and soon her graveler’s movements are even slower than the injured rhyhorn’s.
“Something’s wrong,” Aiko says, tense. “Her pokemon shouldn’t be tiring this fast.”
“Yeah, it’s acting like it’s been fighting for hours over the past few minutes,” Glen says. “Or…” He turns to Red. “Can you check it?”
Red nods and closes his eyes, mind reaching out to sense those around him. It takes a moment to distinguish the graveler and the rhyhorn, and he waits until their next clash is past before he merges with it—
Red doubles over and clutches his stomach, nausea sweeping through him. “Sick,” he gasps as Glen’s hands catch him. He withdraws his mind and breathes deep to settle his stomach, head spinning.
“Oh,
shit
,” Aiko says. “We have to stop the match.”
Red takes another deep breath and glances up, trying to focus. He sees Aiko’s point: the graveler is teetering as it lumbers toward Rive, its movements sluggish. Even injured, Blue’s pokemon easily avoids the attack.
“Right, I’ll call it,” Glen says, and steps forward as he takes a deep breath to shout out… just as Elaine holds her greatball out and says, “Graveler, return!”
Blue relaxes, then jogs to his pokemon, potion in hand. Elaine stares at her greatball with a frown, and Glen moves toward her. Red and Aiko follow. She looks up as they approach and smiles.
“Hey guys. I guess Graveler was more tired than I thou—”
“It wasn’t that.” Red says. He’s watching Blue finish healing his pokemon, then rub its rocky head and return it to its ball.
Was it something he did?
“Your pokemon was sick.”
Elaine blinks. “What? How do you, never mind, psychic, right, oh that’s
terrible
, but he was fine earlier, maybe I fed him something bad do you think? I’m so
stupid
—”
Aiko puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Things like this happen sometimes. You can’t always know. Just make sure to go to a center rather than heal him yourself.”
Elaine looks torn between her worry and Aiko’s reassurance when Blue approaches. “Hey, great fight, Elaine.” He looks around. “Why the long faces?”
“Red says the graveler was sick,” Glen says.
Blue blinks. “What? How do you know?”
“I checked mentally, near the end of the match when it was slowing down. It had some really painful nausea.”
“Oh,” Blue’s face clears, and he smiles at Elaine. “Don’t worry, he wasn’t sick. He’s just poisoned.”
Everyone stares at him. “Poisoned,” Glen repeats. “Poisoned from—”
“Oooh,” Aiko says.
Everyone looks at her, Blue grinning slightly.
“Oh, shoot!” Elaine says, worry transforming to frustration. “I missed something, didn’t I? When was it?”
Blue shrugs and folds his hands behind his head. “Quite a mystery. Let me know if you ever figure it out.”
“Poisoned by a rhyhorn,” Glen muses. “I’m sure if I look it up I’ll find something… I didn’t see anything like a Toxic attack…”
Aiko is frowning slightly at Blue. “Were you guys fighting to incapacitation? That might have taken awhile, her graveler could have gotten badly hurt.”
“Relax, I was watching closely,” Blue says. “I would have called it soon myself if Elaine hadn’t withdrawn.”
Aiko looks slightly mollified. It still surprises Red how quick the others are to take Blue’s word for things and follow his lead, probably because Red’s so used to arguing with him about practically everything for years.
He suddenly has a glimpse of a possible future, the one that they’ve been working toward: Blue, Champion of Indigo, treated as a modern legend, respected by all, traveling the regions and making changes with an army of loyal followers behind him… while Red, a hopefully just as respected Professor, is one of the few people willing and able to call him on his shit, even while he supports him.
The thought makes Red smile briefly, which Blue catches and raises a curious brow to. Red shakes his head, and Blue shrugs.
“Well, if you guys figure it out, let me know. Either way, good match Elaine.”
“Thanks! Did you see the Seismic Toss coming?”
“I was banking on it, actually. I knew you’d need something against a magneton.”
“What about you?” Aiko asks. “Poison attacks won’t help against them.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got another trick ready for that.” The others try to guess it, but Blue just shakes his head. “So what’s next? We got time for another match?”
Aiko checks. “Yep, one more pair.”
“I’ll sit out,” Glen offers. “Red hasn’t had a chance to fight yet.”
Elaine grins. “Ooo, yeah, I want to watch you use Battle Bond again!”
Red blinks at her. “Use
what?
”
“The thing! Your psychic thing!”
Glen shakes his head. “It’s not called Battle Bond.”
“Yeah, I don’t—”
“It’s called Limit Break.”
Red looks back and forth between them as they start to argue, then turns to Aiko, bemused.
“We tried coming up with names for it,” she explains. “Special techniques need names, right?”
“Ah.” He tries to think of something to say, but is distracted by her anticipatory look. “Um. Did you also have a suggestion, then?”
“Yep! Ultra Instinct! You know, from—”
“I got it, yeah. Isn’t that trademarked, though?”
She shrugs. “Unleashed Instinct?”
That… doesn’t sound bad. Red opens his mouth to say so when Elaine jumps in to denounce the amount of syllables and lack of alliteration, which draws Aiko into the argument, which seems utterly unconcerned with Red’s ideas or preference.
“Well, at least they’re having fun with it,” he tells Blue, who to his relief hasn’t gotten involved.
Blue shrugs. “I figured I’d let them argue till they’re sick of it, then just call it its real name and they’ll accept it.”
Red sighs. “And what is the real name for telling a pokemon to give up their conditioning?”
“The kind that’s useful in battle?” Blue’s lips quirk, smile sharp as the blade of a dagger. “
Sakki.
”
Killing intent.
Red shivers in the warm sunlight, and has no retort.
Leaf helps feed and care for the pokemon with the rest of the workers from RAWP, then sits down to relax as the kids and therapists go off to do group sessions. She’s not there for long before she spots Adom sitting in a corner with his laptop and headphones on. She doesn’t want to disturb him, but is curious to know more about his organization, so just checks the comments on her abra article while she waits for him to seem less busy.
To her surprise, when he takes his headphones off and stands, he makes his way over to her and plops down on the nearby couch.
“Hey. So I just read your abra article—”
Leaf blinks.
“—and I was wondering what you think about using it with other psychic pokemon. You warned people not to try it without taking safety precautions, but if they do it right do you think someone could, like, just walk up to a drowzee too?”
“I don’t know, really. I didn’t want to guess, since I haven’t had the chance to try it with other species.”
He nods. “You probably should, soon. It would really boost the utility people can expect to get from trying to mimic it though. Assuming others can learn it. I’m going to try to, anyway.”
“Oh, great! Will you document it?”
“Yeah, that’s the idea. With abra first, of course, since they’ll just teleport away if I don’t get it right, but if you do get a chance to try it with other species, the sooner you test it out so we know if it’s possible, the better.”
He’s right. Leaf should have tried it with other psychic pokemon before she wrote the article… she can only hope others who try it are as sensible as Adom and won’t try to walk up to a sigilyph or woobat and risk getting attacked.
“Damn. I should have thought of this myself, and now there’s no time to test it before tomorrow…”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Oh, Red and I are going on the Cruise Convention.”
Adom’s face lights up. “Are you really? You should definitely test this out before you go if you can, but are you going to write an article on one of the exhibits?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Sweet. Which one?”
“I’m not sure yet. Aren’t they really secretive about what’s going to be shown?”
“Sure, but I thought you might have connections, through your mom or Oak.” He pauses, face thoughtful. “Hm. Okay, can you keep a secret for like, 12 hours?”
Leaf raises a brow. “Are you telling me
you
have connections?”
“Depends.” He leans forward. “Can you?”
Leaf grins and leans forward too, though no one seems close enough to hear them. “Yeah, I never reveal my sources.”
“Okay, so you should find Dr. Marcus Post’s exhibit on the first day. He’s going to be demonstrating the results of the artificial meat production he developed with pokeball tech.”
“Shut up! Seriously?”
Adom leans back with a smile at Leaf’s expression. “Yep. Attend it early so you can be one of the first to write about it.”
“How do you know this?”
“Just some connections in the pokemon welfare world. If it takes off commercially… you know?”
“Right, it would be huge! This is great, I was wondering whether I’d find something good to write on… and I can start research and outlining tonight.”
“Yeah. I figured it would do well following the abra piece.”
“For sure. Thanks for telling me! How long have you been involved in pokemon welfare, anyway?”
“A couple years, with this organization.”
“That’s great. Do you feel like it’s making a difference?”
Adom cocks his head, gaze up, hand teetering side to side. “Sometimes. It’s rewarding, but I’m not sure it’s the best use of my time or abilities. I think there might be other things to work on that have more impact, or address different, more pressing issues.”
“Yeah, I can understand that.” Leaf thinks of her own constant shift from one project to another. The brief trip into journalism has been great so far, but she wonders how long it’ll be before she discovers something else that seems more important. “So what’s your next duty after the group therapy finishes?”
“The kids are going to be divided into those that are afraid of pokemon and the ones that are here for depression or grief. The first group will get more direct one-on-one exposure and learning, while the second gets to choose from activities. So I’ve got a lapras that I’m going to offer rides on at a nearby lake.”
“Oh, cool! Is there anything I can help with?”
“If you have any pokemon you think they’d enjoy interacting with, we can list it in the announcements too.”
“Hm. Joy is probably the safest bet. She’s just so soft and squishy.”
“Yeah, I can see that being a big hit. We’ve got a stoutland that’s great for hugs too.”
“Oh man, I love stoutlands! My grandpa has one…”
The two talk about Unovan pokemon until one of Adom’s peers pokes her head in and signals him, causing him to excuse himself. Leaf looks up any potential nearby psychic pokemon besides abra she can use as a test until Red and the others return. Aiko runs upstairs to take a quick shower and change while the others relax for a bit, and Leaf fills them in on what’s happening next. They start to discuss what pokemon they have that might enjoy being played with. Glen’s snorlax is tame enough to be safely fed, and it’s a rare enough pokemon that a lot of kids might be interested in interacting with it. Red, Blue, and Elaine decide to just help out or watch the existing activities.
Mrs. Ino recommends that Joy be available to the kids that are afraid of pokemon after losing a loved one or witnessing an attack. Leaf is only too happy to summon her cuddle partner and let the kids bask in her shining eyes, cheerful smile, and soft embrace. There are three of them, the youngest a boy of five or six, and two girls aged 9 and 10. The older girl holds the boy’s hand as the three stare at Leaf’s wigglytuff.
“It’s not a danger?” the boy asks, sounding younger than his age.
Leaf thinks of the field of sleeping pokemon that she and the others had nearly walked into. “She won’t hurt you,” Leaf says instead. “Her name is Joy. See how happy she is? She can fight, like most pokemon, but she doesn’t like to.”
“What does she like to do instead?” the older girl asks. She seems the least afraid of the three, but her hand is holding her brother’s tight.
“She likes to sing, and eat, and give hugs. See?” She wraps her arms around her pokemon, who as always is overjoyed to squeeze her back. “This is how some pokemon are, if they’re not threatened. They’re just happy to get along with others.”
“But only the captured ones, right?”
Leaf considers this, trying to stay honest without scaring them further. “Some pokemon are really peaceful even in the wild… but only the captured ones are
really
safe. I promise that Joy won’t hurt you, if you want to give her a hug.”
None of them move to, and Leaf remembers the quick guidelines she got: don’t force anything, just let the option to interact be there for them. So she decides to start talking about her favorite pokemon, and the activities she enjoys with them: running around and playing fetch with her ivysaur, sending her recently evolved pidgeotto into complex aerial maneuvers with her ocarina, and of course cuddling up to Joy while reading or falling asleep, as she’s doing now.
Soon enough some of the kids are happy to take turns hugging her too. All at least pet her soft fur, and a few even feed her.
Leaf is in great spirits by the time night begins to fall, and everyone goes around to feed and withdraw the pokemon for the evening, then prepare to leave the ranch. She says goodbye to the kids and therapists, then the RAWP members, thanking Adom again for the tip and telling him to keep in touch. Once everyone’s gone, she heads upstairs to take a shower, then she goes to Aiko’s room to put her clothes away in her bag, expecting it to be empty. Instead she finds her friend there.
The mechanical parts that had cluttered it before are more or less neatly shoved into a corner now, with the majority of the roomspace dominated by supplies that are arranged around her travel bag. Aiko is on her computer, pokedex hooked up to it while she looks over some code.
“Hey. What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just working on a new idea I had while talking with the others downstairs.”
Leaf puts her dirty clothes in their container, then sits on her bed while she brushes her hair. “What on?”
“Trying to design a new sim for the pokedex. One that links a command word with the state of mind Red projects onto his pokemon, to let them temporarily forget their conditioning.”
Leaf’s eyes widen. “Red’s
what?!
”
“Oh, right, you may not have heard…”
Leaf listens with mounting horror at what Aiko is casually describing as a valuable combat technique. “But… but what if it hurts the other pokemon, or attacks a trainer?”
“He’s being really careful with it,” Aiko assures her. “We’re still testing boundaries and effects, and he still won’t use it with his Charmeleon because he’s worried about the harm it might cause.”
Leaf doesn’t understand how careful they can really be with something this dangerous, but she knows Red’s methodical nature wouldn’t allow for something
too
irresponsible. Even still… “If something like that becomes widespread, it’ll cause pokemon to be even
more
hurt in battles. How can you be okay with that?”
Aiko turns her chair to face Leaf, brow creased. “This again?”
“What again?”
“You implying I don’t care about pokemon enough. What do you think the point of training even is? To make them more deadly for
when we need them to be.
This is just an extension of that.”
Leaf feels her pulse speed up. “Oh, please, like any regional league is going to ban something like this. They barely restrict dangerous attacks, how would they even know you were using something like this?”
“That can change, some day.”
“Sure. Some day. Meanwhile how many more pokemon are going to accidentally get killed in battles?”
Aiko throws her hands up. “What do you want us to do, just ignore it? For all we know other psychics are already using this, and just keeping it secret! We’re lucky Red isn’t like other battle trainers and told us!”
“Lucky. Of course. And here I was just thinking about how responsible he is, but he probably told the whole gym about this already, didn’t he?”
“No! Just the group.”
“You, Elaine and Glen?”
Aiko fidgets. “A few others too.”
“Aauugh!” Leaf buries her face in her arms. “This is what I get for chasing my story and not being around!”
“Leaf, you’re not thinking this through. Why do you think I want to make this something the pokedex can teach?”
She raises her head. “For your own pokemon to use it?”
“Sure, but not
just
that!” She sweeps an arm around her. “All this? It’s because pokemon are so incapable of living in the wild after being caught. If we don’t take care of them, they’ll either sit in storage for years or get released and die. Being able to remove conditioning temporarily might let us remove it
permanently,
so they can return to their natural habitat again if no one wants them.”
This gives Leaf pause, but her frown doesn’t lessen any. “But that’s not how most people are going to use it!”
“They might, if you can convince them to!”
Leaf is silent awhile, and they both stare at each other, faces flushed. “Do you really think I can?” she asks at last, once her breathing is slowed.
Aiko comes to sit on the bed beside her, hand taking hers. “After everything you’ve done in just a few months? I know you can.”
Leaf thinks of the Mt. Moon article and feels her face flush, for a different reason this time. “I think you’re a bit biased.”
“Nah, you’re just modest.”
Leaf almost admits her recent decision right there, almost lays the whole thing on Aiko to judge… but decides to just take the compliment, not wanting to burden her friend. “Even if you’re right, it’ll still take years. I don’t think I’ll do it fast enough to stop something like this from becoming widespread.”
Aiko snorts. “Well if you’re worried about me cracking this in my daily hour of spare time anytime soon, don’t be. It’ll probably take me twice as long to get it right.”
Leaf smiles and squeezes Aiko’s hand. “Now who’s being modest? Caught and raised your own pokemon, by yourself, and got a badge, all while helping out around here? I wouldn’t be surprised if you have it done by the time I’m back, and the Thunder Badge to boot.”
“Well, at least that last one seems likely.” Aiko lets out a breath. “Before you guys came I thought it would take another two years to get my next badge. Come back soon, okay? Or if you end up loving life on the sea, at least tell me so I know which boat to stick a tracker to and worry about.”
Leaf leans her head on Aiko’s shoulder and smiles. “It’s a promise.”
Blue is sitting on the porch as the stars come out, feeding Ion and planning out the trip tomorrow. He checks message boards for others looking to group up, sending notices and listing his party’s pokemon as he rubs Ion’s black fur. It’ll be his first time really leading an outing, explicitly in charge rather than the more equal footing he feels he’s on with Red and Leaf, despite their lack of badges. He wants to make sure everything goes perfectly, and tries to think of what might go wrong ahead of time as best he can.
Lack of supplies… cave-in… Tier 3 event…
He’s still there when Red comes out with his backpack on. “Ready to go?” he asks.
“Yeah, I already said bye to the others. Leaf is upstairs with Aiko still.” Red sits beside him, and Blue watches as his friend cautiously extends a hand to his shinx to let it get sniffed, then begins to stroke his fur. “When are you guys heading to the caves? In the morning?”
“Not right away. We want to give Aiko as much time as possible between teleports back, so we’ll try to time our arrival for when she has to come back at noon.”
“Makes sense.” Red is quiet a moment, and while Blue is comfortable with the silence, he gets the impression Red wants to say something.
“Battle went well,” he says first in case that’s it, referring to Red’s match with Glen. Red lost, but it was a close thing. “You’re still not committing enough to secure the wins.”
Red shrugs. “I was trying to test something out, mostly. It would have been dangerous to let it loose too much, so I didn’t really care about winning.”
“Well, testing stuff is fine. Just keep in mind that we’re training to win our fights. Not just for badges, but so we’re used to winning against wilds too.”
Red turns to him. “How come you didn’t tell everyone what your rhyhorn did, then?”
Blue blinks. “What?”
“Why do you keep things like that secret? Take risks? Your battle with Elaine reminded me of why I don’t like battle trainers.”
Blue feels a spark of heat in his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean? What did I do wrong?”
“Her graveler could have gotten hurt, Blue.”
“I was watching—”
“You don’t know her pokemon as well as she does. You should have told her that was a possibility before you started.”
“So you’re an expert on battle etiquette now, are you?” he asks, voice cold.
Red opens his mouth, closes it. Rubs his face. Takes a breath. “I’m saying this wrong. I wanted to say, first, that I’m really impressed with the way you’ve grown lately. The way you act around the others, help them improve. But your battle with Elaine today still felt like the old you.”
“The old me. Meaning what?” But part of Blue knows, thinks of the time Maturin hurt his training partner’s pokemon in Cerulean… what was her name, again?
“The you that cared more about winning than helping others win too.”
Blue feels the fiery form inside him prowling, wanting to snap back at Red’s accusations. Instead he tries to focus on the compliment his friend was giving him, and give one back. “Red, you’re a smart guy. You’re actually good at battling too, despite your mistakes. But this is something you just don’t get.” Blue holds a hand up to stall Red, searching for the right words. “I’ve been reading the book Gramps gave me, and it’s been teaching me how to think differently about what it means to lead others… but it’s also been confirming something for me: the importance of winning. I can’t become Champion if I don’t win, and I can’t win if I don’t hold things back. I want Glen and Elaine and Aiko and Amy and everyone to be right there with me on Victory Road, but…” His hand throbs, and he realizes that it’s curled into a tight fist. “I almost lost against Elaine, Red. I didn’t mention the attack ahead of time because I didn’t plan to use it ahead of time.”
Blue struggles with his shame and stubborn defiance in the following silence, until Red asks, voice soft, “Is it that big a deal, if you don’t win against a friend? What, you think she’ll respect you less?”
Blue shakes his head. “That’s not it. In the end
I
still need to know I can win, even if it looks like I can’t. So that one day, in that final battle, in front of the world, when it matters most, I know what works. Against anyone. Even Elaine. Even you. If I win there, I can teach all my secrets afterward. If I lose…” He stops, unable to put it into words, the feeling inside him, the hollow fear. “We’ll just be
stuck
again,” he says at last, hoping his friend understands.
Blue can see Red struggling to put something into words as well, his frown creasing his whole face as he runs his fingers beneath his hat. “But what makes that different? What sets you apart, if you follow that path? Don’t you want to be a Champion that
leads
?” Red asks. “Keeping secrets is important in battles, I get that, but… I think you have a real chance to set a different standard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean do you want to prove you’re the best of this
particular
generation of trainers? Or do you want to be the
best,
like no one
ever
was?”
“You’re not about to break into song, are you?”
Red doesn’t smile. He stretches his hands out, arms wide. “This is it, Blue. This is your chance to do something really different. I think you’re halfway there, but not
fully.
I think you can do more: prove that you can win, reveal your secrets, and then
win again anyway
.”
Blue considers this for a moment, but the lurking fear, the waiting doom, is quickly there again. Red just doesn’t understand… “I can’t risk that.”
“You can’t risk that you’re not that good?”
“I can’t risk that
no one
is that good! And then someone else comes along, using my secrets and keeping theirs, and they beat me and all I’ve proven is what a swell guy I am. People won’t follow me just for being
nice,
Red.”
His friend is quiet for a beat. “I would,” he whispers.
Blue feels a lump in his throat, swallows past it, smiles. “Sure, I know that. Not everyone’s as smart as you though.”
Red smiles at that too, and a silence falls on them after that doesn’t feel uneasy, but still seems crowded with unresolved issues. Blue tries to think of what to say, reaching for some assurance…
“I’m worried about splitting up,” Red says first, surprising him with the topic change. “You’ll be careful, right? While Leaf and I are gone?”
Blue raises his brow. “Sure I will. And I’ve got the others to watch my back now too. It’s you guys I’m worried about, off on your own for a week, surrounded by eggheads—”
Red snorts. “There will be other trainers there too, you know.”
“Mmhm. Second stringers, or people years past their prime. Just saying, if a swarm of wingull attacks the boat and kills everyone, it would make for an embarrassing headline.”
“Heh. I think we could handle that. If not, we can just teleport back.”
Blue glances at him. “Could you?”
“What?”
“Teleport back, while the people on the boat are in danger?”
Red is silent for a moment. “I guess not. Not if I thought I could do something about it.”
Blue chuckles. “Speaking of still not being
fully there
yet…”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what we promised we’d become, one day. You remember, right? Professor doesn’t mean just researcher. Champion doesn’t mean just a strong trainer.”
“Heroes.”
“Right. The kinds of heroes that would stop the Stormbringers, eventually. Isn’t that what all this is for?”
“I remember.” Red shifts. “Still have to survive long enough to get there, though. To reach the hill I’m willing to die on, so to speak.”
Blue shakes his head, staring off into the dark sky, its stars shining down at them. “Heroes don’t get to choose their battles, Red. That’s what makes them who they are. What makes them as strong as they need to be.” There’s silence for a while, and in it Blue senses his friend’s disagreement again, the weight of unspoken words. He feels momentarily uneasy as he thinks of the way Red didn’t want to climb the tree for the pineco, and the way he argued against going to the incident on their way down here the first time… but then the way Red set up the smokescreen at the beedrill field, and stood against the paras on Mt. Moon.
He’ll get there.
The door opens, and Leaf comes out. “Heya.”
“Hey.” He stands, and so does Red. Blue smiles, wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulder for a quick hug. “I’ll think about what you said. Thanks for believing in me enough to say it.”
Red smiles back. “Same to you.”
He hugs Leaf next. “Take care of him, alright?”
“Nanny duty again,” Leaf sighs, but she squeezes him back, hard. “Watch out for the others.”
“That’s the plan.”
They stand around a moment longer, smiles fading but lingering, searching for something else to say. Something feels lodged in his chest. The last time he felt something like it was in the forest, watching them in the circle of light before he ran off for help. It’s silly, comparing the two situations. Blue knows it’s just a week, knows they’ve spent that much time barely seeing each other in cities before, but it still feels different, this geographic separation. He sees it in their eyes too as they summon their abra.
“What do you guys say?” he asks at last, holding a hand out, palm down. “Oaklings forever?”
Red groans, Leaf laughs, and that’s how they leave him: standing in the cool night air as they teleport away in a blink, leaving no trace but the warmth of their hands around his.
Blue, Elaine, and Glen look at each other, then head to Aiko’s room, where their fourth member is sitting on her bed and staring at her phone. Her backpack is beside her, a few final items remaining to be put away before they leave. Blue and the others woke up early to help around the ranch so she had time to prepare for the trip, and they were almost ready to head out.
“What’s up?” Blue asks, sitting on the bed beside her to peer at her phone screen.
“I got an alert from a group I’m following,” she says with an excited grin. “Look! An absol was spotted in the caves not too far from here!”
Elaine takes her pokedex out as Blue peers at the phone to read the news articles there. A renegade was caught in Cinnabar, Zapdos was spotted flying out at sea to the southeast of Pallet Town, hopefully its last flight for the summer, some new potion formula is entering final testing stages, and, yep, there’s the absol sighting not too far from here, above one of the branching networks of the Diglett Caves.
Though actually a network of tunnels that honeycomb throughout north-western Kanto, the “caves” in the name refer to the entrances that connect to openings above ground, both natural and not, that are big enough for people to enter. The most popular and most well mapped tunnel is the one that goes all the way from Vermilion City’s eastern outskirts to just south of Pewter, traveling a winding route beneath the cities, towns, forests, and mountains along the way, but the whole network is so full of diglett that any attempts to turn it into a paved road were ultimately abandoned. “By the time we get to the nearest entrance though…”
“I know, it might be gone. But since we were just going to catch pokemon from anywhere in the caves, can we check that area anyway? Absol are one of the pokemon I’ve wanted to track for years, and they’re hard enough to find even in the mountains! For this one to come down, make a hunting ground in the tunnels, means it’ll probably stay in the area for a week or two, depending on when it first arrived there.”
“Well, this is the fastest path to the caves,” Elaine says, tracing a route on her map app and sharing it with them. “But this one has the highest chance for encountering wild pokemon along the way.”
They study the route, then look at each other. “Comes down to time,” Blue says. “Do we want to spend it getting pokemon along the way, or in the caves?”
“Anything you guys
want
that’s along the way?” Aiko asks.
“Not me,” Glen says. “It’s mostly just common forest and plain pokemon.”
Blue expects Leaf to jump on that pun, then remembers she’s not here. “Yeah, nothing particularly rare or strong. I’d rather get to the caves faster. Sounds like we’re okay with the fast route, unless you’ve got a strong objection, Elaine?”
“Nope! And in that case,” Elaine says as she brings up another route. “This is an even
faster
way to get into the network, but it’s a part of it that’s really rough going, tight passages, lots of elevation changes, but, you know, still passable, if we’re okay with that?” She looks around at them.
Glen frowns as he checks between her map and the public one. “This isn’t coming up in my recommended routes.”
“I got it from a hiker or trailblazer group I’m in, can’t remember which. Was looking through them last night.”
“Huh. Do you do that often?” Blue asks.
She shrugs. “I like exploring, playing around with route options most people don’t take, you know? It’s exciting to go places that most others haven’t been before, and it’s not always more dangerous, just usually more time consuming or tiring. Sometimes they can even be time saving too, depending on your goals.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Blue says, impressed. He taps his pokedex against his leg as he considers it, then looks to the others. “I’m for it, as long as we have the right supplies. Want to check and make sure, Elaine?”
She does while they finish getting ready again, and ends up making a list of gear the other three need to pick up at a town near the tunnels. Soon they set off from the ranch with her in the lead, bikes sticking to the main road for now. Blue quickly realizes that as the youngest member of the group, he has to pedal harder than he’s used to just to keep pace with the others. Soon his lungs are burning, and he steadily drops back to the rear of the procession.
Blue takes a hand off its handle to rake the sweaty hair out of his eyes, trying to breathe deeper despite the stitch in his side.
I won’t be the first one to call for a break.
Bad enough that he’s fallen behind, at least he can justify that as being their rear guard in case any pokemon come barreling after them.
The morning passes without any surprise attacks, however, and just as Blue begins to feel his energy truly waning, Glen calls back, “Elaine, good place for a rest stop?”
“Outpost a minute north-east of us!”
Glen turns and they follow, Blue counting the seconds down as he breathes deep and lets himself slow little by little. The others pull ahead, but soon enough they clear the Ranger Outpost’s perimeter, and slow to a stop. The trees and tall grass clear away past the proximity sensors, and they can see the Outpost itself on a hill in the distance.
“Let’s take a rest here,” Glen says as Blue catches up to them. The lanky older boy looks barely winded, face sweaty but chest rising and falling evenly as he dismounts and takes his pack off, rummaging through it.
Aiko and Elaine follow suit, making noises of relief as they put the kickstands up on their bikes and stretch. Blue tries not to breathe too loudly as he does the same, then slowly collapses to the ground, leaning against his backpack with his hands between his knees. His lungs feel raw on the insides, and he’s reaching for his water when a hand holding a bottle enters his field of vision.
“This’ll help us hydrate faster,” Glen says, and Blue sees he’s already handed bottles out to the other two.
“Thanks.” Blue uncaps the slightly opaque liquid and gives an experimental sip. Mostly salty, slightly sweet, with a slight hint of some citrus fruit. Maybe it’s just how thirsty he is, but it’s oddly satisfying, and he quickly takes a few big gulps.
“Mm, what is this stuff?” Aiko asks, smacking her lips.
“Basically a homemade sport drink,” Glen says. “A little less sugar, but same result.”
“It’s not bad! Actually pretty good!” Elaine says, having already finished her bottle. “You’re into more than just pokemon health I guess?”
Glen looks pleased. “Yeah, you know, there’s some stuff you learn that applies to both.”
“Does that mean you can patch us up too, if we get injured?” Aiko asks.
“Oh, sure. That’s the first thing I focused on learning, actually.” Glen shrugs. “There are so many different kinds of pokemon that learning to care for them all will take years—”
“Tell me about it,” Aiko mutters.
“—but taking care of humans isn’t so different from taking care of most Normal Types.”
“I picked some stuff up when I was helping out at the hospitals in Pewter,” Blue says. “Beyond the basic first aid I set out with, I mean. Wouldn’t mind learning more though, if you’re up for teaching some tonight?”
“Oooh, me too me too!” Elaine says, hand raised. “I love getting new skills from party members.”
“Party members?” Aiko asks.
“Well, sure, like in games. You’re the Breeder, Glen’s the Medic, I’m the Explorer, and Blue’s the Battler.” She smiles. “Everyone has their strengths!”
“Aren’t we all Battlers?” Glen asks. “I mean, we’re all going for badges, at least…”
Elaine waves this off. “Oh, sure! We all multiclass. I was just focusing on our different specialties. Blue
double invested
in battling though, that’s why it’s his.”
Blue frowns. “That’s not…
in
accurate…” He guesses there wouldn’t be a “class” for what he’s actually trying to focus on, since “Leader” is more of a title.
Glen shrugs. “I don’t mind teaching what I know, though,” He looks at Aiko. “From the look of your nursing station I bet you know at least as much as me.”
“Maybe not. My focus has been more on rearing and natural health complications rather than injuries.”
“See?” Elaine points. “Breeder!”
Aiko smiles. “Well, maybe if we find this absol I can add Tracker to the classification. Or am I only allowed two?”
“Oh, not at all, I mean, look at Professor Oak, he’s like a level 10 for four different classes—”
“There are
levels?
”
“Oh yeah, and unique Specializations, and Prestige titles, and—”
“Speaking of finding the absol, everyone ready to head out again?” Blue asks. Aiko shoots him a thankful look as she hops to her feet, and Blue smiles at her as the others do the same. His knees are still a bit sore, but his energy is back, and soon they’re on their way again.
Glen once again sets the pace by dint of his age, but he’s either more tired than he seemed or more aware that the others had trouble keeping up, because the new pace he sets is a bit easier to match. Blue still has to push himself, but at lunch Glen once again hands out the bottles, which they gratefully accept. Once Blue has recovered a bit and everyone’s various bodily needs are taken care of, he decides to bring up their strategy for the caves.
“Elaine.” She looks at him as she finishes the last of her lunch. “You’re running a tangela, graveler, drowzee, psyduck, fearow, and grimer, right?” She nods, and he turns to Glen. “You brought your snorlax, donphan, machoke, gloom, quagsire, and…?”
“Butterfree.”
“Right.” Glen has the most pokemon of all of them, enough to actually have a solid group of “favorites,” which in his case seem to be slow, physically tough pokemon that hit hard. It’s good that he brought the gloom and butterfree to adapt to where they’re going and what they’ll be facing there. “Aiko, you have your raticate, sandslash, venonat, eevee, oddish, and krabby?”
“Yep. And your abra.” She smiles.
“You memorized all that?” Elaine asks, eyes wide.
Blue nods. “Gotta know what I’m working with to plan. I brought my wartortle, pidgeotto, shroomish, shiftry, shinx, and rhyhorn. So we have a pretty wide spread of water, grass, ground, bug, and flying pokemon, with a few others thrown in. Considering the close quarters we’ll be in, I think we should plan for a Diamond or Straggle depending on how tight the tunnels are,” Blue says, citing the formations they’d practiced at Vermilion Gym. “Shiftry can fight well in tight spaces, so Kemuri can make a strong front for either. With a tangela or donphan to tank, Aiko’s raticate or sandslash can go for the quick damage.”
“Straggle makes sense, if the path is twisty,” Glen says. Elaine looks like she wants to say something, but stops herself. Glen doesn’t notice. “But for the absol, when there’s enough room, I think we should use a Pivot instead of a Diamond, with my snorlax as the anchor.”
Blue gives Elaine a moment to respond, but she just bites her lower lip, brow furrowed. “We have a good set of agile attackers,” Blue finally says. “So it should work out. But I’ve never tried it before. Any of you?” Glen’s the only one to raise a hand. “Okay, let’s practice it then, while you lead us through it.”
They set up pokedolls and summon their pokemon. Glen’s snorlax is still small for its species, but plenty big enough to completely hide all four of them if they stand directly behind it as Glen calls out the timing for their attacks. Soon Blue gets the rhythm of it down and offers his own suggestions, which they take turns trying as one of them acts as the attacker with their own pokemon. The pressure on Glen’s snorlax lets up as Blue times their attacks so that he’s never fighting on his own, and soon none of the attackers are able to get a hit on any of them but the snorlax, even Blue when he tries it himself and Elaine, Aiko, and Glen practice calling the shots.
“I’ve been trying to premortem this,” Aiko says, face sheened with sweat as she sits beside Eevee and catches her breath. “Chingling and bronzor are really rare, but there are some down there. What about attackers that come from above?”
“Having someone dedicated to watching above us should make sure we’re not caught by surprise,” Blue says.
She nods. “What about protection from ground attacks?”
“Well, we’ve got some powerful ground pokemon already,” Glen says. “If they try to dig under the barriers, our ground attacks will finish them quickly, or send them running.”
“Right, but I’m talking about minimizing risk. We can still get hurt from those attacks if the diglett are near us.” Elaine is about to speak, but Aiko continues before she can. “Oh, I guess depending on the terrain, we can stand on container boxes.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Blue says. He waits for Elaine to say something again, but she stays silent. She notices him staring at her and smiles slightly, so he smiles back and moves on. “The most important thing is to make sure that we don’t keep them in one place for too long, or else their attacks will damage the area of the tunnel we’re in,” he says, citing the tips and advice he read up on while in Vermilion. “Fight until too many arrive, then retreat together to another chamber. If they cause a cave in, well, we have pokemon that can dig us free.”
“Let’s still try to avoid that,” Aiko says. “If we stay down too long and I can’t teleport back for the night… my dad would worry,” she says, clearly settling for an inadequate choice of words.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think any of us are interested in being trapped below ground, even with enough supplies to live through it.” The others nod. Blue realizes he feels less winded from their practice battles, and checks the time. “Another five minutes of rest, or should we go now?”
They vote for another five minutes, and Aiko unclips a couple pokeballs, summoning her eevee and raticate. “Will we make it to a cave before nightfall? Jump!” Her pokemon leap in place, practicing their ability to avoid ground attacks. She tosses them a couple pokepuff pieces. “If not, we should slow down. My legs are already aching and I’d rather they still be functional when I head back. Jump!”
Blue looks at the map to see their progress so far. He blinks, amazed by how much ground they’ve covered: they’re east of Saffron City now. “Between Elaine’s route and how fast we’ve been going, we’ll actually reach the town by the cave entrance we’re aiming for by sunset.” He looks around at them. “Since we’ll be spending the night outside the cave anyway for Aiko to teleport home, slowing down seems like a good idea. We’ll even be able to look around for some pokemon before we lose the light.”
“Ooo, yeah, there are some cool pokemon around there,” Elaine says. “Got a favorite in mind?”
“Yeah, kind of.” Blue smiles. “I’ve wanted an arcanine since I was a kid… begged Gramps to get us a growlithe, but he always said no.”
“Silly Professor,” Aiko remarks with a shake of her head. “Not getting you a fire-breathing dog.”
“I know, right?”
“Well, I’m okay with it, since we won’t be entering the caves today anyway. Jump! Good job!” She feeds them the rest of the pokepuff, then returns them to their balls. “Let’s get going!”
The sun is starting its downward arc when they reach the town of Golden Hills, which helps make its name more than just a geographic reference. It’s a relatively small town, just one pokemon center and trainer market, but oddly empty even given that: virtually no traffic, foot or otherwise, and stores that seem empty of customers, or even workers at times.
But what sends a faint chill up Blue’s spine are the ofuda hanging from most doors and windows that they pass. The kanji covered strips of paper flutter in the breeze, amplifying the relative silence somehow.
Aiko whistles. “Anyone know if this place is always like this?”
“What are those?” Glen asks. “I’ve seen them in other places before, but never this many.”
“Wards against evil spirits and bad luck,” Blue says. “Or to purify or exorcise… things like that.”
“So many, though, was there like an incident with Ghost pokemon here recently or something?” Elaine asks, face pale. “Because I’m okay with camping out if there’s any chance of it happening again.”
“None of us got Ranger alerts to warn us away, right?” Blue asks, and the others shake their heads, Glen checking his phone again with a frown. “Let’s just ask someone what’s up.”
They soon spot a woman walking in the opposite direction, her primeape walking at her side, occasionally hopping onto trash cans or clinging diagonally to light poles before scurrying back to her. “Hey there,” Glen says with a wave. “Can you tell us what’s been going on around here?”
She slows and holds a hand to her side in a gesture, causing the primeape to settle restlessly by her feet. “Just arrived? I guess they haven’t put it out after all. Town is under siege, so to speak.”
Blue looks around at the silent, mostly empty streets. “Under siege from…?”
“The absol,” she says, and Blue feels a resigned sort of understanding, with an undercurrent of dull anger. “One was spotted outside town this morning, and there have been a number of incidents since. Lots of minor tremors, a few car crashes, a house fire, some wild pokemon incursions. That sort of thing.”
“Has anyone died?” Blue asks, trying not to sound exasperated.
“A couple have, yeah,” she says, surprising him. “Council put a bounty on any absol after someone in town fell down the stairs and broke their neck. Then a trainer who went after them was killed. Now they’re trying to tell the Rangers to declare a state of emergency, but last I heard they were resistant.”
“You don’t seem worried,” Aiko notes.
The woman shrugs. “Pao will protect me. And I’m not afraid of bad luck.” She lifts a chain out of her shirt to show them a protective charm. “You guys should probably pass through quickly, though, unless you have your own protection.”
“Right. Thanks,” Blue says, and watches her as she walks on, a slight frown on his face. When he looks at the others he sees Aiko looking thoughtful and Elaine worried.
Glen, however, just looks confused as he reads from his pokedex. “I don’t get it. Absol can only learn Fire attacks through TM and can’t learn any Ground attacks. Why is the town blaming earthquakes and house fires on one?”
“You don’t have absol in your region?” Aiko asks. Glen shakes his head. “Most folk around here think they cause bad luck. Less superstitious sort just consider them harbingers of misfortune.”
“And the Rangers don’t agree, I guess?”
Blue anticipates Red’s answer before remembering that he’s not here. Instead it’s Aiko who says, “It’s obviously just confirmation bias. Rangers probably get a dozen reports every time an absol shows up somewhere, but have looked at the stats and seen that the amount of car crashes or whatever are normal for that day and time, or maybe it’s a slight outlier but people only notice when an absol is around.”
For the third time that day, Blue notices that Elaine looks like she wants to say something, but doesn’t. She’s normally so talkative that he starts to worry that something’s wrong. She does still seem worried… “You okay, Elaine?”
“Hm?” She blinks at him. “Oh. Fine, sure. You bet!” She smiles.
“You just seemed like you had something on your mind.”
“Ah, well…” She fidgets. “I was just thinking, like, what about the quakes?” Elaine asks. “And the fire?”
“There are diglett tunnels nearby!” Aiko says. “Maybe the quakes led to the fire… they probably encouraged some of the wild pokemon incursions too.”
Glen nods. “Or… I mean, people are clearly nervous. Not paying as much attention as they should be. That might be what caused the fire, the accident with the stairs, some of the crashes too.”
Elaine looks back and forth between them, then down. Blue frowns. He doesn’t want to push her to speak if she doesn’t want to, but something about her body language bothers him.
In the ensuing quiet Blue realizes that Aiko is looking at him, and raises a brow. “What?”
“What do you think?” Aiko asks.
“Not sure, to be honest.” Blue turns and starts walking toward the pokemon center again, and a moment later he hears the others follow. “I’ve heard all this stuff before, you know?”
“About absol?”
“About any Dark pokemon. Absol are particularly feared, but most people here think all Dark pokemon are bad luck or cause misfortune in some way.”
“Here being…?” Glen asks.
Aiko ticks them off with her fingers. “Kanto, Johto, Iwate, Hoenn, Okayama, Sinnoh… the whole island chain, and most of the smaller islands around them. In the native language, the word for the type is actually closer to ‘Evil’ than ‘Dark.'”
“Oof. That must be rough for people who are Dark. But for absol specifically, you don’t think it causes bad luck?”
Blue shrugs. “If absol can purposefully cause bad luck in some way, no trainer has been able to figure out how to get them to do it.”
“Right,” Aiko says. “Nor any coordinator.”
That seems to settle the discussion, but Blue glances to the side where Elaine is walking, unsure of why he’s so concerned about her. He sees her frowning down at the ground and the feeling grows. He tries to place it, to understand what’s bothering him about her silence.
He doesn’t figure it out before they reach the pokemon center, a fairly small building with just a waiting room and front desk open to the public. They pass a few groups of trainers in the waiting room to reach the counter, where the receptionist takes the pokemon they’ve been training with over the past couple days. Aiko goes first, then Glen, who then answers the health related questions for Blue and Elaine’s pokemon as well, giving a far more detailed description than Blue would have been able to.
They find a bench to sit down at and begin strategizing for their venture into the tunnels. Aiko starts to explain how they should each take a few minutes to come up with ideas on their own, but soon they’re interrupted by a pair of Rangers walking into the room and looking around.
“Can I get everyone’s attention a moment?” The older one says, and the dozen or so other trainers all focus on them. “Thank you. As you may have heard, the town council is asking the nearest Ranger Outposts for a response to the recent… incidents, around town. We’ve not yet deemed the situation worth a full alert or mobilization, but as a bounty has now officially been placed on any absol caught in the region, we’ve been dispatched to coordinate with any trainers preparing to hunt the creatures. If that includes you, come speak with us sometime this evening. Thank you.”
They go to sit at another table nearby. Blue shares a look with the others, and they all rise to approach the two rangers arriving between two other groups of three trainers each.
Blue listens in as the three in front of them list their pokemon and experience exploring or fighting in caves, then get instructions to meet the Rangers here the following morning. Once they step away, Blue approaches.
“Mr. Oak,” the ranger says, extending a hand. “Good evening. I’m Tanaka, this is Fischer. Here to lend your aid?”
Blue shakes it with a smile, glad as always to be recognized. “We are. This is Glen, Aiko, and Elaine. We came to track the absol before even hearing of the incidents around town, so the timing works out pretty well.”
“Well, we’re happy to have you. What experience does your group have with the diglett caverns?”
“It’ll be each of our first time there.”
“And other caves or tunnels?”
“None here.” Glen and Aiko shake their heads, and Blue sees Tanaka’s brow crease until Elaine raises her hand. “I took a few routes through Mt. Moon.”
“Main passages?”
“Just one of the four.”
Tanaka’s expression relaxes. “Excellent. Available pokemon?”
They list them, and Tanaka’s frown is back. “Well, you’re well equipped to handle the common tunnel natives, but Glen is the only among you that seems prepared for the absol.
“We can prepare around that,” Blue says. “Give support for his machoke.”
“How many badges do each of you have?” Ranger Fischer suddenly asks.
“Two,” Blue says, and Elaine nods.
“Three,” Glen says, and Aiko holds up a single finger.
Fischer looks at Tanaka, who nods. “It sounds like you four may be better off helping above ground. Your experience below ground is sufficient,” Fischer says to Elaine, then turns to Glen. “And I’m sure your machoke would be able to handle the absol, especially with support. But though you two doubtless have your own merits,” he says to Blue and Aiko, “You’re unsuited to this hunt. We would gladly accept your help with a perimeter or in defense of the town, but won’t be taking you below ground.”
Blue is silent for a moment, feeling the disappointment and frustration of those behind him, as well as their trust in him to say something, to make this right… “I understand your judgements, sir, but believe you’re mistaken.” Ranger Fischer’s eyes narrow ever so slightly at that, and Blue mentally kicks himself for the word choice. He remembers the dismissal from the one in Viridian Forest, when he got angry about not being let in on the action.
But this is different. It’s not about pride, I know we can do this.
“What I mean is, there’s more to us than what might show up on paper. We have knowledge and skills that make us more than capable to participate in this hunt.”
Tanaka speaks up before Fischer can. “As my partner said, we welcome any assistance you can give us, including knowledge. But I think he’s right to say that you’re not experienced enough, as a group. If you would like to split up for the duration of this hunt and accompany other groups, that of course is another option.” He looks at Aiko apologetically. “I’m afraid that with just one badge, I can’t in good conscience extend the same offer to you. Please know this has nothing to do with your potential as a trainer.”
“But I…” Aiko’s voice trails off, and Blue turns to her. He’s surprised to see the normally forceful girl look down and nod, face dejected.
She wants to be a Tracker,
he almost says, but refrains, knowing it won’t change their minds.
Instead he just nods to the rangers and leads the others away, to a bench farther from the rangers. Everyone is quiet and dejected until Blue says, voice low, “We’re still going.”
Aiko’s head snaps up, hope filling her face. “But…”
“The rangers tend to know what they’re doing, but these two are wrong in our case. I believe Elaine can tell us what we need to know to get us through the tunnel, that you can track it, Aiko, and that you can take it down, Glen. The four of us are going to find and catch this absol.”
Aiko nods, smiling, and Glen flashes a thumbs up. Elaine is biting at her lower lip, warring emotions on her face. “I think we can too, but… to go against their orders…”
“What orders?” Blue asks with a smile. “It’s not an official incident, remember? They’re just coordinating trainers in the area. Well, if we hadn’t come here tonight we may not have even spoken to them, and we’d still be going down there in the morning. Trust me, we’ll be okay.”
Elaine smiles back. “I do. Thanks for trusting me too.” She seems about to say something else when she notices three trainers approaching, and they all turn their attention to the newcomers.
Blue recognizes them as the three that were in line behind them, and one of them beyond that, from Vermilion Gym, an older girl with curly brown hair named Bretta who’s there for her fifth badge. They’ve trained together a couple times between their challenge matches, so he knows she’s a good trainer, if a bit stiff necked.
“Hey Oak. Came for the bounty too, huh?”
“We were in the area, actually,” he says, and nods to the other two, a guy and girl that are also about Glen’s age. They nod back. “You guys got the okay to go down tomorrow, then?”
“Yep. I couldn’t help overhearing some of your talk with Tanaka and figured, hey, I know you can hold your own. Plus, if you have some plan for finding the absol the way you grabbed all those abra, would make all this go faster.”
Blue feels a ripple of heat through his chest. She’s directing the invitation specifically at him, ignoring the others. He knows it makes sense, if she’s assuming that they’re staying up, but she could have at least offered to merge their groups. Worse than that, she’s slighting Red by assuming that Blue was the one who really came up with the abra trick. It’s a sentiment he’s heard before, though never in Red’s presence. It’s galling to have to turn away the status and prestige of it again and again.
“Actually, it’s Aiko here who’s going to track it for our group,” he says. “Thanks anyway.”
She frowns, turning to the others for the first time. “You’re the one with experience underground?”
“Nope. That’s her,” she says, pointing to Elaine.
Bretta looks back and forth between them. “Well, we can take the two of you instead, then, if you think you can handle it.”
Blue is tempted to speak up again, but holds himself back so his companions can speak for themselves. “I don’t think you heard Blue right,” Aiko says after a moment. “We’re all going down together.”
“Even with the rangers telling you not to?” The guy behind Bretta says, and shakes his head. “I’ve hunted Absol before, they’re no joke, you know? Stealthy, fast, and lethal when they go for a strike. There’s no shame in staying above ground, letting trainers with experience grab it.”
There may not have been before, but with that tone?
Blue looks at the others to make sure none are showing any second doubts, then turns back to the trio, trying to insert some finality in his tone. “We’ll be okay. Thanks.”
Bretta looks back and forth between them, then shrugs. “Your choice I guess. Hope I see you back in Vermilion.”
“Right. Same to you.”
Bretta and the boy walk away, while the other girl lingers a moment, seeming about to say something else. When she notices that the others haven’t stopped, she just turns back to them and says, “Good luck.”
Blue smiles. “You too.” He watches her hurry to catch up to the other two, then looks at his group mates… or his party, as Elaine would put it.
“Frankly?” Glen says after they’ve gone. “I’m a little miffed I wasn’t asked.”
“It’s ’cause they never tasted your energy drinks,” Elaine says with a grin.
“Or seen you in battle,” Aiko adds.
“Nah, I’ve actually battled Bretta a couple times,” Glen says, scratching his jaw. “I can’t tell if she really dislikes me, or has a crush on me.”
“Definitely one or the other, huh?” Aiko asks.
“Definitely.”
“Aiko,” Blue says, causing her to turn to him. “It’s not long until you get called to get your pokemon and head home. Do you need us to get anything, for you to track the absol?”
“Right, yeah. I’ve trained Sneaker to track pokemon. His nose is really good for finding specific species by dander from others, if the conditions are right.”
“What conditions?” Blue asks.
“The trail has to be relatively new, of course, more than a week gets iffy, with the chances dropping rapidly by the end of the second. Windy days are harder to track on, which isn’t a problem underground, but dryness also makes things difficult, which may be depending on where in the tunnels we end up. But as long as we find a place that the absol was likely to be around some time recently, I think we can find it… just need some fur, urine, and scat samples.”
“We can pick some up at the pokemart,” Glen says. “Anything else?”
“That’s all I’ll need, I think.”
“Okay then,” Blue says. “Then let’s go over the rest of our strategy, for real this time.”
“You have something in mind,” Glen comments, not a question.
Blue smiles. Bretta reminded him that, while he already misses having Red and Leaf around to generate ideas and bounce them around, he can at least show that he picked something up from the way they think. “As a matter of fact, I do…”
The next morning finds the town less deserted as people head to work or school, but there’s still less than there should be, and people move with nervous energy, as if worried about being outdoors for too long. The town’s “Trainer House” is more like a small apartment building, and as soon as Aiko teleports there, they head for the cave entrance that Elaine picked out. Blue expects it to be a barely visible fissure in the hilly countryside, lost and forgotten about by most, and while it does turn out to be hard to find, when they reach the entrance they see a string taped to either end of the opening, more ofuda hanging from it across the opening.
They store their bikes, but keep their pads and helmets on as they take out the gear they bought last night: reflective jackets with inserted trackers, headlamps attached to straps. Blue brings Ion out, having already used the Flash TM on him. The others have at least one pokemon that have learned it too, in case Ion needs a rest or has to be returned, but for now the others take out their raticate, gloom, and psyduck for the tight passage.
Once they’re all ready, Elaine ducks beneath the string and leads the way with her oddish, with Blue and Ion just behind. The shinx’s fur begins to glow as the light fades behind them, and soon they’re traveling entirely by Ion’s illumination, which reveals a tunnel that’s narrow, but smooth.
The four don’t talk other than to warn of changes in footing, occasionally helping each other move over or around obstacles. Everyone’s too busy listening for tremors or the sound of tunneling pokemon to disturb the silence. They reach a fork, and Glen uses a can of iridescent paint to spray an arrow back the way they came in case their electronic map is lost or damaged. The hissing sound is loud and echoey in the long, narrow tunnels.
Blue quickly loses his sense of direction, but they keep marking the tunnels as they go, and he has to trust Elaine to guide them so he can focus on his job: keeping his attention shifting between walls, floor and even ceiling, particularly paying attention to the indents in the stone or soil. Holes, in truth, though only those along the ceiling are empty, the others mostly filled with dirt or rock left behind by whatever tunneled through them. Luckily they don’t appear to be in a part of the network with a high traffic of pokemon, or else they’re all scared off by the noise they make as they constantly change pokemon to fit through the passages.
They take another left at a fork where the ground abruptly drops off, helping each other climb down the steep slope, then travel another minute past a thin stream of water before they find a honeycomb of narrow passages that they have to crouch through, practically walking on hands and knees at one point. Blue has never felt claustrophobic before, but traveling through the dark, narrow corridor, earth and rock on every side, he could practically feel the weight of the ground above him. He hears distant rumbling and isn’t sure if it’s his imagination, then realizes he can feel it through his hands, a faint vibration.
Just some pokemon traveling deep underneath,
he assures himself, but still he crawls faster, almost bumping up against Elaine’s rear before she finally reaches the end and stands up. He pushes himself up and quickly shuffles forward to clear the area, then wipes a hand across his face, feeling sweat there. Soon Aiko and Glen are out too, and Blue wants to ask if they’re okay, but refrains, not wanting to appear nervous himself. It isn’t until they reach a central chamber with multiple, large corridors away that he feels like he can relax a bit, a sentiment he reads on the others’ expressions as they bring out their larger and stronger pokemon.
The sounds of pokeballs releasing is explosively loud in the small chamber, the echoes traveling down every passageway. Glen’s snorlax seems even more massive than usual in such a tight space, but it still has plenty of room to maneuver if needed, though some of the thinner corridors might give it issue.
“This is it,” Elaine says. “The closest central hub beneath the places the absol has been seen above ground.”
“Great job, Elaine. Looks like it’s your show now, Aiko,” Blue says.
She nods and takes the baggie of absol dander out. “Sneaker, smell.” Her pokemon goes rigid, and its nose begins to twitch and wriggle as Aiko opens the bag and holds it close. After a few moments of deep, strong sniffs from her raticate, Aiko seals the baggie up and puts it in a container ball. “Sneaker, track!”
Sneaker drops onto all fours and begins to rapidly rove over the rocky floor of the tunnel, long tail held up as he sniffs and snorts. The others scramble out of his way, constantly moving to avoid him as he goes this way and that.
“Nothing here,” she says after a minute.
“Okay,” Elaine says. “This way to the next one.”
They follow her, continuing to mark their way at every turn, until they reach another hub for Sneaker to check, then another, each with no luck. As their first hour beneath the earth passes, Blue starts to feel a nagging worry that they picked the wrong tunnel to enter from. Ion has been swapped out for Glen’s butterfree, who flaps above them, wings glowing with a bright white radiance that fills the chambers and lets him see similar expressions on the others’ faces, Aiko’s most of all.
He’s in the middle of reminding himself to trust his party members as they wait for Glen to finish spraying a new path choice when he hears a distant sound. Blue focuses his attention on his ears, eyes closed. Once Glen stops spraying, he notes that it’s still getting louder. “Something’s coming,” he whispers, and opens his eyes to see that the others have heard it too.
They quickly move back into the more open area between the branching tunnels and bring out their grass and water pokemon, standing with their backs to each other.
Blue doesn’t dare blink as he keeps his eyes moving from one hole to the other in the rock around them. He quickly takes his pokedex out and taps it to a pre-saved page, finger hovering over one of the buttons as his heart pounds in his chest. His mind is racing at first, but as the scratching gets louder and louder, the battle calm descends, steadying his hands and voice. “Anyone got a lock on where they’re coming from?”
“Check your pokemon,” Aiko says. “Some senses are better than ours. I got nothing from Oddish.”
“Same from Gloom,” Glen says.
Blue’s gaze snaps to Maturin, whose head seems turned to the right somewhere. “Between me and Glen?”
“I think Psyduck hears them there too,” Elaine says. “Hang on…” He hears her shift around behind him. “Yeah!”
“V formation,” Blue orders, and steps with Glen to face that direction, while Aiko and Elaine move forward and to the sides. He thinks through what’s about to happen and suddenly moves around Glen. “Aiko, swap with me. Elaine, Water Guns first, bubbles when they’re in range of the—”
The diglett appear, two, three, five, popping out of a hole at about chest level, while another three struggle to come up from an indent where the tunnel slopes up to its left. Their small brown bodies move quickly once in sight, darting this way and that on barely visible pink paws as they scramble for new indents to disappear through.
“Gaw!” Blue yells as the others give their own commands, and battle is joined, jets of water and puffs of pollen filling the cave as the diglett dodge or get blasted back. One darts through the cloud of pollen and goes for Aiko’s oddish, claws extended, but it has to dodge to the side as bubbles burst from Psyduck’s mouth.
Blue still holds his pokedex in one hand while the other holds a pokeball, expanded and aiming for any diglett that’s holding still too long. All the while he keeps an eye on the three coming from the side even as multiple ripples go through the ground and send him to one knee, taking the pain rather than risk looking away. His suspicion is confirmed when a pair of large claws emerge and push the dugtrio’s thick body out of the hole, its three heads tracking multiple enemies at once before it picks the oddish as its target.
“Bab!” Blue yells, and a stream of fizzing water jets out from Maturin with a crackling series of pops as the bubbles rake the ground and body of the dugtrio, knocking it to the side. It rolls back onto its paws and retaliates with a rake of one strong claw, chunks of the ground shooting forward and pelting Maturin with jagged shards.
The pain is enough to make her next attack miss, and the dugtrio uses the time to dash at Glen’s gloom. Blue chucks a pokeball at it, not bothering to lock on, just wanting to distract it. It pegs the dugtrio in the back, causing it to whirl around, then pop into an indent.
“Brace yourselves!” Aiko calls out before Blue can, and another series of rippling quakes, stronger than the last, makes the whole cavern shake, momentarily unbalancing them and their pokemon. The diglett are barely affected, however, and suddenly their pokemon are at risk of getting surrounded.
“Tighten up!” Glen says, and they step into a diamond formation again. “Gloom, Mega Drain!”
“Absorb! Where’s the ‘trio?” Aiko asks.
“I’m looking!” Blue keeps his neck craning around. “Ba!” Maturin’s bubbles cause a couple diglett to run, but one manages to scratch Glen’s gloom, forcing it to stop draining another one and turn to face its new attacker, who dances back out of reach and dives into another indent.
Blue is about to shout a command to fill the indent with water when another quake sends a shock up his legs, causing his ankles and knees to ache as his arms windmill for balance. Dust and pebbles rain around them.
We need to finish this soon,
Blue thinks, and considers tapping the dex screen. Then he sees the dugtrio poke its heads up and dash out of its hole and toward him.
Still in the envelope of icy calm, Blue stares the three heads down over the new pokeball that’s suddenly in his free hand, tracking it and waiting for the ping as he distantly hears Glen yell out in warning. He realizes it’s not going to make it on time just as the dugtrio leaps, and Blue steps to the side and turns his body sideways, avoiding all but one claw. It shreds through his jacket’s undermesh, only to snag in the one below his shirt and send a flare of pain through his side.
The weight of it spins Blue around and lands him on his rear. He scrambles back and prepares to press the dex as the dugtrio approaches, then leaps again—only to see it get sprayed with water from an advancing Maturin, who plants herself solidly in front of Blue as the dugtrio tumbles to the ground.
Blue makes his decision and closes the pokedex, jamming it in his pocket as he gets to his feet.
We can do this,
he thinks, just as the dugtrio raises its heads and gives a triple cry of pain and rage. The closest three diglett who saw what happened suddenly pause in their attacks on others, then turn toward Maturin.
Oh shit.
“AoE on her!” Blue yells as he dives to the side to put Elaine’s psyduck between him and the dugtrio. “Maturin, Wa!”
The diglett all converge on Maturin, burying her in a pile of brown fuzz and slashing claws. Blood flicks out, and a moment later a double cloud of yellow and blue particles covers the lot of them as Aiko and Glen command their pokemon to blanket the area with sleep powder and stun spores.
As the diglett pile begins to slow and stiffen, Blue watches Elaine’s psyduck blast the dugtrio again and again as it tries to attack it, then scrambles for one of the indents. Her pokeballs are aimed and ready when it gets penned in by another burst of spores by the gloom and oddish over the escape routes, and as the dugtrio pauses momentarily, unsure which way to go, five pokeballs ping in rapid succession and are thrown: two by Elaine, one by Glen and Aiko, and one by Blue, who has risen to a crouch.
It’s impossible to tell which one catches it, once the flash fades and the five balls roll across the ground in different directions, their attention is immediately on the rest of the diglett.
Those that weren’t stunned or put to sleep turn to flee through some indent or the other, and the trainers quickly capture the remaining three. Blue quickly withdraws Maturin, stomach clenched at the sight of all the blood even as he swaps in Gon.
The four trainers and their pokemon are still and alert, breathing hard as they look around for any sign of continued attack. By the time a full minute has passed, they’ve all relaxed to varying degrees, and finally Blue returns Gon to his ball, glad the shroomish can stay fresh after all. “Everyone okay?”
“Fine,” Glen says, then goes to check his pokemon, potion in hand. “Gloom looks okay too.” He gestures his butterfree to come down and rest on his arm, then feeds her a berry while murmuring some praise.
“We’re good,” Elaine says, spraying a nasty cut along psyduck’s stomach, then wiping her pokemon clean of blood and dirt with some wet naps.
“Same here.” Aiko gingerly touches her oddish’s grassy shoots where a couple have been ripped, then feeds her pokemon.
Blue nods, then checks his wound. The majority of the claw stopped by the armor mesh, leaving just a shallow hole between two ribs. Glen notices and comes to help him clean and spray it.
“No pain when you breathe?” Glen asks as he finishes.
“Nah, it didn’t hit the rib.”
“Lucky.”
“Yeah.” He lifts Maturin’s ball and summons the wartortle. Blood stains his pokemon’s shell, but once he’s woken his pokemon up and gotten her to extend her limbs for healing, he smiles in relief, something in his chest relaxing. Her worst wounds are from the dugtrio, meaning she must have withdrawn on time before the diglett reached her. He suspects all the blood on her shell is theirs, the pokemon having cut each other in their frenzy.
He makes sure she’s fully healed, then rubs her shell and makes sure she eats and drinks her fill before joining the others in gathering the thrown pokeballs, particularly the ones with diglett in them.
“One for each of us,” Blue says. “Nice job, everyone. Thanks in particular for saving Maturin.”
“Of course. She did great against the ‘trio,” Aiko says.
“Good callouts, by the way,” Glen says. “Very smooth fight.”
“Yep!” Elaine is practically hopping with leftover energy. “Calls for a victory dance, I’d say.” They all watch her take her phone out and tap at something. “Oh, let me bring the volume down… Ready?”
“Uhh. What are we readying for?” Aiko asks.
“Victory dances! You guys don’t do that?” She looks around at them with a bright smile.
“No,” Blue says. “Best I can give you is a fist bump?”
“Hm. Well, that’s kind of like a pose. Just do poses then. Ready?” Before anyone can respond, she taps the screen again. A cheerfully triumphant jingle (set at low volume, but nevertheless filling the cavern) sounds, and they all watch her perform a spin, then widen her stance and hold a V up with one hand, grinning wide.
They all stare at her. After a few seconds, Blue tentatively extends a fist, and Glen stretches his own out to tap it. Aiko covers a giggle with one hand as the other joins theirs.
Elaine drops her hand. “Good first attempt,” she says, grinning. “Next time, add some pizzazz!”
“Will do,” Blue says. “Assuming ‘next time’ is
also
in a deep cave far away from any witnesses or recording devices, but also pitch black.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“…is it?”
“This one’s the dugtrio,” Aiko interrupts with a smile, and winks at Blue when he meets her gaze. “Should we RNG who it goes to?”
“Hang on, let me check…” Blue takes the ball and examines the lid, but to his disappointment doesn’t find his initials on it. “Damn, not one of mine.”
“You marked yours? Not a bad idea,” Glen says, looking at the diglett balls. “This one’s yours, then.” Glen grins as he holds it out. “Guess you’re excluded from the dugtrio pool.”
“Hang on, says who?”
Aiko puts her hands on her hips. “Would you have claimed the ‘trio if your ball hit it?”
Blue grumbles and takes the diglett as the others laugh. In truth he’s feeling pretty good about their first team battle, and watches with a smile as Glen assigns himself as 1, Aiko as 2, and Elaine as 3, then rolls a 3 sided die on his phone. The dugtrio goes to Aiko, who attempts a mimic of Elaine’s victory twirl and V, much to the other girl’s delight.
As everyone registers their new pokemon, Blue says “Be right back” and ducks into a side tunnel to change out of his torn clothing. He puts on fresh shirt and jacket, then returns to the others. “Alright, let’s take a quick rest, then get back to it. Meanwhile, what did we learn from that fight? Nice job mentioning our pokemon’s senses,” he tells Aiko. “Definitely going to keep that in mind.”
She nods. “I liked our formation, it did a great job of keeping them boxed in.”
“Right!” Elaine says. “Though their ability to pop into the ground was annoying.”
“Right, that,” Blue says. “If we ever have time to prepare a battle area ahead of time for some reason, we should plug those holes somehow, maybe fill them with leech seeds or powders.”
“Would it be worth using your earlier idea?” Glen asks Aiko. “Taking container boxes out and standing on them?”
“Maybe,” Aiko says. “Would probably save some joint pain during those quakes. But I just realized that unless you guys each have a whole container full of stuff you don’t care about losing, we risk losing things we need if we have to evacuate the chamber.”
They talk for another few minutes, at some point taking snacks out and turning the rest into an impromptu food break. Once everyone feels ready to move on, they resume their journey down the tunnel they were going to take.
Twenty minutes of stumbling up an incline, crouching below another short passage, and inching around a small underground lake later, they’re in another hub cavern, almost a dozen paths extending from it in every direction, and this time when Sneaker sniffs the baggie and runs around, his movements are different.
“He’s got something,” Aiko says as her pokemon starts to spend more and more time at one of the tunnel entrances. “I think it might… Sneaker, stop!”
Her pokemon aborts the mad rush forward it had just begun, and looks back over its shoulder at her, tail lashing back and forth.
“Okay then,” Blue says, adjusting his bag straps. “Let’s go.”
They follow the raticate from one tunnel to the next, staying on high alert for any pokemon that might make an appearance, absol or otherwise. Thankfully absol are fairly large, and none of the passages are too narrow for them to follow the scent as it takes them deeper down beneath the earth.
Occasionally Sneaker reaches a fork where he can’t seem to decide which way to go. Aiko confers with Elaine when this happens, looking the map over to see where the different paths lead and using other factors to make a decision. She instructs Glen to mark their choice with an open circle in addition to the arrow, and on the two occasions where they lose the trail and head back, has him draw an X through it.
“I think we’re getting close,” Aiko says as this begins to happen more and more often.
“Do we know if we’re following its most recent trail, or its most common one?” Blue asks.
“No, it could be either.”
“So we could be about to stumble onto it, or reach its nest?”
“Yeah. It might be there, though, they don’t have a set sleep schedule and this one might be nocturnal, since the sightings were all near sunset or sunrise.”
They make an extra effort to move more quietly. Blue can feel the renewed tension in the others and himself as they make their way through a curving tunnel, and in the deeper silence he picks up the distant sound of running water.
They reach another wide chamber and slow to a stop as Sneaker starts to walk in circles. The stream Blue heard is there, a tiny river flowing from a hole in one wall, down a shallow slope and into a crack at the other end.
“Back to the last fork?” he whispers.
“No, look.” Aiko points to Sneaker, who’s sniffling around at the far wall. “I think this is it!”
Blue sucks in his breath, taking a renewed look around, eyes trying to pick out any clues as they slowly move through the chamber. They all start to spot them at once, now that they’re paying attention.
“Some fur, here!”
“Scratch marks, yeah—”
“You smell that?
“Sh!” Blue says, and everyone quiets. They stand in silence for a moment, listening to nothing but the trickling water. Blue looks to their pokemon, who seem relaxed, curious about their surroundings. Sneaker is still snuffling at the ground excitedly, and Aiko hushes him by feeding him some poffin and stroking his fur. Glen’s gloom goes to drink from the stream, and soon the other pokemon joins it. “Okay, I guess it’s not around.” He takes his bag off, and the others do the same as he examines the other paths. There are three in total, including the one they came from: one that’s set high up in the wall, high enough that Blue would need a boost to pull himself up to it.
“So, we found the nest. That means Plan A, right?” Glen asks after a minute.
“On it,” Aiko says, and picks through her bag for the right container ball. It was difficult finding an easily carried food that absol would particularly enjoy that other pokemon down here wouldn’t, and they eventually settled on raw beef, since diglett aren’t carnivores and they’re the most common pokemon in the caverns. They help Aiko lay the meat out, enough for an adult absol to eat as a meal, and laced with just enough tranquilizer to put it to sleep for four to five hours.
“Might be a long wait,” Aiko says once they’re done. “We don’t know how long ago it left. We might have just missed it.”
The others look to Blue, who considers their options. “We have to vacate the area anyway so we don’t scare it off,” he says. “Assuming our presence hasn’t already. We can go up and hang out for a bit, then come back down to check every hour. But if we’re leaving the area anyway, I say we do Plan B too. Elaine, where’s the closest above-ground entrance? Not the one that we came in through, right?”
“Let me see… Umm… no, there’s a closer one… it’s not one humans can navigate though. Too tight in some places.”
“Too tight for an absol, even?”
“Hard to tell. Don’t think so?”
“Okay.” He bends down to scoop up some of the absol fur off the floor. “Lead us there.”
Plan B was a combination of what Aiko has learned about tracking pokemon and what Blue imagined Red would do if he was with them. They follow the path Elaine takes them for long as they can, eventually reaching a tunnel that tightens down and down until they could
maybe
crawl through it. Instead they put more laced meat there, then make their way back to the last defensible spot. Blue hands the fur to Aiko, who puts it in an empty container ball, then uses a pokedex app to scan the container contents. “Female,” she says after a moment.
They set up portable speakers, connect them to their pokedex… then begin to play a male Absol mating call in both directions, one toward the tunnel leading to the surface, the other back towards its nest.
Glen brings his machoke and snorlax out, while Elaine summons her tangela and Aiko her sandslash. Blue brings Ion out for light, and Kemuri out for battle. As soon as the shiftry notices its surroundings it becomes visibly agitated. His pokemon has come a long way from the unruly beast it first was, however, and he’s grown as a trainer as well. A stern command for “relaxed readiness,” followed by some pokepuff as a reward, and soon the shiftry is still.
“Let’s plug up these indents, just in case” Blue says, and they busy themselves making the chamber as diglett proof as they can while counting down an hour so they can check the bait.
The mating call repeats every minute, on the minute, a crooning, purring sound that echoes through the tunnels, almost like the breathing of some giant feline. It’s soothing in a way, and Blue has to work to keep himself alert… until a second cry quickly follows the first, and snapping him to full attention. Blue immediately ends the speakers’ autoplay, and they all sit or stand rigid where they are, ears strained.
“That wasn’t an echo, right?” Elaine eventually asks, just before the cry repeats itself.
Blue presses the play on his dex again, mouth dry. The male mating call is sent out again, and they all begin to slowly prepare themselves. The next response is closer, then closer still, and Blue wonders if it’s coming from the nest chamber yet. After the next call is sent out, there’s no response. Blue waits another minute and sends it again, heart in his throat. Still nothing.
“Aiko,” he whispers. “Keep going?”
“Let’s check the bait. It’s had enough time to put her to sleep, now…”
They pack everything up and withdraw all their pokemon but the shinx, sandslash and tangela, then move out, as quickly but quietly as they can. Soon they reach the nest. As Ion sheds light on the chamber, they see the absol.
Fur as white as a cloud, almost glowing, with a face and horn and tail black as pitch, seeming to absorb the light. Its red eyes study them as they enter, not moving from the corner where it’s standing, whole body tense. The meat in the chamber has been nibbled at, but it’s hard to tell how much was eaten.
Their pokemon tense as they spot the stranger, and Blue gestures to the sides. Aiko and Elaine spread out to cover the other two entrances, while Blue and Glen unclip their shiftry and machoke’s balls. “We’ve got it,” Blue breathes, not daring to blink in case the white and black shape vanishes or moves. “Just don’t—”
Blue stops.
Something’s wrong.
His hair is standing on end. His heart is pounding. He tries to clear his thoughts, think about what feels so strange.
It’s not tension, or fear. It’s… something more primal.
He tries to remember everything he heard and read about absol, suddenly paying more attention to the more “superstitious” accounts. People saying they felt death’s hand on their shoulder. People saying they felt doom staring them in the eyes.
People saying they felt a sense of
wrongness
.
“Get it together, Blue,” he whispers, and realizes a moment later that he spoke out loud.
“What?” Glen whispers back.
Blue shakes his head and grips his pokeball tight, wanting to summon Kemuri but not wanting to start the fight without realizing what’s wrong… But maybe once it starts and he has his battle calm, things will be clearer…
The calm.
That’s what’s missing. He should feel calm by now. Cold. Focused. Not… this.
Blue quickly triggers his pokeball’s silent release and snaps his arm out to summon Kemuri, Glen does the same beside him. Their pokemon appear in a double flash of light… then tense, staring at the absol.
The absol stares back.
Blue licks his lips. The others are waiting for his lead. Why isn’t he ordering an attack? Why does he feel… trapped?
What’s wrong with me?
“Blue?” Glen whispers. “You okay?”
“Glen, do you feel weird?”
“What?”
“How do you feel, right now?”
His friend’s lips part. He blinks. His throat works. Even before he responds, Blue knows: he feels the same way.
What’s wrong?
Doesn’t matter. They have to catch it, now, while they have the advantage.
“On three,” he whispers. “One… two…”
He hears something.
“Low kick!” Glen says, just as Blue shouts, “Wait!”
The machoke blurs into action as soon as the command is given, however, and far faster than Glen can call out for it to stop, the absol leaps to meet it, and battle is joined.
“
Fuck,”
Blue says, still not even sure why this feels like a mistake, they have it trapped… “Lar!” he commands, and Kemuri leaps forward to help with a Razor Leaf.
The absol is a blur of white and black as it avoids the machoke’s kicks, so fast that she slips between his legs and attempts to hamstring him with her horn. The machoke bellows in pain and pivots to kick at her again with his good leg, but she dances back… then has to dodge to the side as Kemuri’s sharp leaves slice a line along its side.
Aiko and Elaine send their pokemon in next, driving the absol into the corner of the chamber again. It leaps and slashes with its horn and tail like a propeller, severing leaves and vines from the shiftry and tangela, sending blood arcing from the sandslash and machoke, then leaping back in the next movement so that the return blows are just glancing. Elaine gives up on trying to entangle it with vines and sends out sleep powder, but the absol simply leaps between the machoke and shiftry, too fast for them to stop it and forcing the sandslash to intercept it. A part of Blue notices that their pokemon aren’t as coordinated as they should be, and chalks it up to their enemy’s bizarre movement patterns, the way it seems to change its mind constantly mid-action, giving the impression that it will strike one way while attacking another and avoiding a blow at the same time.
There’s still no battle calm, Blue’s heart pounding in his throat as he yells commands to Kemuri and the others. He still feels like something is wrong. But despite that, and the absol’s absurd grace, Blue can see that they’re winning. Less than a minute has passed since the battle started, but little by little, the absol is being forced back, taking hits that are forcing it to be more and more defensive. They step closer as their pokemon close the net a little more, their balls held out to try and get a steady lock.
“Almost got it,” he says to the others. “Slow and steady…” He takes a deep breath as he watches the absol back up another step, looking for an opening, then leaping toward Kemuri. “Lar!” He yells, and his shiftry swings out to score another hit and force her toward Aiko’s sandslash, who swipes at her. The absol skitters back, bleeding from four or five shallow wounds. Not enough to kill her, but enough to slow her down… they just have to catch her now. They try to aim around their pokemon as the absol continues to feint left and right.
It’s as Blue is straining his ears to listen for the
ping,
already half congratulating his team for their capture and chiding himself for his earlier worry, that he hears something else.
Blue’s head turns, seemingly in slow motion, and he looks past the alarm that slowly spreads across Glen’s face to Aiko’s sandslash. It’s bleeding from two deep cuts, practically vibrating with restrained tension… but it’s not looking at the absol.
It’s looking all around them, head jerking one way, then the other.
Blue crouches to one knee and places a hand against the ground… and feels the vibrations that are now constant, and growing. He hears the scratch and scramble of digging that’s coming from seemingly every direction.
Panting, bleeding, coiled like a spring, the absol still seems to stare at Blue from between their pokemon, her red eyes like twin blood moons, her gaze an omen of coming doom.
Blue’s mouth is open, but it was Elaine who shouted, beating him to the warning by a second as she turns to face the oncoming rumble of digging pokemon, hands reaching for her pockets.
Blue is faster there, having grabbed two bottles of pokemon repellent the moment he recognized the sound of the oncoming pokemon and realized its implications. The renewed jolt of adrenaline cuts through his confusion for a moment, and his voice is steady as it follows Elaine’s warning. “Elaine, stay on the absol! You and Glen on dexes, Aiko with me on repels!” He begins spraying Elaine down, keeping the triggers pressed until the cans are empty and she’s liberally coated, then tossing them aside and getting another two out for Aiko.
She’s already spraying Glen, who keeps his focus on the absol, though he’s taken his pokedex out and is holding it up. “Tell me when!” Glen says. “Machoke, Submission!”
Blue glances to the side to see the absol dance out of the machoke’s reach, then turns his attention back to his task. The rumbling is louder, and the first diglett shows up far to their right, popping out of the wall and dropping to the ground before dashing toward the opposite wall, giving the five battling pokemon a wide berth. Blue knows they won’t all be so skittish, however, and even as he finishes spraying Aiko down, he reaches into Glen’s bag pockets for two of his repel cans and runs a quick line between the four of them and the diglett that are now arriving in twos and threes from all along the wall and ceiling.
Blue starts spraying a double line of repellant along the cavern floor, and Aiko summons a container box and leaps onto it, just as diglett start pouring out of the dozen or so indents along the floor, wall and occasional hole in the ceiling. “Now!” Blue yells as their furry brown bodies and sharp claws start scrambling toward them, and from behind Glen and Elaine’s pokedexes come the echoing screeches of a pidgeot and a fearow.
The sounds are incredibly loud in the small cavern, drowning out the rumbling of the diglett. They leave Blue’s ears ringing, but he immediately sees the effect on the tide of diglett: they begin scrambling for the closest hole, often fighting against each other to see who would fit in them first, while some of the bigger ones start to make their own.
Unfortunately the dugtrio among the horde are less frightened, and while most scramble around and away from the four smelly trainers, two of them come straight at them.
“Ba!” Blue yells, and Maturin spits a handful of bubbles out in a spray that catches one of the dugtrio and knocks it back with the explosive pop. “Bab!” The bubblebeam focuses on the other one and hits it away too, but a third turns from the side and dashes at Elaine until Aiko’s oddish shoots a cloud of spores at it. It stumbles to a stop, sneezes, then turns to face the new threat, movements slower.
Blue turns to focus on the other two again, pokeballs trying to get a lock as Maturin spits water and bubbles again and again to fend them off. One dives below the ground, and Blue has a moment of relief until he feels the ground vibrating below the box they’re standing on. Dust rains from the ceiling, and more diglett are still pouring out of the wall. A particularly large one joins the dugtrio in attacking them, and when the dugtrio that caused the quake pops back up to their left, Blue quickly swaps an empty ball out to summon Gon. The shroomish manages to hold it off, but with its three heads and quick movements, it’s almost impossible to really stop.
Worse than that, with three pokemon out Blue can barely pay attention to Kemuri, and within moments both he and Aiko’s split focus is punished by a cry of pain from her sandslash, then another from Kemuri.
“Ours here too,” Aiko says, and a moment later her oddish is pierced by a dugtrio’s long claws. “Shit, return! Go, Sneaker!”
Shit is right.
The diglett have finally stopped coming out of the wall, and most have fled, but there are three dugtrio and a big diglett still in the chamber with them, popping in and out of the ground to attack their pokemon from various angles. Blue can see Maturin is running out of water, and with Kemuri busy he doesn’t have any other pokemon that can really stand up to the diglett as well. Worst of all, the constant shocks to the cavern have begun sending dust and pebbles down on them.
“We can’t hold like this,” Blue yells between commands. A dugtrio gouges a chunk of Gon’s fungal dome off, and Blue quickly jumps off the box with a potion in hand to spray his pokemon, unable to risk returning him just yet. He leaps back onto the box as Aiko shouts a warning, and barely avoids the spew of rocks and dirt that one of the dugtrio aims at him. Blue drops the potion bottle without re-attaching it and takes an empty pokeball out, hand steady but heart pounding in his throat.
Could really use that battle calm about now.
“Gon, sal! Guys, how’s the absol?”
“We still can’t pin it down! We’ll have to let it go!” Elaine says.
Blue grits his teeth. If they let it go now, it won’t return to this chamber after being caught here, especially with all the repel they’ve sprayed. But if they keep fighting like this someone is going to lose a pokemon soon, or worse…
Frustration wells up, turns black and bitter inside him. He should just order them to stop holding back, to finish it off. Better that than letting it get away and losing it. Hell, it’s already injured, it might just end up killing itself, like the pikachu in the forest did.
The memory brings up another one: catching Kemuri the way he did, the shock and horror of those with him. Gramps telling him in Pewter later to be more careful how he does things.
We came here to capture it, not kill it. We’ll have another chance.
“One more attempt, all together!” He shouts at last. “Try to get a lock and throw, then give it a path to leave!”
As one, Blue and Aiko wheel around on their box and dash toward their pokemon penning the absol in, pokeballs extended. Blue takes a deep breath, aims at the leaping, slashing blur of black and white, and as he lets the breath out, holds the balls as steady as he can as he tracks its movements.
He hears three pings, one after another, and throws both balls without being sure if the locks were his own or someone else’s. The others throw their balls too, but the absol, still evading the machoke’s grabs, leaps back onto the wall of the cavern, its claws gripping the stone for a moment to avoid the half a dozen pokeballs and great balls… all but for one, which hits it in the leg, bounces off…
…and tumbles to the ground. It wasn’t one that locked on.
Blue doesn’t waste another second, merely turning and running back for the box as he takes in the situation. Their pokemon are scratched and bleeding, Maturin even retreating to her shell unprompted, which let two of the dugtrio gang up on Gon, who’s desperately shooting out cloud after cloud of spores in every direction to keep them away. “Let it go, give it a path to go! Guard our backs Glen and Elaine! Kemuri, here! Lar!” he says and points to the dugtrio that are raking dirt at Gon to keep his spores from reaching them. “Maturin, Ba!”
His wartortle sticks her head out, relieving him immensely, and half-heartedly spits some bubbles out at the dugtrio as they retreat from the shiftry’s sudden arrival, its remaining appendage slashing at them. Those damned extra heads see the bubbles coming however and they avoid them—
—only to face Elaine’s psyduck on one side and Glen’s gloom on the other, water and vines slapping them aside. “It’s gone,” Elaine says as she steps up beside Blue. “Leapt up to the higher passage!”
Blue stifles his disappointment and focuses on the battle as best he can. Before long, the four of them working together turn the tide, and once Blue catches the first Dugtrio, the other two quickly get nabbed too.
It’s the last, large diglett that somehow manages to avoid them long enough to dive back underground for a prolonged period. They all tensely wait for it to reappear, during which Blue tries to catch his breath. They only fought for a couple minutes at most, but he feels wrung out. He just has to stay vigilant a little longer to finish the last one…
Instead of the diglett reappearing, however, there’s a burst of light that suddenly shoots out from one of the holes in the ceiling above them. They all stare up at it in shock.
“Did it just—” Elaine starts, then yelps in surprise as a rumbling shock runs through the ceiling, sending more dust and chips of stone raining down on them.
“Oh, come
on
!” Aiko shouts as a grinding, trembling groan continues through the cavern. “
Now?
”
“Just run!” Blue yells as he hurries to withdraw his pokemon and pick up the balls that have dugtrio in them before he breaks for the side passage they originally came from. The others quickly join him, Aiko pausing just to withdraw the container box they were standing on before running to the rest of them, arms full.
The tremors slow to a stop as they run down the tunnel, Glen and his butterfree in front to illuminate the path. Blue imagines the cavern collapsing behind them with an earthy roar, but thankfully everything eventually becomes silent but for the sounds of their quick steps and heavy breathing.
Once they reach another small cavern that branches in multiple directions, Blue calls for a stop. The party slows, then collapses against the walls or to the floor as they catch their breath.
“Everyone okay?” he asks. “Injuries?”
“Scrapes and cuts from earth shards,” Aiko says. “Okay otherwise.”
“I’m okay too,” Elaine says, and Glen echoes her. Blue finally pays attention to himself, hands roaming over his legs and torso to make sure he didn’t get cut by something without noticing it.
“Do you need help healing yourself?” Glen asks Aiko, who hasn’t moved to heal her cuts and bruises.
“No, I’m just… still recovering.” She lets a shuddering breath out. “That was intense, in more ways than one.”
“More than it should have been,” Glen says, and everyone murmurs or nods their assent. Blue lets himself slide to the floor of the cavern. The others follow suit, and Blue wipes cold sweat from his forehead as he rests his eyes for a moment, limbs and mind almost gelatinous with fatigue.
He plays the fight back in his memory as best he can, trying to remember what exactly happened and when. The whole thing felt off from the very beginning. Blue assumed it was just his frustration that the absol hadn’t actually eaten all the meat, had noticed that it was off somehow and went silent for other reasons. Despite that, and the absol’s amazing evasion and quickness, they still would have worn it down… if not for the stampede of diglett arriving when it did.
“So just to be clear,” Glen says after a minute. “And not to blame anyone prematurely… but did we screw up?”
“Nothing in the dex said that diglett were attracted to absol mating calls, or beef,” Blue insists. “I double checked. There’s never been any reports filed about that, unless someone discovered it in the time since we entered the caves.”
“Someone might have,” Elaine suggests. “Us.” She lazily lifts both fists above her head. “Yaaay…”
“No, it can’t have been the calls,” Aiko says. “Those were broadcast from a different part of the caves than where we fought it, remember? And none of the diglett went after the meat. Could have been the sound of the fighting, but… that didn’t happen in our last fight with diglett. No new ones from nearby showed up to join in.”
“And there were a lot of them,” Blue says. “So many being close enough to hear seems unlikely.”
Glen drags a finger through the dirt beside him, brow creased. The ensuing silence is unbroken except for the flapping of his butterfree’s wings, and after a moment he holds a hand up and gestures, which brings his pokemon down to rest on his arm. He takes a poffin from his bag and feeds the glowing bug. “So I think it might be time to revisit the topic of absol and bad luck, because I don’t know what else to call what just happened.”
“Well, of course it was bad luck,” Aiko says. “But that doesn’t mean the absol
caused
it.”
“Yeah, true.”
“Hell of a coincidence, though,” Blue says, fingers drumming against his knee.
She looks at him in surprise. “
You
don’t think it was the absol, do you?”
“I think after what we just saw, I’m open to talking about it.”
“Seriously? With a sample size of one, we’re really going to reconsider whether
bad luck
exists?”
Glen shrugs. “I’m not one of those trainers who wears lucky socks or anything, but sometimes something looks like bad luck and is really caused by something else, you know? People can psych themselves out, or get overconfident, or something.”
“The car crash thing again? People are nervous because there’s an absol nearby, so they, what, forget how to drive?”
“Something like that.”
“Come on, we’re talking about a horde of pokemon attacking. That’s not something you can put in the same category.”
Blue looks at Elaine while the other two argue, and sees her silently biting her lower lip. She seemed to support the idea of absol causing bad luck, back in town. She didn’t really defend the idea much though. “What do you think, Elaine?”
“Hm? About what?”
“The absol. The diglett arriving when they did.”
Her gaze darts around to the three of them, seeming to rest on Aiko for longer than usual. She hesitates a moment longer, then says, “I think… it was
really
bad luck. Too much. If it was anything less, we probably would have been okay, still. So—”
“That’s just hindsight bias,” Aiko says. “We happened to be unable to handle that, but if there was another one or two trainers with us, we could have still caught it. Do you really think
more
diglett would have shown up if, like, Red and Leaf were here? Or the ceiling would have come down?”
Elaine opens her mouth, then closes it and shrugs, looking down again.
“What I’m more interested in is the way our pokemon—”
“Hang on,” Blue says, interrupting Aiko. “You didn’t let her finish.” He turns back to Elaine. “What were you going to say? ‘So’…?”
“It’s nothing.”
Blue studies her, some inkling of intuition kicking in. Elaine is usually really talkative, but he remembers her seeming unusually withdrawn a few times yesterday. He’s still getting used to traveling with people other than Red and Leaf, who are always quick to speak their mind, even if it means getting into an argument. But he can’t remember Elaine ever arguing with anyone.
“Elaine, you know it’s okay if you disagree with us, right?” Blue asks.
Her eyes widen, and she nods. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Do you?” Aiko asks with frown.
“What?”
“Still disagree? About absol and luck.”
“I… um. I think… I guess maybe not… I mean, but, it’s hard to be sure, you know?” Even in the relatively dim light of the butterfree’s wings, Elaine’s face seems to be flushing rather violently.
“You don’t have to be sure,” Glen says. “But are you leaning more toward yes or no, right now?”
“Mm.” Elaine nods.
“Is that a yes?” Aiko asks, voice dripping skepticism.
Elaine hesitates, then shakes her head.
“Aiko,” Blue starts, “Your tone—”
“I know, I know.” She considers Elaine briefly, then says, “Hey, Elaine. I think tangela are stupid pokemon. Don’t you?”
Elaine’s eyes widen, and she looks down between her feet. “Um. I… I don’t think… I mean they’re not… super smart I guess… but I like them,” she finishes, voice trailing to a whisper at the end.
Glen whistles quietly, and turns to Blue. “Good catch.”
“Wow, yeah.” Aiko’s voice softens. “Elaine, I don’t really think that about tangela, you know? I was just trying to get a rise out of you. Do you really not feel comfortable arguing with us? Or is it me? Am I pushing too hard?”
“Probably a little,” Blue says. “But I think she’s been holding back from contradicting any of us.”
Elaine looks up at the three of them, blushing harder than ever. She shrugs. “I just don’t like fighting?”
“Are you not sure about that either?” Aiko asks, then winces. “Shit, that was meant jokingly. I’m sorry, Elaine, I’m not trying to pick on you. I may be missing some social filters.”
“It’s okay. I just really like you guys.”
“Psh. So?” Blue asks. “I argue with Red all the time, and he’s my best friend. Arguing with us won’t make us like you less.”
Elaine’s hands flutter around her knees briefly. “It’s not just that, I don’t know a lot, compared to you guys—”
“Elaine,” Glen cuts her off. “We literally wouldn’t be here right now without you. None of us have ever gone trailblazing or spelunking.”
“That’s different. I know what I’m good at, and I just don’t like to argue about things I don’t know about.”
“That’s great,” Aiko says. “Really, I wish more people were like that, but in situations like this, where none of us really knows, it’s okay to speak your mind.”
“In fact, we need you to,” Blue says. “We’re only at our best as a ‘party’ when we can pool our ideas, not just our skills.” Elaine smiles slightly, and Blue smiles back. “We won’t get mad at you or make fun of you if you tell us what you think. Will we?”
“Nope,” Glen says.
“Absolutely, and I’m sorry if I come off that way,” Aiko says. “I’ll try to get better with that, if you try to speak up more often when you disagree?”
Elaine’s smile widens. “I think I can try. I mean, I will.”
“Great,” Blue says. “We can start with absol. You seemed to support the idea of them causing bad luck, back in town. Can you try to give us a summary of what you think about them causing bad luck?”
“Um. Okay.” She rubs her legs, frowning down at her shoes. “So. What I was thinking of in town was that a lot of trainers have mentioned how hard they are to catch, right? And, I mean yeah it was fast, and dangerous, but we almost had it before the diglett came. It’s not
that
strong, like, if we had a fighting pokemon that was faster than a machoke we probably would have gotten it, you know?” Elaine’s words are speeding up as she talks, her customary enthusiasm leaking into her expression and tone. “So maybe there’s more going on, some of it that’s hard to measure or even notice at the time. Like a pokeball that malfunctions at just the wrong time?”
“Wait,” Aiko says. “You really think
that’s
what happened to the ball that hit it?” Elaine’s smile fades slightly, but Aiko is already making a sound of frustration. “Damn it, sorry, let me try that again. Do you… I mean, I thought the ball that hit it just didn’t lock on.”
Blue is about to add that he thought that too, but holds back so it wouldn’t feel like they’re all ganging up on Elaine. He really wants her to start arguing back, almost more than he wants to get to the bottom of the absol mystery, right now. He can’t head the team effectively if one of the members is too worried about upsetting anyone to speak their mind.
Luckily, after Elaine takes a moment to think it over, she shrugs and says, “It was my ball, I’m pretty sure. And I thought I heard it ping. But I guess I could be wrong?”
Aiko opens her mouth, then closes it again. “I think you may be too,” she says, slowly. “But I didn’t know it was your ball, so… you might know better than I do. But… okay, so let’s just talk about luck for a moment. Luck isn’t a
force of nature,
you can’t just… just increase or decrease the random events in the world to favor a certain outcome. That would imply that there’s some higher, conscious being or force that’s tilting things a certain, very,
very
specific way. Like the absol couldn’t have just caused a cave-in on us, it would have trapped itself. Or if it caused the cave-in and it somehow left it a way free, what does that even say about reality? What if the cavern is literally unable to collapse a certain way? Does the absol somehow know that? Because something’s got to.” Aiko seems to stop herself from continuing and turns to Blue and Glen. “Was that okay?”
“I think it was fine,” Glen says, and Blue nods, looking at Elaine.
“It was fine!” she says. “Um. Give me a second?”
“Sure!” Aiko takes a potion out of her bag and begins to spray her wounds as she waits, and Blue stretches his limbs out, feeling a bit more like himself now that he’s caught his breath and the adrenaline is wearing off. He sees the others stretching and adjusting themselves to be more comfortable too.
“Okay,” Elaine says after a minute. “So maybe it’s not something like a force in the world, but something that just looks like it? I felt really odd while we were fighting it, like everything I was doing was rushed, like I didn’t have any… I don’t know how to describe it, but sort of like I was watching myself act on fast forward. What—”
“I felt something like that too!” Blue says, sitting up. “Shit, sorry, I interrupted.”
“It’s okay! What was yours?”
“It’s not like yours, but it’s close. It was more like something was wrong, like whatever I thought of or did was slightly off. It kept me from really focusing.”
“Hey, yeah,” Glen says. “That’s kind of how I felt too. But more like I was… not doing my best? No, that’s not right. Like I was letting you guys down. Like I was going to screw things up for everyone. And my machoke just kept missing it, I think it only got one solid hit in, and that just made the feeling worse…”
They all look at Aiko, who’s frowning at her arm as she sprays a cut there, then wipes the blood away with a paper towel. “Nothing like that,” she says. “I just felt… afraid. That’s all. Almost paralyzed. Like I had to push through my fear to do anything.”
“This sounds like a mental attack, right?” Elaine asks. “What if absol have some mental effect to make people clumsier or less focused?”
“But I’m Dark,” Blue points out. “It would have to be a Ghost or Dark attack, and I’ve never heard of an attack like that.”
“Something more passive,” Glen suggests. “An ability that works like an aura.”
Blue frowns. “That… sounds like a legendary pokemon ability. Absol are rare and dangerous, but not
that
much.”
“And this could all just be expectations,” Aiko says, sounding only slightly exasperated. “What you’re describing are normal feelings people have in tense situations.”
“No,” Blue says. “Hang on, I think they’re right, actually, it wasn’t normal. I can’t really explain why, but something about the battle was harder for me than any other…” He trails off, suddenly doubting himself. That’s not strictly true, is it? He’s lost his battle calm before… “I think.”
“If the effect is so different for all of us, though,” Elaine says after a moment of silence, “It would be really hard to know for sure. And not all absol might have the ability! Other pokemon might too, but without… ah, expectations, like you said,” she turns to Aiko, “It would be even harder to notice, you know?”
“So it’s something that feeds off of confirmation bias?” Aiko asks, brow raised.
Elaine raises her hands up “Maybe? I mean it could be some of that, the confirmation bias, yeah, but what if it’s not? I mean… could you imagine how many people might have reported something similar and been dismissed because others thought of another explanation? That would be really frustrating!”
“But wait, now we’re talking about something else,” Aiko says. “Or do you think the car crashes might be explained by this too? If so, why would the same effect that does that make the diglett come to that area? How far reaching does this go?”
Blue retreats from the discussion for a bit, simply listening and frowning slightly as he tries to consider both sides. Aiko sounds like Red in most of their arguments, but Elaine is saying a lot of the same stuff Blue would normally, and he tries to think through why he’s more willing to side with Aiko in this case. Is it just because he doesn’t want to believe that a Dark pokemon can actually cause misfortune to those around them? He knows what Red would say about
that.
“That’s it, we’re tabooing the word ‘luck,'” Aiko says suddenly.
“Tabooing?” Elaine asks.
“It’s a way to keep from getting caught up in semantics. We’re not allowed to use that word in the discussion anymore, we
clearly
mean different things when we say it, and are just getting more aggravated every time that happens.” She lets out a breath. “Or I am, anyway, so let’s just focus on what we’re
actually
trying to say instead of tripping over that word again and again.”
“Oh, that’s like a game! What would you say instead, then?”
Aiko stops to think, then continues slowly. “If this power or ability or whatever exists, it has to be something
guided
. It can’t just be some diffuse, aimless effect that happens at random
but also
keeps benefiting the absol. Otherwise it could just as easily hinder itself with the things it causes. So it must be through some specific mechanism, something under conscious control, like clouding someone’s mind or sending a tremor through the ground or whatever.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Elaine says, after some visible consideration. “My main point is just… that it might exist, so we have to be ready, you know? We shouldn’t just assume it’s all in people’s heads, we have to be ready for something unexpected to happen. More than we usually would, I mean.”
Aiko nods. “I can get on board with that, if we can figure out how you prepare for something so… vague.”
“Do you think the rangers know something?” Glen asks. “They must have experience hunting absol, even if it’s not made official.”
“But then why not make it official?” Aiko asks. “If they can really influence events or people like this, they should be paying a lot of attention to it.”
“Well, they’re paying attention to it. They’re just not labeling it an incident, which… I mean, fair enough, right? If not all absol can do this, they can’t consider it a major incident every time one appears just in case. What has this one really, provably done?”
“What has it really done,” Blue muses, thoughts drifting as something tickles the back of his memory. He picks a pair of small stones up and begins to roll them around each other in his palm, trying to pin the association down. Something he overheard Gramps talking to a ranger about. Was it Red’s dad?
“You say something, Blue?” Aiko asks.
“Hm?” He looks up to see the others watching him. “Just remembering something. I think Gramps was arguing with Red’s dad about some risk to Pallet town. Gramps was asking him why they hadn’t classified it as an incident yet, and Red’s dad said the pokemon hadn’t done anything yet. I don’t remember what they were, I think a full nido family was migrating. The rangers knew if they marked it publicly they would have a bunch of trainers trying to catch them, and that might actually start a rampage, whereas if they left them alone they’d just move on.”
“Trying to balance their priorities between protecting the ecology and people,” Aiko says with a nod. “But for a single absol…”
“Maybe it’s not the absol they’re worried about,” Elaine says. “Maybe it’s the diglett. I mean look what happened to us.”
“But people fight diglett in the tunnels all the time! And besides, they’re coordinating some people to find the absol. They just don’t want a bunch of people around, wasting their time.”
“Whose time? The trainers, or the rangers?” Glen asks. “I mean, if this doesn’t happen a lot with absol, but there’s a persistent superstition about them causing catastrophes, they probably get a lot of false-positives. They can’t react to them
all
like they’re real incidents.”
The group is silent at that. Blue wonders how much that would factor into his own decisions if he were in charge, and has to admit it would. “So this is a kind of covert op, for them? A way to address the potential incident without actually making it one prematurely?”
“If that’s true, what qualifies?” Elaine asks. “If this absol is actually a Tier 1 incident, we shouldn’t be trying to capture it on our own. We have to warn the others!”
Aiko makes a face. “But warn them of what? Say we felt scared or worried? Tell them about the diglett? They’d probably just think we messed up and attracted them somehow. Or got unlucky, like anyone would expect. Even if we assume this absol can… exert some power that makes things go in their favor, what will our warning them even do? They’re probably already being careful.”
“What do you think we should do?” Blue asks her.
Aiko hesitates. “Well. Heal up, first. Give our pokemon some rest. Then… go back to the chamber and track it again. The blood trail will make it easy. We might get it this time, we can heal our pokemon much faster than the absol will recover on its own.”
Blue considers it a moment, then looks at Elaine and Glen. “What do you guys think?”
“I’m okay with giving it another shot,” Glen says. “It can’t have gone too far, after a fight like that.”
Elaine is clearly uncomfortable contradicting them again. Blue waits, giving her time to speak her own mind, already thinking about the journey back up, until she lets a breath out and says, “Okay, yeah. Let’s try it. And I’m not just saying that to avoid arguing,” she adds with a smile before Blue can say anything.
He grins. “Alright then.”
They get to their feet, and Blue and Elaine help Aiko and Glen set up a triage station that they can release their pokemon at, one at a time, for healing. Once that’s done, they let their pokemon stay out of their balls and make sure they’re fed, rested, and especially in Maturin’s case, well-watered.
“Alright, let’s try and be prepared for anything,” Blue says as they make their way back to the chamber and Aiko brings Sneaker out to start tracking it by the blood it left. “If we spot it, we’ll try to set things up so seemingly random chance can’t make any sort of difference. It’s probably looking for a place to rest…”
They confirm that it never came back into the chamber after going up the elevated path, and bring container boxes out to climb up. The ceiling is low for the next ten minutes of winding travel, and eventually Blue stops seeing any spots of blood on the ground. It’s a relief to know that they it didn’t end up dying of its wounds, and thankfully the lack of blood doesn’t stop Sneaker.
“You said it had to have stopped soon, right?” he eventually mutters.
“Yeah, their stamina isn’t amazing,” Glen says as he holds his butterfree up to light the path ahead, the ceiling too low for it to fly. “Maybe it took a quick breather here and there, but it can’t have gone much farther… we might even find it asleep…”
Blue keeps track of the time as they follow the path as quick as they can, back to marking their choices and consulting Elaine’s maps. The one theme that’s quickly obvious is that the absol was descending; within fifteen minutes, they’re deeper than they’ve ever been, and the corridors are getting less and less easily navigated.
Blue is starting to worry that they’ll reach a point they can’t squeeze through when instead they reach a large opening in part of the floor and wall, almost like a gash.
“Huh,” Elaine says. “This isn’t on the map.”
“Ominous,” Blue mutters as they watch Aiko’s raticate step up to the hole and sniff at it, then start to crawl through until Aiko commands it to stop. Elaine kneels down and touches the edges of the opening, then shines her headlamp into it. They see the floor not too far below; what to them looks like a hole in the floor is actually an opening somewhere along the edge of a wall and ceiling.
“It’s not super new, I don’t think. This area of the tunnels hasn’t been mapped for almost two years.”
“Ok, so the absol didn’t cause this, probably. If we go in there though, we won’t have the map to guide us, right?”
“Yeah.”
Blue lets out a breath. “Let’s make extra sure to mark this area up, then. Also, Glen, tie some rope around that stalagmite? It looks like we could climb back up if we need to, but it might come in handy.”
One by one they go through… and emerge into a tunnel that’s much wider than the network they just left.
“Uh oh,” Elaine says.
Everyone immediately turns to her.
“Uh oh, as in, ‘Uh oh, this place actually is on the map?'” Glen tries, voice hopeful.
“That’s more of an ‘oops,'” Aiko suggests. “Maybe she means something like ‘Uh oh, my phone is losing charge.'”
“I think I’ll take ‘Uh oh, I’ve had the map upside down all along,'” Blue sighs. “What’s up, Elaine?”
“Well.” She’s looking around the tunnel. “The smoothness here is concerning?”
“Smooth?” Aiko walks to a wall and runs a hand over it. “It’s rough to me.” She tests her footing. “Even the ground.”
“I guess I should say the… Evenness. No stalactites up there, or stalagmites around us, even at the corners. I think this is an onix tunnel.”
“Ha-haaa, well, look at the time,” Glen says. “We just hit nope-o-clock. I change my vote, Blue. This is bad luck if I’ve ever seen it.”
Blue is rubbing his eyes, trying to decide just how big a deal this is. “Aiko, Sneaker’s sure it came down here?”
“Yeah. Also… um. He’s been getting excited. I think we’re close?”
They all turn to the raticate, and Blue sees it’s true: her pokemon is practically moving in circles as it keeps trying to follow some path only it can sense, noticing she’s not with him, and turning back, only to start tracking the absol again.
“Okay. Glen, was that actually a vote to abort?”
“Shit. I guess not… not without even hearing an onix. These could be old tunnels, right?”
“Yeah,” Elaine says. “I mean it’s been here awhile. We could just go another fifteen minutes or so?”
They agree, and start to move out again, everyone on even higher alert as they follow the raticate down the tunnel, leaving an arrow on the wall. Blue feels the tension in every part of his body, ears trained for the slightest sound of rumbling. He keeps a close eye on the time too, intent on not going past the fifteen minutes, but in the end it only takes eleven.
The air changes again as they reach an opening to a wide open chamber that’s pitch black beyond the relatively dim light of Glen’s butterfree. The ground slopes down from where they are at a sharp angle that Blue is not eager to go down in the dark.
Aiko’s hand shoots out and stops Glen from reaching up to activate his headlamp. He looks at her curiously, and there’s a sudden snapping sound as Elaine activates a delayed glowstick.
“Get ready,” she says… and throws.
Three seconds pass. Four. Five… six…
It ignites mid-air, just before hitting the ground and bouncing, a flare of green that reveals most of the chamber for a handful of heartbeats.
The absol is the first thing Blue notices, the only splash of white in all the grey and brown and black. It appears to be lying on its haunches in an alcove against the wall.
The second thing Blue notices is more a collection of things. Boulders, coiled in a loose circle. Its head isn’t facing them, thankfully, so Blue doesn’t see it, but he knows what he’s looking at: an adult onix.
The third thing was also a collection. Eggs.
The flare of light dies, and Blue feels his whole body tense like a coiled spring, ready to throw himself back the way they came or unclip a pokeball. Instead, as seconds pass and nothing happens, his breath comes out in a long, low rush, and he can hear the others’ rapid breaths past his heartbeats.
“Okay,” Blue mutters, and starts to inch backward. “Bad luck it is. New plan: call for backup. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
It takes a bit less than an hour to reach the surface, Elaine guiding them to a tunnel entrance that’s much closer than the one they entered through. Returning to the fresh air and sunlight has a restorative effect that no amount of rest in the tunnels did, and everyone takes a moment to rest before they begin to get out their lunches. If nothing else, Blue reflects, it’s nice to smell something besides stale air, stone and all the repellant they sprayed themselves with. He sends a message to Ranger Tanaka and Ranger Fischer as he eats, flagging their location with CoRRNet’s generic ask-for-reinforcements button.
Normally there would be an incident page for him to put it on, but since one was never formed for the absol, Blue can’t easily let everyone else involved in the hunt know. He does at least send it to Bretta too so that her group is aware, since they’re the only others involved in the hunt that he knows of. Any motivation to gloat feels tempered by the fact that they did not, in fact, capture the absol.
He expects there to be some delay before they get back to him, assuming they’re below ground and out of reception range, but before he can even finish a granola bar he gets a call back from Fischer. “Hey, you’re not in the tunnels?”
“I’m coordinating the hunt from above ground. Where are you, Mr. Oak? What happened?”
“Like I said, we found the absol, injured it, but it got away,” Blue says. “The details are a bit of a story. Are you stationed at Golden Hills, or in the field?”
“In the field. Just tell me now.”
So Blue begins describing their hunt and encounter. Before he gets to the surprise assault by the diglett, however, the Ranger interrupts. “Hold on, this was just the four of you, then? The group you were with last night?”
Blue steels himself. “That’s right.”
“Mr. Oak, Ranger Tanaka and I made it clear that we did not think your group was suited to hunt this absol.”
“You did, Ranger, and we respectfully disagreed with your assessment. As I tried to explain, my team members are more than they appear on paper.” He catches the smiles the others exchange, particularly Aiko. “Which is why we almost caught it.”
“Almost is hardly a source of confidence. What is your team doing now?”
“Eating. Resting.”
“You could have stayed underground and done that. Does this mean you’ve given up the hunt?”
“That’s complicated.” Blue says. “It was bleeding when we let it go, and our team’s tracker was able to find it before even without that. After wearing it down, I’d say we could get it for sure… but there was a bit of a complication. Something strange had happened during the battle. It’s hard to describe, some sort of mental disorientation, combined with becoming… suspiciously and almost lethally unlucky.”
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and when Ranger Fischer finally speaks again, his tone is less irritated, more detached. “Unlucky.”
“Yeah. A massive horde of diglett and dugtrio arrived and attacked us.”
“Massive?”
“More than thirty. Probably less than a hundred.”
Blue expects skepticism, even outright disbelief. Instead the Ranger just says, “That huge spike on the seismographs was you, then. It’s impressive that your team made it out alive.”
This just got a lot easier.
He catches Aiko watching him, and he gives her a thumbs up. The others see it too and look relieved. “If we weren’t the type to prepare for as many surprises as we could, I don’t think we would have. Assuming what happened was in some way under its control, we don’t want to risk anything like it happening again.”
“And you have no need to, now that we know where to look. You did well in finding it, and—”
“Actually, Ranger, even the more experienced groups hunting it would have trouble… especially now.”
“Now…?”
“Now that it’s resting right next to an onix nest.”
Silence. The rest of the team is clearly distracted as they eat, waiting for Blue’s reaction. He tries to look confident, even as he expects Fischer to tell them to stand down and give up the hunt.
“Your team rides bikes?” Fischer asks at last.
“Yes?”
“The location you sent is half an hour from the Golden Hills pokecenter. Head there.”
Blue frowns. “Ranger, again with all due respect, we’re not going to—”
“Not to stay. I’m recalling our teams and meeting you there.”
Blue blinks, skepticism warring with relief. “Okay, we’ll be there,” he says after a moment. “See you soon.” He hangs up. “We’re meeting at Golden Hills.”
They quickly pack everything back away and switch their spelunking gear out for bike pads and helmets, then head to town. Blue was expecting to have to convince the Rangers or other groups to work with them based on what they saw, but it seems that might not be so hard. Still, he tries to think over and refine the plan they came up with as best he can.
By the time the party reaches the pokemon center, Ranger Fischer and a few other trainers are already there. Blue notes a stormy expression on Fischer’s face as he spots them and approaches, and quickly sticks a hand out.
“Ranger, good to see you again. We’re ready to give our report, here or elsewhere.”
Fischer’s gaze flicks down to Blue’s hand, then back up to meet Blue’s before he gives his hand the briefest of squeezes. “Elsewhere. We’re waiting on others to join us, though it’s hard to know for sure how many were within range to get the message. We’ll wait another fifteen minutes, then begin.”
“Sure thing.” Blue watches him turn away, and lets a breath out. Some part of him was still expecting a public browbeating.
“I don’t think he likes you.”
“Yeah, well, he’s only half the problem. We need to convince those other trainers to take us seriously.” He looks at the other three. “Do any of you think you’d like to do the talking in there?”
“Don’t be silly,” Elaine says. “You’re Blue Oak. If they’re going to listen to any of us, it’s you.”
“Just making sure I’m not hogging the limelight.”
“You are,” Glen says, and claps his shoulder. “But after leading my own group of trainers for a few years, I’m happy to have someone else to blame if things go wrong.”
Aiko grins. “We’re right behind you.”
Eventually they’re all ensconced in a common office meeting room at the administrative wing of the center, a large oval table taking up most of the space inside. There isn’t enough room for all the trainers who came, and since Blue anticipates doing some speaking during the meeting, he decides to stand near where the Ranger is sitting rather than take some of the seats. Aiko, Elaine, and Glen take his cue and stand beside him, and the other trainers naturally space themselves out in groups in the rest of the room so that it’s just Ranger Fischer and Blue’s party at the “front” facing everyone else.
“Hello everyone. I’ve called this meeting because new information came in about the target that changes the nature of the hunt. I was hoping everyone else could make it here on time, but better to act on what we know with whomever we have.” He gestures to Blue and the others. “These trainers encountered the absol. I’ll let them give their report.”
Blue steps forward and recounts the encounter as best he could, focusing mostly on its speed and precision, every movement either evading one of their attacks or bounding close for a quick but meaningful strike. He also described the feeling of unease and second-guessing himself, and how it made him ready for the unexpected arrival of the diglett horde. His phone chimes in his pocket while he’s talking, and he quickly dips a hand in it to silence it, embarrassed.
“We’d already come up with countermeasures for facing too many of them elsewhere in the tunnel, and quickly emptied some repel cans and began playing the hunting cries of pidgeot and fearow. Even below ground where none should have been, the smell and sounds were enough to drive most of them away so that we could fight the few dugtrio that stuck around, but we couldn’t split our attention well enough to capture the absol and defend ourselves at once. We had to let it go and leave the cavern before the diglett shook it to pieces.” Blue pauses, seeing some skeptical faces. One seems about to speak up when Blue turns to a trainer that looks puzzled instead. “You have a question?”
“Huh? No… well, yeah, I guess. Do we even know if it’s still alive?”
“Yes, we followed it again after some delay. It was able to find a place to rest, but unfortunately it had another stroke of luck, and happened to pick a location right by an onix nest.”
Murmurs and swears fill the room. “You escaped an attack by an onix family too?” one of the skeptical trainers asks before Blue could continue or call on someone else.
“Of course not,” Blue says, voice even as he meets the speaker’s gaze. “The onix appeared to be sleeping, so we retreated.”
“Why not just capture it while it was sleeping and get the absol?” he persists.
“Because of the feeling we had earlier, when we fought it. We were worried it would rouse the onix if we got any closer.”
“Because of a feeling?”
“Let’s focus on that in a moment,” Ranger Fischer interrupts. “Given your experiences, does your team have a plan, Mr. Oak?”
“Yeah. Our idea is pretty simple, but it will take a lot of work. We lead everyone down and check if the absol is still there, then do everything we can to ensure it can’t surprise us in any way we can predict. Have people on standby so that if it manages to get away somehow, we have another team standing by to cut it off, then more teams after that. We’re working off the assumption that it will make things as inconvenient as possible for anyone who faces it, but only in realistic ways. It shouldn’t be able to pull one trick, then another a couple minutes later, then another a couple after that.”
“How many onix were there, exactly?” Someone asks.
“Just the one that we saw, and a bunch of eggs.”
“Then why not just overwhelm it? Even with the onix, the lot of us could split up and probably capture it in moments, then focus on the onix together.”
“Too many eggs in one basket,” Blue says. “We want to avoid any one piece of bad luck, however unlikely, from preventing us all from catching it.”
Another trainer speaks up. “So you’re really suggesting it might… what? Cause all our pokeballs to glitch or something?”
“Or the eggs would start hatching,” a guy by the door says before Blue can answer. “Or the other parent could show up.”
“Come on, what are the odds of that?”
“It could bring the whole ceiling down,” another suggests.
“We should all get some luck charms…”
“Get off it, how would an absol even do something like that?”
Blue watches the room erupt into arguments and tries to find a good moment to step in. After that last line, however, it’s Elaine who steps forward. “We’re not sure.” Everyone turns to her. She clasps her hands behind her to keep them from fidgeting. “It’s not… we don’t really know what we’re dealing with, you know? We’re just trying to be careful. The diglett it summoned against us—”
“Summoned?” someone asks, voice incredulous.
Elaine’s hands wring together at the small of her back, and she bites her lower lip. Aiko watches with a creased brow and opens her mouth, but Blue slightly shakes his head, and she subsides with a frown.
“Not literally, maybe,” Elaine says at last. “But something like it might happen again. It doesn’t seem like an accident that it found an onix nest to rest by.”
“Sorry, but this seems ridiculous,” one of the older trainers says, ignoring the dirty looks by some other trainers. “Absol just can’t do stuff like that. If things happened the way you say they did, you guys got unlucky a couple times, but—”
“I agree with you,” Aiko says before Blue can respond. “I don’t think the absol can control luck either. But even if you think we’re wrong, we
will
find it again, and we’re going to play it as safe as we can. You can be part of that or try your own luck. It’s up to you. But the other things it did were definitely real, and anyone who hunts it has to know about it. Our pokemon felt it too, I think. They were less able to coordinate than they should have been, and tired more quickly.”
Ranger Fischer speaks up. “Yes, that brings us to the most important point of the encounter.” Blue watches the ranger warily, wondering if he’ll cast doubt on what they felt. “Could you each describe what it was like, facing the absol? Psychologically?”
“Sure.” Blue repeats his experience, highlighting that it was very unusual for him. Aiko goes next, followed by Elaine and Glen.
“Thank you all.” Fischer turns to the rest of the room. “Some of you may find these descriptions familiar, in some way. You may be embarrassed to suggest why. If so, raise your hands.” He smiles, perhaps acknowledging the difficulty of asking embarrassed people to single themselves out. “Please trust that this is important.”
The room is silent and still. Blue has just enough time to wonder what the hell Fischer is talking about, and then a hand goes up. It’s an older trainer, late twenties or early thirties. Two more raise their hands, then another two. All are at least a decade older than Blue, and in total make up about a third of the room’s population.
“Thank you. It’s hard to know for sure, with this sort of thing.” He takes a deep breath, then lets it out. “What I’m about to reveal to all of you can be considered cutting edge information, and also, by the same token, incredibly unreliable. The Rangers have had a suspicion about certain pokemon, and the strange abilities that are at times attributed to them. One ability in particular is worrisome, if we’re right. We’ve coordinated with researchers to try and confirm our theories, but so far we’ve had no luck.”
“Pressure,” one of the trainers who raised their hand says, and even through his shock, Blue hears a sharp intake of breath from Aiko, barely audible. “That’s what you think they’re describing? What Rangers have been suspicious about? Non-legendary pokemon that have it?”
“Yes. Pressure, or something very like it. A different variation of the same power, perhaps. Reports are incredibly rare, and only a handful of non-legendary pokemon have been suspected, such as spiritomb and weavile. Like absol, most of them are Dark Types, and most of the ones encountered don’t seem to have it. If it exists, it’s a tiny subset of a tiny subset of pokemon. In absol’s case, we don’t know to what degree this ability is related to stories of bringing misfortune. Perhaps they’re entirely coincidental. But from the sensations reported by these four, combined with the frenzied behavior of the wild diglett, we’ve decided to approach the situation as if it’s true. My preference would be to wait until Ranger Tanaka and the other trainers who responded to the bounty have resurfaced before mobilizing, but it may disappear in that time. A squad of rangers is arriving soon, and they, combined with any of us here who are willing, will move out by nightfall.”
The ranger is going on about compensation for any trainer who does capture the absol and is willing to trade it to the Rangers for study, but Blue is still trying to wrap his mind around all the implications of what he’s hearing. He wishes Red were here, wants to hear what he would make of this. Blue has spent years chasing down stories of what it felt like to face the Stormbringers and the terrifying Pressure they exert, knowing he would have to experience it himself one day. More, to endure it again and again, as few others do.
To think, that he may have actually felt it without even realizing it. A weaker form, sure, but there’s a sense of exhilaration in knowing that he survived a brush with such an ultimate challenge.
Until he remembers that even this lesser form totally robbed him of the calm clarity he’s come to rely on in battles. A chill works its way up his spine, and his heart begins to pound as he remembers that feeling of constant unsureness, second-guessing, feeling off balance. How can he face the Stormbringers like that? How much worse would the real thing be?
“—Storm Birds, then it may be cumulative in the same way, even if to a lesser degree,” Fischer says, snapping Blue’s attention back to him. “Therefore, those of you who have faced them before may want to assist in other aspects of the hunt. Those of you who will assist in the hunt, please meet back here by 6 PM. I thank the rest of you for your time and efforts thus far.”
The room stirs to life, and a few trainers rush up to the Ranger with questions. A few of those leaving glance at the four of them, but Blue barely notices, hands curl into fists as fear and uncertainty steadily grow inside him.
The first exposure was worth it, gave me a taste of what facing them will be like. But if each exposure weakens tolerance…
How many fights do most trainers get with the birds before they start getting overpowered? Ten, maybe fifteen? Gramps has gone against them 23 times, the last one being against Moltres when Blue’s parents were killed. He used to think that Gramps never fought the Stormbringers anymore because he didn’t want to risk orphaning him and Daisy, but there are rumors that he was nearly crippled from the after effects, and was warned off ever attending another by his physician. None of them ever bring it up.
Blue doesn’t plan on needing 23 attempts to bring Kanto’s legends down, but the effects will start to catch up to him long before then. Catching one absol isn’t worth risking that happening a single day sooner than it has to.
I should have finished it off in the tunnels,
he thinks, gut souring with anger at himself.
I was too worried about looking bad, and let a really dangerous pokemon go… now this…
“Blue?”
He blinks at Aiko’s whisper, and realizes that the room is mostly empty, and the others have been waiting on him at the doorway.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and follows them out, trying to get his priorities straightened.
“I was saying, I usually head home by sunset if I can,” Aiko says. “If the plan is to go down at 6, I don’t know if… I mean, I don’t want to leave you guys…”
“It’s okay,” Glen says. “With everyone else there, we should be fine.”
Elaine nudges him with her elbow. “I think she’s probably also just not wanting to miss out on the experience with us. Missing major bonding moments with friends sucks!”
Aiko smiles. “Right, that.”
Glen shrugs. “If it makes you feel better, we’re about to become cogs in a machine. You were there for the important stuff.”
“To be honest,” Blue says cautiously, “Maybe we should all step back.” Everyone stares at him. “We did the important part. We even marked the path we took. The others can find it, catch it.”
“Well. That’s kind of unexpected,” Elaine says. “I thought you’d want to be there for sure.”
“Are you feeling okay, Blue?” Aiko asks. “You’re not just saying that for my sake, right?”
“I’m fine. And no, though that makes it even easier to decide not to go.” He tries to think of a reason not to tell them the truth, and can’t find one. He owes them that much at least. “I won’t blame any of you for not wanting to go, but I think I’d just rather not ‘use up’ whatever resilience I have to Pressure, if that’s what it really is.”
“Oh. Right, I didn’t think of that,” Glen says. “Your vow…”
“We could stay back,” Elaine suggests. “Be one of the last fallback positions. Probably won’t even need to face it.”
“That’s… not a bad idea,” he says slowly. He tries to think of whether he loses face more if he suggests staying out of danger compared to just not being there at all. All the momentum he gained of associating himself with this capture might go to waste if he’s not there for the finale, but he also doesn’t want to come off as a coward. “Let me think about it?”
The others nod, and he heads for the entrance of the pokemon center to call Gramps and ask his advice. It isn’t until he turns the screen on and sees the missed messages that he remembers putting it on silent during the meeting.
14:31 Hey, we just surfaced and got your message. And Fischer’s. Talking about heading back down where you guys came up, since we’re nearby. You guys still there, or did you go to the meeting? Do you know if it’s important?
14:52 We found the entrance. Let me know if you’re still topside, so we can join up. Or at the meeting. Whichever.
15:01 Going down. Maybe we’ll run into you!
The messages are from someone named Sumi. Blue stares at them in blank confusion for a moment before it turns to sudden horror. He quickly looks up the trainer’s profile and confirms that it’s the girl who was with Bretta last night. The one who had almost said something, then wished them luck. A cheerful notification at the side informs him that she’s Following him, and has been since his match in Pewter.
Blue’s eyes skip back to the latest timestamp. Almost ten minutes ago. He knows he’s too late even as he calls her number, but he still finds himself closing his eyes and praying that she picks up, that they did some last minute preparation before going out of cell range…
The call goes to voice message. “Hey, it’s Blue,” he says as he quickly strides back into the Pokemon center. “If you get this, call me! Don’t go back down alone, the situation has changed. Just… we’re all at Golden Hills…” He realizes that might not still be true by the time they resurface, and ends the call there as he spots the others.
“Blue! What’s wrong?” Aiko asks.
“Fischer still in there?”
“I think so? He hasn’t left…”
Blue opens the Staff Only door behind the front desk and jogs through the halls, drawing stares.
My fault, this is my fault…
If he’d just remembered to message Bretta to let her know he was heading to Golden Hills instead of assuming she’d follow the Ranger’s message… Blue begins to go faster, practically running through the pokemon center. He hears the others pick up their pace to match behind him.
Fischer is still there with a few other trainers, looking at some underground map on his laptop. They all turn as Blue bursts in. “Ranger! Three trainers are on their way to the absol. They don’t know what’s down there, we marked our path and they’re headed straight for it!”
The Ranger’s brow furrows. “How do you know this?”
“Look!” He shoves his phone at him. “My phone was on silent, I just saw these… they must have come up while we were in the meeting.”
Fischer stares at the screen with a blend of confusion and indignation. “You sent them the coordinates?”
“Yes, at the same time I did you! I wanted to see if they would join up, this was before I knew where you were or that you would organize this meeting… why isn’t there an incident page for this, so updates can be posted there?” Frustration and impatience is building up in him as he tries to do the math. If they went down ten minutes ago, and it took Blue’s group half an hour to get here, then by the time they reach the tunnel entrance again, they’ll nearly be at the onix nest. Assuming they don’t get lost.
Please get lost…
“What’s the big deal?” one of the fucking stupid trainers nearby comments. “They’ll see the onix and stay back, right?”
Blue rounds on him and barely manages to keep from shouting. “They don’t know about the Pressure. They might
not
hold back. The absol might not even still be there, hell, it might go back up and encounter them on the way!”
Ranger is typing on his laptop. “I’m calling everyone from the meeting back again. We’ll have to move up the timetable and be prepared to go with who we have.” He looks up. “Oak, your team knows the path best. I’ll requisition aerial flyers from town to take you ahead of us to try and catch up to them. Leave someone at the entrance for the rest of us.” He turns to the others in the room. “Who here will go with them? Then go, now! I’ll get as many flyers as are available. Do any of you not have Heavy Balls?” He unclips a pouch at his belt without waiting for an answer and takes a ball bag from it to toss to Blue, whose hand snaps up to grab it automatically. “There are four in there, along with some others. Use what you need to. I expect the rest back.”
Blue stares at him, but the Ranger has already activated his earpiece even as he keeps typing. Blue’s phone pings a moment later with the mutual pickup spot, and after another moment’s hesitation, he turns to the rest of his party.
The three of them return his gaze steadily, ready and waiting for his lead. Their trust fills him with determination.
“Let’s go,” he says, and leads the way back out of the center.
Back toward the dark depths.
The tunnels feel more claustrophobic as the party descends into them the second time, the footing more treacherous as they try to move as fast as they can while maintaining some level of vigilance. For Blue, at least, his mind is mostly on how far ahead Bretta’s group is, and what they might do if they reach the onix chamber.
The flying mounts met them at the edge of town and took off with minimal preparation. There were six of them, which meant two of the trainers who followed them from the center had to stay behind. Blue didn’t waste any time and simply chose the oldest and third oldest looking ones, skipping over the idiot. The riders helped each of them into the rear saddles on their pidgeot and gave them quick instructions on what to do and not do during flights, then they were off.
Blue normally enjoys flying, but his stress and impatience robbed the experience of any pleasure, the birds seeming unbearably slow and uncomfortable. Still, they made it to the entrance in under five minutes, wasting just one more getting unstrapped and putting their gear on. Glen was given a sick bag before the flight that Blue saw him still clutching in one hand when they landed, though it was thankfully empty. Still, he was pale and clammy, and offered to be the one to stay behind and lead the rest of the arrivals. Normally Blue would have argued; he had some of their strongest pokemon, and the machoke in particular would be useful against both the onix and absol. But the two strangers they’d brought, combined with the two rangers that were waiting for them at the entrance in response to Fischer’s broadcast, made it so that speed was what they really needed most. They left him to recover at the entrance.
As they descend deeper and Blue starts to remember some of the tunnels they’re traveling through, he keeps expecting to hear an onix roar from somewhere below and ahead. Thanks to the flights they’re just twenty minutes behind Bretta’s group, maybe twenty-five max. If they can descend at twice the other group’s speed… if they were slowed by diglett attacks at all (their own group has encountered none)… if, if, if. It feels like a long shot, but Blue hopes they’re at least smart enough to spend a few minutes strategizing, if they end up attacking at all.
The occasional rumblings in the earth around them keep his anxiety up, but he feels a surge of relief when they find the gap in the floor and still don’t hear anything like a battle.
“We’re close,” Elaine tells the others, whose names Blue has already forgotten. “Just down here, then a few more minutes…”
They lower themselves into the onix tunnel and start to move toward the cavern at a jog. Blue wants to call out, but restrains himself, eyes straining to see past the edges of the light provided by one of the rangers’ jolteon.
Almost there… almost…
“Is that light?” someone says.
Blue nearly stumbles, and a couple of the people in their group make sounds of surprise at the unexpected appearance of light around the bend in the tunnel up ahead. Soon after, a quiet shout of “Who’s there?” reaches them.
“Bretta? Sumi?”
“
Oak?!”
Blue is grinning with relief as the light gets brighter. The three trainers meet them at the curve in the tunnel, a magnemite floating beside them, its eye glowing. All of them look shocked at the size of the group in front of them, or perhaps just by their very presence.
“What… where were you, we followed your marks but—”
Blue steps past Bretta and pulls Sumi’s hand between his, bowing over it. “Thank you for messaging me. I’m sorry I didn’t respond on time. We got here as fast as we could… thank you,” he says, voice low.
“I… you… welcome?” the trainer squeaks, looking thoroughly confused.
Blue grins and releases her hand, taking in the sight of the three of them, then looking back at the rest of the group, who are leaning against the wall or sitting down, breathing hard to recover from their rapid pace. Most are smiling, Aiko and Elaine looking outright giddy with relief.
“It’s a long story. Let’s get out of here, and we can explain,” he whispers.
“Get out? Why? We’re about to catch the absol!” Bretta says, also keeping her voice down even as she gesticulates back behind her.
Blue shakes his head. “Too dangerous. There’s… it has a sort of Pressure-like ability, and the onix there, it might wake it up—”
“Woah, woah, slow down,” the guy beside Bretta says. “Pressure? From an absol? And what onix? It’s just lying by itself in a big cavern.”
Blue stares at him.
“We think it’s asleep,” Sumi offers, gaze searching his face. “Hopefully, I mean, and not dead. It was weird, finding it here, but not you guys, we thought maybe this was a second one that showed up after you left…”
“No onix?” Aiko asks.
“No?”
Blue feels uneasy.
He looks back the way they came, then at the rest of the group, then peers at the dark cavern ahead. “How long have you guys been here?”
“Uh. Maybe five minutes?”
“Was there any sound of tunneling when you got here?”
“Yeah, how did you know? It was moving away, though.”
Blue wipes suddenly sweaty palms on his pants, then lowers himself to listen to the ground.
And hears the rumbling.
He gets up and starts walking toward the onix chamber.
“Hey, what—”
Nine pairs of feet follow him, some of them scrambling to keep up as he breaks into a jog. The sense of unease grows as he approaches the big, dark chamber, and he stops in front of it, the others almost colliding with him as they do the same.
“
Blue
,” Bretta hisses, grabbing his arm. “
What
is going
on?”
She jumps as Elaine snaps a glowstick and throws it. “What was… did you just…?”
“Do you guys feel it?” Blue murmurs.
“No,” Elaine says.
“Yes,” Aiko says.
“I… yes,” one of the trainers from Golden Hills confirms. “A little. Arceus, it’s real.”
“
What’s real?!”
Bretta whisper-shouts.
The glowstick flares into light just then, and they all get a dozen heartbeats of light to see the big empty chamber… empty save for the absol, right where it was, and the eggs in the center.
“There.” Elaine points them out. “They… left them?”
“Holy shit, those are eggs?” Sumi takes a telescope out of her pocket and looking through it just before the light dies.
“Everyone, get ready,” Blue says. His eyes had locked onto the absol, then moved over the whole chamber quickly and spotted it: the hole in the wall that hadn’t been there before. He imagines he can hear the rumbling now. “Elaine, got any of those that last longer?”
“Yep. They’re not as bright though. I’ll throw a bunch around.”
“Am I right to assume that you’re planning an attack, Trainer Oak?” one of the rangers asks.
Seishi,
Blue remembers.
Ranger Seishi.
Learn their names.
“We were told this would be search and rescue.”
“I think we’re the ones that might need rescuing. This is a trap. We’ve already walked into it.”
The other ranger (Miko) immediately drops to the ground and presses her ear to the stone, as Blue did. “Seismic activity. It’s increasing.” The first ranger immediately reacts to his partner’s words by taking out more of the sticks Elaine is holding and beginning to help her in tossing them around the big cavern, and behind them.
“I think one is coming from behind us,” Blue says. “Took us what, six minutes to get here from the hole? If we fight it in that narrow tunnel…” He already has his shiftry’s ball out, and summons Kemuri manually as Aiko and Sumi do the same with their pokemon, followed quickly by everyone else. “We’ll be crushed like bugs.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” the guy with Bretta says as he summons a poliwhirl. “And I’m going to go with ‘pissed off’ instead of ‘scared’ if someone doesn’t explain it soon.”
“Onix nest,” Aiko says. “When we came here before, there was one parent. Now there’s none. The absol used its Pressure to make it leave… and then when it hit the end of its range, it came back? Or…”
“Or it found its mate and is returning with them,” Ranger Seishi says as Blue turns back the way they came and starts spraying repel along the ground. It won’t stop an onix, but just in case anything else comes too. Some others quickly start to mimic him, and Blue leaves it to them, using the rest to spray himself, then turning toward the now-mostly-lit chamber to see if the absol reacted. It’s standing up now. “Onix often leave their nest if they sense a threat and return with their mate, trusting their eggs to endure a while.”
“It… what? Guys… a pokemon can’t do that,” Bretta’s friend says, sounding half incredulous and half pleading. “I mean… that kind of planning…”
“It’s the bad luck,” a trainer that came with them says miserably as the rumbling starts to get really pronounced. Blue can’t remember his name, and really hopes that doesn’t end up getting someone killed. “Them coming now, of all times? No way that’s coincidence. I should have gotten that stupid charm.”
“I don’t think it’s a plan,
or
luck,” Aiko says, voice seemingly detached, almost musing, unless you pick up on the hint of barely restrained fear beneath the surface. “Or anything like luck. I think it’s just… what it does when it feels threatened. Or constantly. And what it does is shake boxes, and stay out of the way of what that results in better than those around it. And that often just looks like it has really great luck. Or everything around it has really bad luck.”
“Everyone, state your names again,” Blue says before anyone else can respond. The cavern is as bright as it’s going to get, as Elaine and the ranger seem to have run out of glow sticks. “We need to be able to get each other’s attention quickly. I’m Blue.”
They name themselves. The guy in Bretta and Sumi’s group is Slava, and the two trainers from Golden Hills are Payton and Abdu.
“We have to capture that absol,” Ranger Miko says, stepping up beside Blue and looking at the absol as it watches them from the other side of the chamber.
“It’s too dangerous to leave unattended.”
“More than you think. It’s incredibly agile, and getting close to it causes effects similar to Pressure. It’s probably going to try and stay away from us until the onix get here, then run for it, maybe striking at us along the way.”
“Then those of you with fast pokemon to keep it in check, come with Ranger Seishi and I. The rest of you, try to capture the onix if you can, but if not…” Miko glances at Kemuri. “Do what you need to survive.”
“Right.” Blue sets aside his desire to fight the absol again. He pulls the bag of pokeballs out and hands out all the Heavy Balls in it, keeping one for himself. If he misses a throw at an
onix
, he doesn’t deserve a second try. “Someone with a tanky pokemon, with me! They’re almost here!” He rushes down the slope into the cavern, heading for the other tunnel as the Rangers head toward the absol with Payton.
As he reaches the bottom of the slope, the full force of the Pressure is suddenly there all around him, unease and confusion making him feel as though tragedy is imminent, as though there’s something he’s missing, and there’s no time to consider what it might be, or wonder if the effect is stronger than last time, or if that’s just expectation or if there’s
even a difference
, because that’s when the first onix roars from within the new hole in the wall, and the other one responds from somewhere back the way they came, and all that matters is survival.
Not from before, when they fought the absol the first time. She was too distracted during that fight to process what she was experiencing or connect it to any memories, simply trying to push through it as best she could. It wasn’t until she heard the Ranger’s explanation that she linked the two feelings from her recent and distant past together.
Fear. Deep as her bones, practically vibrating them as she trembled and bent, made herself small as she could… even while staring up at that shimmering glow, that terrible beauty, every feather a gem of a different color. Fear like a weight… like
pressure
… compressing every part of her, inside and out.
But there are differences. There’s no heat prickling along her skin like something alive. The fear itself isn’t as sharp, the pressure isn’t as heavy. She can move. She can run. She can speak.
She can fight.
Aiko prepares to face an onix for the first time, feeling the vibration of its oncoming arrival beneath her feet. She wanted to go with Blue and Elaine, but has nothing tanky enough to contribute to their team. One of the trainers that came with them from Golden Hills, Payton, went with them instead, so she stays with Bretta’s group and doesn’t look back, even as the sounds of battle start behind her.
Instead she alternates between watching the tunnel and her sandslash. Dune is clearly on edge: his claws are slightly embedded into the ground to feel vibrations, and his sharp scales stick out in all directions. “It’s almost here,” she tells the others. “Plan?”
“Aiko, right?” Bretta says from beside her. “Sumi usually tanks while Slava and I hit them from afar.”
“Try to draw it in,” Sumi says from the far left. “We’ll hit it from the sides and—”
Even with the growing rasp of stone on stone to give them warning, the onix barrels into the open chamber frighteningly fast and grinds to a stop as it sees the half circle of trainers and pokemon blocking the way to its eggs. To Aiko’s eye it’s half again as big as the one Blue fought for his badge, but standing so close makes it seem tall as Aeosis. It raises itself to look imperiously down at them, then roars again, the sound a physical assault on her eardrums that drowns out her first command to her sandslash.
As soon as it ends, Aiko backs up and yells “Dune, Trap!” through the ringing in her ears. An answering roar comes from behind her as the other parent attacks her friends, but Aiko puts it out of her mind, trusting them to handle it.
The biggest difference of all, that. She and her pokemon aren’t alone anymore.
As her pokemon starts to crawl slowly backward, quills fully extended, the onix tries to pick its target between it and Bretta’s bayleef. It crawls further into the cavern, not spotting Slava’s poliwhirl or Sumi’s hariyama at its sides, and as soon as it looks like it’s about to lunge, the trainers all speak at once.
“Tarro, BB!”
“Pol, Submission!”
“Dune, Fast!”
“Bayleef, Leech Seed!”
Their pokemon attack within a heartbeat of each other, and the onix twists hard to the side to avoid most of the scatter shot of seeds, but staggers and groans as the length of its body gets sprayed by the poliwhirl’s bubblebeam while their melee fighters use the distraction to reach it. Dune digs his claws into a boulder segment about halfway along the onix’s body just before it rolls to the side to break the hold of the hariyama that grabs it from behind. The violent motion displaces both attackers… along with four thin wedges of rock that tear off with a grinding crack.
The onix roars in pain this time, and snaps its body sideways to keep its injured segment unexposed. Aiko predicts that it will sweep its tail toward them, but like in their last absol fight, a command gets caught in her throat, fear for her pokemon suddenly suffocating her, and she watches in horror as the rocky whip sweeps out and hits Dune and Sumi’s hariyama, sending them flying back.
The hariyama is heavy enough that it doesn’t go far, but Dune hits the ground and bounces before he rolls up against the wall, trembling. Aiko wants to run to her pokemon, but can’t leave the others.
“Go, Dugtrio!” Her freshly registered pokemon appears, and she yells “Fast!” before remembering that she hasn’t trained it in her personal commands yet.
The onix is more wary now, the brief opening gone as it begins to use its shovel-like lower jaw to scrape up wedges of rock and dirt, then fling them at the attackers. Aiko spends another moment paralyzed with indecision: Bretta said to draw it into the chamber, but it’s not chasing after her bayleef, instead attacking the pokemon from a distance while it stays on guard against the hariyama.
Slava tries to get close enough for his heavy ball to register while the onix scrapes up another mouthful, but leaps back or to the side every time the onix moves too quickly or looks like it’s going to turn to him. Aiko can see his arm trembling, and knows the Pressure is getting to him too.
He needs an opening.
“Dugtrio, Dig!” As her dugtrio starts to burrow and prepare for a sneak attack, the other pokemon keep shooting seeds and water at the onix to keep it ducking and weaving and ensure they can dodge its rock throws.
Sumi’s hariyama lunges close enough to start slamming its palms into the onix, and it staggers under the blows, body rolling to avoid the attacks and moving away from the tunnel opening. Slava and his poliwhirl scramble back to avoid getting crushed, but in the midst of it all he still holds the ball steady enough for it to get a lock. As soon as the
ping
sounds, he throws.
Aiko doesn’t know if it’s from some effect of the Pressure or the unfamiliar weight of the ball, but the throw doesn’t have enough force behind it. The heavy ball clunks to the ground just in front of the onix’s rolling form, and gets crushed a moment later.
“The entrance!” Ranger Miko yells from behind them. “Cut it off!”
They startle and turn to see the absol racing toward them. The two rangers and the other Golden Hills trainer, Abdu, give chase, their pokemon clearly chosen for speed to try and keep up as the absol bounds around the outer edge of the cavern. It can’t escape with the onix fighting at the exits, but unlike when they fought it earlier, it has the room to maneuver, and uses it to slip away from the pursuing pokemon between the occasional precise strike.
And now it’s making its winding way toward them, and the newly cleared tunnel opening.
Aiko has a moment to wonder if it’s not better to just let it go, weighing the current risk against yet another confrontation, but Sumi is already moving. She withdraws her hariyama and runs up the incline to throw and re-summon it at the tunnel entrance ahead of her. “Guard!”
The absol is already at the foot of the incline, and instead of bounding up toward the hariyama, leaps to the side, its horn piercing Sumi as it runs by. Blood flicks across the cavern floor like water off a snapped towel.
Aiko sees her fall, hears Slava and Bretta cry out, as if from a great distance, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as fear suddenly chokes her. The absol is bounding her way, its red eyes almost glowing as they bear down on her and… her body… won’t move…
Her hand grasps feebly at her pokeballs, trembling and indecisive over who to summon, knowing she has nothing that can stop it.
I can’t die,
some part of her yells, but even in her head it sounds panicked and whiny rather than defiant.
Dad’s waiting for me!
At the last second she
throws
her body weight to the side in an awkward sprawl that does nothing to keep the absol’s horn from slashing across her torso.
Aiko feels the sharp edge cut through her armor mesh and grate over her ribs just before Abdu’s stantler collides with the absol and knocks it away, her blood speckling its white fur. Aiko loses track of what happens next, eyes screwed shut in pain as she hears Ranger Miko yell “Stay focused on the onix!”
Aiko tries, but there’s so much pain, and the blood… Her hands are sticky with it as she tries to hold her wound closed and lie still, breathless screams escaping through clenched teeth. The fear and pain take turns pounding through her consciousness for what feels like hours, and when relief finally comes she still gasps and clutches at her bloody side, fingers probing the new flesh in a panic and shuddering as fresh pain is felt along her ribs.
“Stop, hey, stop!” Hands grab her wrists. “Let it finish healing!”
Aiko opens her eyes to see Abdu’s concerned face. She takes a shuddering breath and holds it as she lets him finish bathing her wound with the headless potion bottle. She realizes she’s about to pass out and slams her hands against the floor, the fresh pain forcing things back into clarity as she starts to take deep, calming breaths. The gradual pain relief makes her shudder, dizziness slowly fading.
Aiko suddenly remembers Sumi and cranes her neck to the side. She sees Ranger Miko tending to her, and snaps her attention back to the onix, which is only being kept in check by Bretta and Slava’s poliwhirl and bayleef now. Both are visibly tiring, however, and despite the leech vines and grey splotches riddling its form, the rock snake still moves quickly, paternal rage driving it through the pain.
The poliwhirl’s next burst of water is suddenly weaker than the previous ones, and it stops shooting any new ones after that. As Slava quickly swaps his pokemon out, the onix takes advantage of not being on the defensive to strike… and roars in pain mid lunge. It twists back upon itself, then starts to crash its body against the wall. Everyone stares in confusion, and for a moment Aiko thinks it’s under some mental attack… until she remembers her dugtrio. She feels a sudden, piercing pain in her chest as the onix stops thrashing: in the dim light, she can vaguely make out the thick gouges in its hide… and the red stain on the wall it had been rubbing against.
She’d sent it to its death without even getting the chance to know it. All to buy a few extra seconds.
Aiko pushes herself to her feet, knees shaking. “I’m fine,” she tells the concerned Abdu. “I’m fine, help them!” He nods and heads toward the onix, and Aiko starts to move as fast as she can toward Dune despite the ache in her left ribs.
Her sandslash is still lying by the wall he fetched up beside, and she lets out a breath that’s half a sob as she sees that he’s still alive. She kneels and looks her pokemon over, making soothing noises as she strokes his snout. Oddly, comforting him makes her fear more bearable, even as her heart aches for the pain he must be in. Four scales were broken off with a dozen more on that side that are cracked where the tail hit, and a bruise is spreading along his middle. She fumbles for a potion bottle, cursing herself for not getting it out earlier, and starts to spray it over his injuries, flinching as something crashes against a cavern wall behind her. Next she takes a towel out to quickly wipe the onix’s thick, gel-like blood off Dune’s claws so she can make sure they weren’t damaged by its hide.
She finds nothing, but by the end of her inspection Dune still appears to be having trouble breathing. She wishes she had Red’s ability to feel what her pokemon are feeling, and considers just withdrawing him. But no, the fight is still ongoing, and she has nothing else that can do much. Her krabby and oddish might distract an onix for a bit, but… her hand shakes as she thinks of that massive body crashing down on them.
She gets out a syringe and fills it with potion. “I’m sorry, Dune, you’ll have to fight a little longer…” She steadies her hand with a deep breath, then injects some potion into his blood to help with potential organ damage. As she waits for it to work, her eyes scan the diffuse light that fills the cavern to see how Blue and Elaine are doing. Their graveler and shiftry are still fighting the onix, along with Payton’s kingler.
As she watches, her heart begins to lift. The three pokemon are effectively keeping the onix penned into the tunnel entrance, and each time it sticks itself out too far for some maneuverability, Blue orders Kemuri forward for a quick slash or two before leaping back out of range. They’re wearing it down, she can see it, another couple minutes and—
Tremors suddenly shake the cavern as a grinding cacophony reverberates around them. The onix seems to have decided that two dimensions isn’t working in its favor, and the front half of its body is disappearing underground as it spins itself like a slow drill. If she wasn’t already crouching beside Dune she would probably have fallen to her knees.
Blue’s group is knocked off balance, and barely have a chance to react before the ground crumbles beneath his shiftry. Aiko watches as if in a nightmare as the onix pulls it out of sight, Kemuri’s hoarse cough of pain mixing with Blue’s yell of rage as Elaine grabs his arm to keep him from running toward the hole. A moment later there’s a cracking sound, and the onix emerges, splinters of wood and leaves showering around it.
Blue tears free of Elaine and rushes forward to stand impossibly close to the emerging onix, one arm out… and a ball held facing it. Aiko hears the distant ping just before Blue pelts it at the center of the onix’s body.
Even at this distance, Aiko sees something wrong before he even releases the ball. She’s watched and faced Blue in dozens of battles now, and can count on one hand the times his stance was sloppy, his aim off, his follow-through weak. She’s studied him closer than she’d ever admit out loud, and sometimes he seems more like a machine than a person, body executing perfect catches, throws, and swaps without any wasted motion or energy, almost making it all look effortless.
This throw is like watching a different person. His arm trembles, he releases the ball a hurried heartbeat early, and the throw has too much force, sending the ball
just
over the onix’s body as it lunges forward. Payton’s kingler stops it cold before it can crush Blue, its massive claw clenching between two boulders near the onix’s rear as its claws dig into the ground. The onix whips around only to have a bubblebeam spewed in its face, and Blue manages to stumble away and summon Maturin.
Aiko releases a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, then has trouble drawing in a new one. Everything’s going wrong and she’s just sitting here, afraid to send a potentially injured pokemon to his death. She should have stayed above ground, let Glen come down, he’s more experienced, has stronger pokemon. Ranger Fischer was right. She’s not strong enough to be down here, to be part of a group like hers—
My team members are more than they appear on paper.
Blue. He believed in her. Professor Oak did too. She may not have the experience of a veteran trainer, but her pokemon are just part of what she brings to a group.
A trainer who only trains their pokemon will never become great,
Giovanni had written in his first Rationally Thinking post.
It is the mind that directs the pokemon. A trainer who only trains their body will never become great. It is the mind that guides the body. Train your mind, and you may triumph even when your body or pokemon are insufficient.
Red taught her how to meditate once, when she saw him practicing some psychic ability. She doesn’t think she can get into the right state of mind with the chaos and Pressure all around her, but she still closes her eyes and lets her thoughts scatter as she concentrates on the feeling of air rushing in with a deep breath.
A sharp pain in her ribs makes her let it out, but she pulls in another, a little more shallow, then blows it back out, slow as she can, trying to calm herself so she can focus her thoughts one step at time.
Needs: Survival. Capture threats.
No. Just survival. Run. Regroup. Return.
Onix would chase. Need to remove their need to be here. What happens if the eggs disappear? Would only stay to defend if they’re being moved. But then other would chase the mover.
There’s a loud crash, and lots of yells, some in pain. Aiko gives into the fear hammering at her mind by huddling into herself, not caring how it looks to others as long as she can appease the fear enough to concentrate. The Pressure makes it hard to think, her thoughts on the verge of scattering as her heart hammers and every loud noise of the battles makes her flinch. But once the chain of ideas starts linking together, not even the fear can stop it.
What are their needs? Think like them. Food. Dryness. Safety for self and eggs. They want to protect them, eliminate threats. If we can’t leave, and we can’t beat them, we need them to leave. Apex predators. Not scared of any pokemon cries. What do they fear?
Water.
Aiko’s eyes snap open. The beginning of an idea is there.
Flood the chamber. Not enough water. Make it sound like it’s flooding? Play rainfall noise from speakers? Get up high, spray water from above? Would that just confuse them?
She discards the idea. Too much effort.
Focus.
What are they feeling? What’s the experience of the Pressure to them? Protective rage? Acute fear for their eggs?
Aiko turns to the clutch of eggs near the center of the room. Each one is about the size of a small adult curled into the fetal position, and weighs almost as much as solid stone. Aiko doubts she could move faster than a waddle with one, assuming she could even lift it for long. She could try putting them in containers, but to the onix that would just appear as if they’ve vanished, and enrage them further. Maybe they could strap some onto the backs of strong pokemon and have them run… but she can’t think of a pokemon that can both carry the egg and outrun an onix with its weight, let alone one that they have with them.
So they can’t move the eggs themselves. Which means she needs the onix to want to do it. She knows they can swallow their eggs and regurgitate them later if they need to be moved.
I don’t need to flood the whole chamber.
She recoils from the idea of hurting the baby onix, and reminds herself that it would be too hard to break through the shells anyway. If she just pretends to try, that might get the parents’ attention, but they might just fight that much harder to reach and kill her.
No, she needs to make them afraid to leave them here. She can’t flood the chamber, and she won’t hurt the eggs, but could she at least make it look like the eggs are at risk in a way that forces them to move them?
Aiko starts to dig through her bag until she finds the container ball that holds all her water. “Dune, follow.” She moves toward the eggs, and her hands shake as she releases the box, then tosses the lid off and stares at the rows of bottles that take up roughly half of its space.
Not enough.
“Dune, follow!” She pushes herself to her feet and they run to where Elaine and Blue are fighting, pain radiating from her ribs with every step. One or more is probably cut or fractured, every breath painful as she tries to draw in enough to speak loudly. “Guys! Need your bags! Water!”
To her relief neither ask questions, simply shrugging out of their straps so their packs fall to the floor as they continue to give orders to their pokemon. Aiko starts rooting around in them until she finds the right containers, then runs back to her box and opens theirs beside it, looking at the bottles and canteens within.
Blue has all of Maturin’s water in here too. And it still won’t be enough!
Aiko looks around the chamber and spots Bretta and Slava’s bags, dropped to their sides at some point in the battle. It would take forever to find the right containers… unless…
Aiko dashes across the cavern toward Sumi, grabbing her team’s bags along the way. “Sorry just borrowing them!” she gasps over her shoulder, unsure if they heard her but unable to yell louder with the pain in her side. Ranger Miko is still with her, an open medkit and bloody gauze pad to the side, along with a pair of scissors. The girl’s shirt and jacket have been opened and cut, revealing a line of flesh that’s been mostly wiped clean of blood. A pale pink scar runs from the center and down at a diagonal.
The ranger’s attention seems completely focused on the potion she’s injecting into the girl’s chest, but as soon as Aiko arrives she speaks without looking up. “Trainer, can you take over—”
“No, sorry, I have a plan to get the onix to leave!”
The ranger’s eyes flick up at her for just a second. “How?”
“Water, enough to put the eggs at risk and make the onix leave with them.”
A tense moment passes as she finishes injecting the potion, then nods as she tosses the syringe aside and grabs another pre-filled one from the open kit beside her. “What do you need?”
“Can she talk? Sumi! Are you awake?”
Sumi’s eyes flutter open, and she nods, face covered in sweat.
Something in the ranger’s shoulders loosens. “You’re lucky to be alive, hon. I thought it pierced your heart, might have just clipped it. Try not to move.”
Aiko feels a flood of relief, for more than one reason. “Listen,” she half-yells over the renewed crashes and shouts of the battles behind them. “I need your water, all of it, and the rest of your group’s. Do you know where they keep theirs? Can you point to them?” She holds up their bags.
Sumi stares at her in confusion, and Aiko isn’t sure if she heard her.
The nearby onix roars again, and as soon as it ends Aiko raises her voice, both in frustration and to account for the ringing in their ears. “
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR TEAM KEEPS THEIR WATER?!”
Sumi blinks, slowly, then inclines her head a few degrees.
“Point them out to me!” Aiko starts taking every container ball out of the bags, watching Sumi until one finger weakly raises. She repeats the process with the other two. “Thank you. Ranger?”
“Left lower pocket, bottom ball.”
Aiko grabs it and stuffs her pockets, then runs back toward the eggs, tossing the trainers their bags along the way. “Sorry!” She pauses as the absol and pursuing pokemon pass close by, ready to run if it turns toward her. It dodges closer to the wall to avoid a gout of flame from the ranger’s ponyta, however, and Aiko takes the opportunity to dash to the center of the cavern where she left the first boxes.
Once the four new ones are all out, she pops the tops off and checks to make sure they’re the right ones. Rows of water bottles and canteens face her, three of them even including ten gallon jugs for recharging water pokemon.
Enough. It has to be.
She drags the boxes around to form most of a half-circle, all of them more or less pointing at the clutch of eggs, then collapses beside the first one, one hand clutching her ribs as the other starts uncapping bottles, jugs and canteens one after another.
She’s just finished the third box when Blue suddenly yells “Heads up!”
She turns in time to see the three rocks sail up to crack along the roof of the cavern, then fall in a spread that forces Bretta, Slava, and Abdu to retreat with their pokemon or risk being crushed. The onix they were fighting uses the opportunity to twist around along the wall and grab Bretta’s bayleef in its jaws before it can go far.
Aiko shuts her eyes, but still hears the horrible crunch, the cut off bleat of pain, and a cry of grief that chills her blood.
“Aiko!”
She turns to Elaine and sees that the onix has finally broken free of Blue’s group, perhaps scared by how close she is to its eggs, perhaps smelling the water and panicking, and is barreling toward them.
Toward the eggs, and toward Aiko, who’s between them.
Aiko feels the world narrowing to the feel of her heart in her throat, the rumbling beneath her feet, and the sight of the scarred and mottled onix. She tries pushing through to command Dune to try a Sand Attack to distract and disorient it, but her voice comes out in a breathless whisper.
Her pokemon leaps forward, and for an instant Aiko thinks he heard her anyway. But no, instead of trying to blind the onix, he simply dashes at it head on, injury slowing him too much to be of any use.
Aiko’s hand snaps up, pokeball aimed. “Return!” The beam catches her pokemon just before he’s out of range, and he disappears. If she’s going to die, she’ll do it alone. The others can care for her pokemon. In her last seconds, she takes out the heavy ball, hand trembling as she holds it up, knowing it won’t lock on time but preparing herself for another attempt at a dodge that might buy her an extra second…
There’s a thud behind her, and the sound of rushing water, followed by another, then another. She turns to see Payton kicking the boxes over, all the caps opened while she was busy watching the fight.
Bags of food and various trail rations spill onto the cavern floor, and along with them come gallons and gallons of water. Some of the bottles and canteens fall out as well, but this only quickens the spread of the pool, and once she kicks her boxes over as well, the pools begin to converge and expand even faster. Some patches of the ground absorb the water, but most of it is solid, and soon there’s a rushing tide spreading outward… most of it is heading straight for the clutch of eggs.
No roar sounds, no cry of alarm or fury. One second the onix is bearing down on her, and the next it’s juking its body toward the clutch of eggs. The rock snake begins to swallow her eggs whole, one after the other, and a rumbling from the other side precedes the father arriving to help as the water begins to reach them.
Aiko is tempted to raise her heavy ball, but even as she debates the risk of it, unsure of what one will do if their mate suddenly vanishes, they’re already done and fleeing toward the exit that the mother came from. Elaine scrambles to get out of their way, returning her graveler as she goes.
There’s a moment of relative silence as their rumbling retreat echoes behind them, but it’s quickly broken by one of the Rangers: “Cover the exit!”
The absol is leaping after the departing onix, almost reaching the opening before Elaine can re-summon her pokemon. The kingler scuttles toward it, apparently out of water, but the absol is able to run around it easily until the ponyta chases it off with another burst of flame, causing it to juke toward the other exit.
But Bretta, Slava, and Abdu are already converging on it, and as one of the rangers tries to intercept it along the way, it’s forced to dodge to the side again and again. Aiko has summoned her oddish, and a cloud of spores makes the absol leap back just as twin orders of “Wrap!” send two sets of vines from two different tangela lashing out at it, Elaine and Payton standing side by side as their pokemon grab at the absol’s neck and legs.
It begins to thrash wildly to untangle itself, and before it can a bolt of electricity hits it from Ranger Seishi’s jolteon, one leg severed during the chase. The absol sags against the tangela’s insulated vines, and they unwrap from it a moment later as three different pokeballs ping a lock, throw, and hit it, the first opening to pull it inside.
In the space of a heartbeat the Pressure fades to nothing, and Aiko feels its absence like a breath of renewed life, looking around at the others as they blink and gasp in air as if waking from a nightmare.
They spend a few minutes making sure everyone is okay and collecting their things. Half of the trainers got injured in some way that Aiko didn’t notice, the worst beside Sumi and herself being Blue, who lost an entire pant leg with the skin on one side a bloody abraded mess, and Payton, whose arm got dislocated somehow. Aiko is given another shot and advised to be careful on the way up until she can be checked out at a proper medical facility.
Sumi takes longer to stabilize enough for the rangers to feel safe with her moving, and even then they summon a stretcher for her. Aiko sees Blue go to the hole his shiftry disappeared down, great ball in hand. She feels a moment of hope, but after a few long breaths staring down the hole, Blue reclips the ball and turns away, eyes down. She wants to comfort him, but her gaze moves to the red stain along the wall, the vague, crushed form below it, and tears press against her eyes and spill down her cheeks. Elaine is suddenly there to put an arm around her shoulder, and Aiko gratefully turns her face to her shoulder, trying not to sob so that her ribs don’t hurt any more.
“I’m okay,” she whispers. “Hooo, I’m okay, I’m okay… Are you okay?”
“Yep.” Elaine says, squeezing her shoulder.
“It just… hit me, I guess. How close we came.” Blue approaches with some napkins and one of the water bottles that didn’t empty. “Thanks. I’m sorry, about Kemuri…” She wipes at her face.
Blue lets out a deep breath, hand brushing through his hair, then nods. “Gonna help with the cleanup.” He wanders away, and Aiko sees a couple other pokemon bodies that she missed during the battle. She wonders if he’ll want to bury Kemuri, but from the way he walked away from the hole she can’t imagine there was much left of the shiftry to gather in a container. Like her dugtrio.
The combined smell of various different kinds of blood in the cavern is suddenly hard to take, and she feels her gorge rise. “Gonna get some air,” she says, realizing how stupid it sounds but trusting Elaine to know what she means. Her friend nods, and Aiko makes her way carefully to the tunnel entrance so she can lean against the wall inside it and breathe a bit more easily, closing her eyes.
For the first time, she wonders to herself whether she’s ready to be a trainer yet. Maybe her dad was right. Maybe she should have stayed longer… trainer battles are fine, and the earlier fights were okay, if a bit terrifying, but losing pokemon like this… she’s not sure she can take that.
“Hey.” She turns to see Ranger Miko standing at the entrance. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Aiko wipes at her face. “Just need a moment.”
“Alright. Let us know if your side is hurting you more. And good job, Trainer. You saved lives today.”
The ranger leaves before she can respond, and after a moment Aiko closes her eyes and rests her head against the wall again, trying to get the images and sounds of pain and death to stop.
When they’re finally ready to head back up, everyone moves with a slow, quiet pace that lets Aiko replay what happened what feels like a hundred times, sometimes focusing on different details in particular, other times just running the same jumbled flash of highlights in a loop. The ranger’s praise wars with her own self-recriminations for how badly she choked, and her shame only grows as they travel up and up, and she has time to remember her mistakes again and again.
They’re about halfway to the surface when they hear noises coming from ahead, and everyone quickly prepares themselves as best they can for a fight. She offers to take the front of the litter from Slava, who’s behind her, and he accepts, carefully transferring the poles to her before moving up the line, hand on a pokeball.
A minute later Aiko distantly sees light appear around the corner up ahead, then hears Elaine shout Glen’s name. The relief in her tone matches Aiko’s, and she smiles for the first time in what feels like days as she sees their friend is the first to round the corner, looking at them in surprise.
“Hey guys, I brought the cavalry!”
“The absol was captured,” Ranger Miko says. “The cavalry should about-face.”
“Woah, nice job!”
“Now, trainer. We have injured.”
“Oh. Shit.” He turns around, causing the person behind him to do the same, then the person behind them, presumably along the rest of the procession. “Hey, pass on the message that we’re going back and see if whoever’s on the end feels confident to lead the way?”
“I got it,” Elaine says, ducking and squeezing her way through the crowded tunnel to help the new arrivals reverse course.
Slava reaches out to take the litter poles back, pointing out that she’s injured too, and Aiko lets him without protest. Her side doesn’t hurt as much now that she’s not running around, but it still feels tender, and the weight of the litter had been making her ribs ache. The rest of the journey feels quicker, and once they reach the surface, the rangers move off together to debrief and call an ambulance as the two groups begin to intermingle, sharing the details of what happened below.
Aiko and Blue let Elaine fill Glen in, the talkative girl somewhat subdued in her storytelling. Blue stares at the ground, one hand rubbing the now empty greatball at his side. After a moment he seems to realize what he’s doing and unclips it with a sigh, taking his pokedex out to wipe its registration before he shrinks it down and tucks it in his pocket.
“You doing okay?” she asks.
“Sure.” He shrugs. “Just coming to terms with it. Kemuri put me through a lot, after I caught him. But he came through for me time and again. He was good at playing up injuries, faking enemies out, you know? I was hoping throughout the fight that he’d come back up at the right moment, or that I’d find him down there after. Hurt, but, you know, mostly okay. He’s come back from… not worse, but pretty bad.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, feeling wretched. If she’d just thought of using the water earlier…
“It’s my fault,” Blue says. “All of this is. If I’d just thought to message them myself instead of assuming they’d listen to the rangers, or just checked my phone earlier…”
Aiko blinks. “What? That’s ridiculous, you couldn’t have known. But… if I hadn’t gotten so affected by the Pressure, or if my pokemon were stronger, we might have captured ours and come help. I was useless.” Blue is giving her a strange look, and she sees Elaine and Glen have stopped talking to stare at her too. “I mean before the water thing. If anything I should have thought of it sooner.”
“Huh,” Elaine says. “So that’s what that’s like.”
“What?”
“Hearing someone else blame themselves for something silly.”
“It’s not silly!” Aiko says, too loud. She lowers her voice. “I froze up down there. More than once.”
“You think I didn’t?” Blue says. “I missed an onix from close enough to spit on it!”
“Oh, are we throwing a pity party over here?” Bretta asks, and they turn to see her and Slava walk up to them, Payton and Abdu close behind. “I love these, it always turns into a game of one-upmanship for how terrible you think you are so you can feel better about hating yourself.”
“That’s not it,” Aiko says, suddenly angry. Don’t they understand? “It’s not about that, it’s about making sure you own your shit! I screwed up, okay? I did good things too, sure, but I still was too weak. I have to do better next time.”
Everyone’s quiet for a moment, and Aiko stares defiantly at each of them, daring one of them to tell her she’s wrong. It’s Blue that speaks first. “You’re right. You screwed up.”
She meets his gaze, keeping her chin high. Of course Blue gets it. “Yeah. I did.”
“I did too. Will you tell me off for it?”
“I…” She takes a breath. “You screwed up, Blue. Keep track of others better. And whatever shook you down there, learn to deal with it. That throw was yours to miss.”
“Guys…” Elaine says, sounding nervous, but Blue holds a hand up.
“You’re right. I’ll do better next time.”
Aiko nods. “Me too.”
Blue smiles. “We’ll help each other.”
“Yeah.” She smiles back.
There’s silence for a bit, and then Slava says, “I mean, if no one else is going to call me on it, I screwed up a pretty easy throw too.”
Aiko turns to him, considering. “I saw. Wasn’t sure if you wanted in on this.”
“Whatever this is,” Bretta mutters.
“I think I do,” he says, slowly.
“Then…” Aiko turns to face him fully. “Work on your throws. Because if you’d made that catch, Bretta wouldn’t have lost her bayleef. And Sumi may not have gotten hurt.”
There’s another silence, this one a bit more shocked, but Slava nods, grey eyes meeting hers steadily. “I’ll do better next time.”
Aiko smiles. “I’ll help. If you want. Though Blue can probably help more than I can?”
Blue nods to Slava. “Happy to.”
“Then… yeah. Thanks.”
Bretta looks at the three of them with some trepidation. “Um. Well. Obviously, I’m the most terrible one—”
“No, not like that,” Aiko says. “Without exaggeration. Just… be clear.”
Bretta frowns at the ground, brow creased. “I… fucked up. Big time. For leading you guys down there instead of going to the rangers’ meeting. For not reaching out to Blue. If Sumi hadn’t messaged him, we might all… be dead…”
“Yeah,” Slava says, voice quiet. “But we chose to follow you, so that’s on us a bit too.”
“I think I’m supposed to own this,” Bretta half-asks, turning to Aiko.
She consults her gut feeling, then shrugs. “You both screwed up. You both should take 100% of the responsibility, for yourselves.”
“That math doesn’t add up,” Payton says.
“But it feels right.” She turns to them. “Doesn’t it? I’m honestly checking, I’m not really sure what I’m doing here and mostly playing it by ear.”
That gets a round of chuckles, but Bretta and Slava both nod. “100%,” he says. “We’ll help each other do better.”
“Yeah.” Bretta’s hands rise to rub at her face. “We owe that much to Sumi.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Elaine says.
“Friends,” Aiko corrects, voice quiet.
Bretta meets her gaze a moment, pain leaking through her brave mask. Aiko wishes she hadn’t said anything for a moment, but then the girl nods. “You too. And I owe you guys an apology. I was a bit of a jerk, earlier. If I’d just offered for us all to go together… well, I came over in the first place to say… Your group is heading back to Vermilion Gym after this, right?”
Blue looks around at the others, who nod. “Yeah.”
Bretta rummages through her bag and takes out a handful of Vermilion Gym Objections. “Take these. You guys saved us down there. Already thanked these two. Any time we’re in a bind in the future… well, I know who I’m listening to.”
“Mine and Sumi’s too,” Slava says, holding out more. “She wanted to thank you guys.”
Aiko flushes as she sees the handful of tokens, trying to find some way to refuse them. “Aiko, you
definitely
don’t get to say no,” Bretta says to her. “Or I’m going to get mad about you spilling all my water. You think it grows on trees? Nuh uh. Opposite.”
That brings a weak smile, but Aiko still hesitates to take them. “You should have some,” she tells Abdu and Payton, “You didn’t have to come down with us—”
“We’ve already been to Vermilion,” Abdu says with a smile.
“You saved my life, both of you—”
“You saved all of ours,” Payton says with firm conviction. “I just came to help.”
“Goddammit, I’m trying to do something nice here,” Bretta interrupts. “Just take the damn tokens! Except for you, Glen. You were late.”
“Oof, there’s the guilt again,” he says. “Do I get to call myself weak for getting airsick?”
Aiko studies him briefly, unsure if he’s making fun. “Do you think it’s something you can improve on?”
“I… don’t know. I can try. I
will
try.”
“Then yes.”
“Alright then. Sorry I let you guys down.”
Elaine looks close to tears. “You didn’t… no, sorry, I know, I guess you guys… have to… but I… I don’t…”
“You were fine,” Blue says, and smiles. “Better than fine. You don’t have to look for some mistake just to fit in.”
“Oh, but… I felt so rushed, I know I was making mistakes but… I couldn’t seem to stop myself or think faster…”
“Well, I don’t want to take that away from you, if you really feel like you need to be held accountable for it,” Blue says. “But from what I saw, you did great, Elaine. Maybe reserve… this sort of thing… for when you make a mistake that you can point harm to, in specific?”
“I’m sure there will be future opportunities, if that makes you feel better,” Glen says.
Elaine smiles slightly. “It does, a little. Okay.”
“Well,” Abdu says. “I felt left out, but couldn’t think of anything concrete either. Did anyone see me screw up?”
“Nah, you did good, this time,” Payton says. “Me, though, I’m pretty sure getting distracted by the other fights cost the ranger his jolteon’s leg. I hope it can get re-attached, I feel wretched about it, especially for a pokemon that loves to run that much.”
“You’ll do better next time,” Aiko says, the words now having the feel of ritual.
“I’ll help,” Abdu says, completing it, and Payton nods.
Bretta and Slava are still holding the tokens, and Blue finally steps forward and takes them. “I’ll divide them up later, when people are feeling less down on themselves.”
“Good,” Bretta says. “Except Glen.”
“You can give some of mine to Glen,” Slava says, handing his to Blue. “I get airsick too.”
They hear the ambulance arriving then, its large tires and shock suspension helping it drive easily over the wild grass, and as a group they go to watch Sumi get loaded into it.
“Intravenous potions not working?” Glen asks quietly.
“No,” Slava says. “Some part of the injury isn’t getting reached, or it healed wrong. There’s internal bleeding, and her pulse is still irregular.”
One of the rangers points to Aiko after Sumi is loaded up, and an EMT turns to her. “Ma’am? Do you need help boarding?”
Aiko blinks. “Me?”
“You were badly injured,” Abdu says. “Play it safe, hm?”
A hand gently pushes at her back. “Go,” Blue says. “Make sure you’re okay. We’ll see you in Golden Hills.”
She checks the time, wondering how long it would take. She only has a few hours before she returns to the ranch, but the tenderness she still feels when she breathes too deep makes her abandon her protest. “Alright. See you guys there.”
She climbs into the ambulance back to sit across from where Sumi is lying down. “Slava?” the girl asks without opening her eyes.
“N-no, it’s me. Um. Aiko.”
“Is he…”
“Just a sec.” She pokes her head out. “Hey, Slava, she wants to talk to you.”
He jogs over and steps in. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Slava,” Sumi says between shallow breaths, voice quiet. “I heard… surgery… if something happens… my pokemon…”
“Hey, don’t talk like that,” the boy says, voice lowering as he takes her hand. “And I told you not to sign them to me. You know I screw everything important up. Let your sister have them.” He squeezes her hand. “And all that’s beside the point, because you’ll be fine.”
Aiko realizes too late that she should probably give them some privacy, but there’s not enough room to maneuver past him now. Sumi’s eyes open, and she looks at him from beneath heavy lids. “Promise…”
“I promise you’ll be fine.”
There’s the sound of the driver door opening and closing, and then the engine starts up. “
Promise.”
He glances at Aiko, who sees pain and fear and doubt in his gaze.
Say yes,
she mouths. He lets out a breath. “Alright, I promise, if it stops you from worrying. I’ll look after them. If something happens. Which it won’t.”
Her eyes slip closed again. “Thank you…”
“See you soon, okay? You’ll be out by dinner time. We’ll skip it for ice cream. Sound good?”
Sumi doesn’t respond, and after a moment her hand goes limp. Slava stares at her, fingers moving up to her wrist. Aiko’s heart catches, but then he lets out a breath, and he glances at Aiko. “Look after her on the way?”
“Yeah, of course,” she says, though she’s not sure what she could do.
“Thanks. See you in a bit.” He looks at Sumi again, then backs out of the cabin, and one of the EMT enters and closes the back behind him. The ambulance starts to move, and Aiko reaches out to take Sumi’s hand as the tech starts hooking her up to the machines. Her fingers squeeze weakly back.
Aiko wonders what the girl’s relationship with Slava is like, that she’d trust him with her pokemon over family. She thinks about her own, and the thought she had when she withdrew Dune. Who would she want to have her pokemon, if something happened to her? Her dad, so he could take care of them on the ranch? Or her friends, who might use them for battles, put them at risk… but maybe get their lives saved by them, let them see more of the world?
It’s a hard question, and she feels a mix of guilt and pain over her dugtrio again. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to know it, but it was
hers,
she had captured it from the wild and was responsible for it. It hurts to think about, but if she continues being a trainer, it won’t be the last pokemon she loses. Is she really prepared for that?
Her thoughts run in circles throughout the trip back to town, and she holds Sumi’s hand all the way to the operating room before she’s led off to get a CT scan.
Aiko wakes with a start, scream trapped in her throat as she thrashes a moment, then realizes where she is and collapses back onto the hospital bed, closing her eyes. Three ribs cut and cracked, no organ damage thankfully. It took about an hour and a half to diagnose and treat her, then she was told to rest for a bit.
How long was I out?
She looks out the window, and curses when she sees it’s dark out, swinging her legs off the bed and stumbling to her phone. A quick glance at the time while she calls her dad tells her she ended up sleeping another two hours.
“Hey Dad? Hey! I… fine, everything’s fine! I just took a nap… yeah, long day… mmhmm.” Aiko pulls her shoes on. “Yep, I’ll be right home! No, I’ll take care of that when I get there! Yeah. Right. Mmhm. See you soon. Love you.” She closes the call and takes a moment to breathe, forehead pressed against the phone screen. He sounded a little alarmed, a little worried, but seemed to take her assurances at face value. No anger for not calling, no suspicion that something bad had happened. She knows that’s not normal, but she’s a bit grateful for it, at the moment.
Aiko shakes herself and goes to use the washroom, worrying about Sumi all the while. The nightmare is stubborn in leaving too, keeping part of her in the cavern, paralyzed by fear as her friends and pokemon die one by one. Her hands tremble slightly as she washes them, and she practically attacks the towel to dry them off, angry with herself.
She needs to be stronger if she’s going to be a trainer. Her pokemon need to be stronger too, better trained. She thinks of the program she was working on at home, to help her pokemon fight more naturally on command, the way Red can make his. Whatever objections Leaf has, Aiko will do her best to pay attention to, but… she’ll take any advantage she can get if it will keep her pokemon and teammates alive.
Aiko collects her things and checks out with the nurse by the elevator, then makes her way to the waiting room below. She hears their voices before she arrives, and recognizes Abdu’s voice.
“Shit man, forget that. You get Giovanni out of the way before your fourth badge,
maybe
your fifth or sixth, but seventh is a bad idea. Eighth is just arrogant.”
“I’ve been called worse,” Blue says.
“You’re exaggerating.” Slava. Aiko relaxes a bit, knowing he wouldn’t sound so casual if something had happened to Sumi. “It’s not as bad as saving someone like Brock for last. Blue got it right going for him first, no one’s crazy enough to take Aeosis on.”
“I don’t blame them, after today,” Elaine says.
“Aeosis is one pokemon,” Payton says. “Sure he’s stupid-strong, but Giovanni is
Giovanni.
You really want to face him at his best?”
Blue snorts. “It’s not his
best,
challenging him for Gym Leadership will be his
best.
But it’s the best I’ll likely get, since I don’t plan on ever doing that. I want to beat him when he’s being at least
somewhat
serious.”
“Is this a pride thing? Or a fame thing?” Elaine asks. “Because I think if you can beat Aeosis, or even Sabrina’s alakazam, what’s it called, Sin?”
“Sync.”
“Sync, right, if you fight and win against
them
you probably get more buzz.”
“Maybe, but… look, Brock and Sabrina are great trainers, with amazing pokemon. All the Leaders are, but yeah, there are a couple with even greater pokemon that elevate them. But I want to beat the greatest
trainer
in Kanto, even if he has no single pokemon as strong as theirs. If anything I think that makes him more formidable. There’s no one point of strength, you just have to straight up beat him team against te—”
Blue stops talking as he sees Elaine and Glen stand up, and turns. “Aiko!” They rush over to take turns hugging her, being careful of her ribs, but she squeezes them tight, smiling.
“They told us you were just resting and everything went fine, but it’s been a while,” Elaine says. “We were worried.”
“I’m okay.” She looks at Bretta and Slava. “Any news?”
“She’ll live,” Slava says, and a weight rolls off Aiko’s chest, though some of it returns at his next words. “They’re worried about permanent damage though. Its horn went past her heart and nicked her spine.”
“We’re probably going to spend the night,” Bretta says. “They already explained how you go home to help your dad out, so don’t worry. We’ll be in town when you port back tomorrow.”
Aiko lets out a breath and nods. “Alright. Message me if you hear anything new.” She turns to Payton and Abdu. “You two staying too?”
“Yeah, it’s too late to travel anyway.” Payton smiles. “We’ll see you tomorrow, say goodbye before you all head back to Vermilion.”
“Oh, by the way,” Blue says. “Rangers came by, thanked us for our service and all that. Even though they’re the ones that caught the absol, the town’s bounty is going to be split among us, along with a bonus from the rangers for helping them acquire a pokemon that will be so important to research.”
“Except for Glen,” Bretta says with a sweet smile, causing him to snort.
“Your share comes out to about $2,500,” Blue says.
Aiko blinks. “Oh. Uhh. Wow. Okay. Great.”
“Yeah. And we’re having a small funeral for our pokemon tomorrow.”
Aiko’s feelings keep rollercoasting, and she swallows past the lump in her throat, then clears it. “Yeah. Sounds good. I’ll be there.” She turns to the room. “It was great meeting all of you, even if the circumstances were… you know.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“Night, Aiko.”
“Take care.”
Elaine hugs her again, briefly, and Aiko waves to everyone as she steps away… then stops and turns back. “Oh, I almost forgot… have you spoken to Red and Leaf? Do they know?”
“Nah, I figured I’d wait until they reached out. Don’t want to bring them down, you know? They’re probably enjoying a fun, peaceful cruise.”
Red wakes on the morning of the cruise and quickly staggers into the shower so he can wash the grogginess away. They added an extra hour when setting their alarms to make sure that, short of some city-wide catastrophe, they’d have plenty of extra time to make it, but he doesn’t want to get complacent because of that. He dries his hair as quick as he can, noticing that it’s getting shaggy and making a quick memo to cut it when he returns, then gets dressed and heads down to the Trainer House lobby to meet Leaf, constantly checking the time and traffic on the route there to see how much wiggle room they’ll have before boarding starts.
The elevator doors open, and Red is about to step forward when he looks up from his phone and sees Leaf, causing his forward momentum to halt as his heart thuds in surprise. Instead of her normal travel clothes, she’s dressed in an elegant black dress that leaves her tanned arms and knees bare, and her hair falls in a straight and shining curtain to her upper back.
She turns at the sound of the elevator opening, then frowns. “Really, Red?”
Red twitches, eyes guiltily jumping to her face. “I ah… I was…”
“You’re wearing
that
? We’re going on a swanky cruise! Don’t you have any dress clothes?”
Red blinks. “Dress clothes! Yes! I thought… that I’d change there…” His cheeks are burning as the elevator doors start to close. “Be right back…”
He rushes back to his room, suddenly glad his mom convinced him to pack a few sets of some nicer clothing. After a few months on the road, the thin material of the button-up shirt and khakis makes him feel vulnerable… particularly once he puts his hat on, then takes it off upon realizing that it looks very out of place. Come to think of it, his white and red hiking shoes clash a bit too, but he doesn’t have anything else.
Red quickly tries combing his hair into something neat, but eventually gives up on it once it’s passable and goes back downstairs with some trepidation. Thankfully Leaf smiles when she sees him. “Much better.” Her eyes flick down to his shoes, but she doesn’t comment, and soon they’re heading out onto the street to find their cab.
To distract himself from looking at her, Red takes his phone back out as they ride and starts checking his sites while he can; internet signal on the ship will be spotty, and he’ll hopefully be too busy to want to surf the net anyway.
What immediately catches his eye is a trend of headlines in his science news sub that follow a certain theme:
Study finds link between psychic ability and pokemon size.
New research on “psychic particle” shows link to gender.
Are psychics from certain regions stronger?
“Leaf, have you seen these?”
She leans over to read from his tilted screen. “Huh. They’re all from the same couple of journals, too. You think they’ve been sitting on this stuff for a while?”
“Maybe…?” Red starts reading the abstracts, his frown growing into a scowl. “I recognize these journals… they’re the ones that just churn out publications. One of them tried to get me to buy in after Pewter!”
“That bad, huh?”
He’s too preoccupied to respond to her tone. “Oh come on, look at this one,
Psychic powers may be linked with nose size.
Nose size! Off of a single correlation found in drowzee!”
“Do they mention that it’s just drowzee in the article?”
He opens the full text and does a search. “Yeah.
Barely
though. And people are already talking like it extends to woobats and spoinks.”
“Hmm.” Leaf reaches out and pinches his nose. “Sorry Red, looks like you’re not a natural.”
He bats her hand away. “This is serious, Leaf! They’re citing me!”
“What, all of them?” She looks impressed. “Oh, you poor thing, how horrible.” His scowl completely fails to affect her as she gets on her phone and starts tapping on it. “I’m more interested in how they’re all coming out at once.”
Red goes back to flicking from paper to paper, looking at their methodology.
Evaluation of component parts… new interpretive technology… uncategorized matter, as shown by Verres experiments…
It doesn’t take long for Red to figure it out; some of the smaller labs must have gotten together and churned through hundreds of captured pokemon data, applying Pallet’s new scanning tech to categorize it legibly, then used some algorithm to search through the massive amounts of data and spit out correlations that would be publishable. Barely.
“I need to talk to someone about this,” Red says. “See if there’s something I can do…”
“No time,” Leaf says, slapping his arm. “We’re here!”
Red glances out the window just as the buildings on either side of the street fall away to reveal the massive, curving city harbor. Traffic picks up as they approach the docks where the SS Anne is waiting, with an intimidating amount of security already set up for early boarders.
Red and Leaf thank their driver, then take their tickets out as they strap their bags on and make their way toward the line. “So what did Bill say?” Leaf asks.
“About what?” Red asks, mind still on the articles.
“Last minute instructions?”
Red blinks. Right, Bill did say he’d send something like that… “I didn’t see anything…” He checks again, then sends Bill a quick message. He probably should have done that earlier, but he got distracted…
There’s no response by the time they reach the front of the line, and their tickets are closely scrutinized once the cruise agent sees the two of them. Red starts to feel nervous as they speak into their phone briefly, and then he and Leaf are taken out of the line while someone calls Bill to confirm that he gave his tickets to them.
“Still no response,” Red says, checking his phone. “What if he’s in some kind of work frenzy? Or asleep?”
“Just be patient. We’ve got time to work whatever confusion there is out.” Leaf seems utterly calm and unconcerned, and he does his best to mimic her, impressed by her confidence or acting ability. Eventually he decides to cheat a little, and mirrors her mental state. Turns out she’s not acting at all, and soon the nervousness in his stomach fades.
Eventually they’re let on and told to enjoy their stay, much to Red’s relief. Once they’re on board, however, it quickly becomes clear that they’ll continue to draw scrutiny for awhile yet; within the first hour they spy a few attendees in their mid to late 20s, but no one near as young as them, and dozens of others far older. They draw a number of looks as they make their way to their cabins.
“Yeah, arriving in my travel clothes might have been a mistake,” Red mutters as he sees all the people wearing fancy suits and dresses.
Leaf smiles. “Maybe they’ll stare less once we put our bags away.”
It’s a good point; both have their fully loaded travel bags with them, while everyone else’s luggage apparently fits in a container ball or two at their belts. Red sees that most attendants have pokeballs too, though none others have six like he and Leaf.
Their rooms are in the same hallway, with another door dividing them. Red wonders who the neighbor between them is, then enters his door and is taken aback by how fancy it is, even after seeing the other cruise attendees. He has a king sized bed, a huge wall monitor, and his own bathroom. Before Red can check out what looks like a whole separate room, the door opens and Leaf pokes her head in. “We have a living room!”
Red blinks, then follows her to see that the door between them actually leads to a shared common space that’s twice as big as his bedroom and just as luxurious. He walks around the couches to inspect a bar stocked with not just alcohol, but a variety of soft drinks and juices. “Think anyone’s going to come and take the booze, now that they know we’re underage?”
“Psh, whatever. We’re old enough to be trainers, we’re old enough to drink.” Leaf inspects one of the bottles, then puts it back. “That said, I’ve never liked the taste.”
“You’ve had wine?” Red asks, impressed.
“Beer, mostly. Grandpa gave me a sip now and then. He seemed to like the faces I’d make.”
“Well, we can always experiment.” Red takes his phone out to snap a picture to Blue, then changes his mind. He doesn’t want to look like he’s bragging. Instead he checks the headlines again.
“Come on, let’s go explore.”
Red follows her out into the common areas, where a number of guests have already settled in to have snacks, play pool, or just sit and chat. The rear deck has an outdoor swimming pool that’s currently unused, and there’s a fitness center that they can see a single person already making use of, lifting weights at one of the machines.
“Must be getting his daily workout in,” Leaf says. “Think they have pokemon training rooms here?”
Red looks around until he spots someone in the staff uniform and approaches him, glancing at his name tag. “Hey, Paul? Quick question, do you guys have rooms for pokemon training?”
The young man blinks. “No, sir. No pokemon battling is allowed onboard. This is a boat.”
“Not for battling, I mean for just training.”
“And… what would training entail?”
“You know, training.” Red makes a careless gesture. “Like… target practice, or…”
He trails off at the expression on Paul’s face. “Sir… this is a
boat.
”
Red opens his mouth to say something about how they’re not going to be training a tyranitar or anything, then closes it, recognizing the futility.
“We can run around with them though, right?” Leaf asks, sounding worried. “Just to get some exercise?”
He hesitates. “I think it might be better not to, ma’am. It might upset the other guests.”
“What if I did it early in the morning? Or late at night?”
“I could ask the captain, and leave a message for you with his answer.”
“Please do.” Leaf gives Paul her room number, and watches him head off with a troubled look on her face. “A whole week without being able to take a run with Raff would drive me nuts.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Red says. “If not, we can just move the couches around to set up an obstacle course in our living room.”
Leaf eyes him uncertainly. “Really?”
“Why not? They gave us all that room, we might as well use it.”
She grins. “Come on, let’s go watch cast off.”
Leaf leans against the railing to watch the people boarding the ship, and Red mimics her. He recognizes a few faces here and there from various tech companies, but most are utter strangers to him, probably the high and mighty among the business world.
Eventually the last few walk up the ramp, and the crew starts the process of unmooring the vessel. The ship shifts beneath his feet as it starts to move away from the pier, and Red looks up at Vermilion City to watch as it starts to slowly shrink.
“It looks so big, from this angle,” Leaf says, voice quiet.
“Yeah.” Red managed to see more of the city than Pewter or Cerulean, but there’s still whole districts and neighborhoods he hasn’t set foot in. “It’ll be weird coming back to a city after leaving it, for once. Want to explore a bit more when we get back?”
“It’s a date.”
Red’s cheeks heat at the choice of words, and he wonders whether it was intentional or not. He’s tempted to use his powers to check, and before he can really reconsider or stop himself his mind brushes hers.
Cheerfulness. Excitement. Impatience.
Some other stuff. Nothing like what he’s feeling.
Red withdraws and chides himself for breaching her privacy, minor as it had been. He didn’t even get any kind of answer, really… and what kind of answer was he looking for, exactly?
“We’ve got an hour to schmooze before the welcome speech,” Leaf says, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Want to go check out the breakfast buffet?”
“Sure.” A moment’s indecision, then Red offers her his arm. She takes it with a grin, and his pulse kicks up as they walk toward the nearest dining area. Red knows he’s going to miss Blue and Aiko, but right now he’s absurdly happy that the coming week will just be him and Leaf.
The main dining hall is packed for the welcome speech, which is itself fairly uninteresting to Red. Some talk about the history of the Cruise Convention, thanks to all sorts of people and organizations, blah blah. He perks up a bit when the day’s schedule is finally revealed to the participants, eyes scanning the big screen as he quickly jots down everything mentioned. Without any further instructions from Bill, he just has to make do with what he was told before, and take notes on all the tech he sees… and particularly any on storage technology. He wonders if the inventor even remembered that the cruise was today, or that he sent them.
Eventually the host reminds everyone that recordings are strictly prohibited, and then the lights come on and people start to make their way to various exhibitions.
“See you at dinner!” Leaf says as she springs up. “Unless you want to see the artificial meat replication exhibit too?”
Red considers it, then realizes he just wants to spend more time with Leaf and shakes his head. “I think Bill will be more interested in the simulation stuff.”
“Oh yeah, I was going to check that one out during the third time slot.”
Red checks his notes. “I think I’m going to be at the ‘battle tech demo,’ whatever that is.”
“Ugh. Pass. I guess I’ll see you later!”
“Later!” Red watches her go, then gets up and makes his way to the room where the simulation technology is being showcased. It starts a few minutes after he arrives, and Red quickly jots down the basic premise; the makers are working on something that would allow a trainer to virtually interact with their stored pokemon in real time, rather than just use pre-set programs that borrow their likeness.
“Once your voice and appearance are uploaded, you then provide samples of hair, skin, sweat, and clothing so that your pokemon can ‘smell’ you,” the presenter says as he moves his hands in a petting motion, encased in their shimmering gloves, while on the screen they see him petting his pokemon up close within the artificially rendered battle arena. “For all practical purposes, you’ll be able to train your pokemon in any way you can imagine, short of actual human simulation!”
The following hour is spent going over technology specs and business models and compatibility with various existing software for training. A lot of it goes over Red’s head, but he dutifully writes down as much as seems important, feeling a bit like he’s in one of his nightmares about going to school and finding out there’s a test the next day on material he’s never seen before. Oddly enough he never had nightmares about the test itself, though occasionally he’d get ones where he finds out it was the day before and he missed it.
He wants to ask how the simulation will handle situations that have never occurred before. After some initial stage fright, he forces himself to raise his hand along with everyone else asking about investment opportunities and production plans and visual fidelity. Time runs out before he’s called on, however, and Red drops his hand to applaud along with everyone else. The tech will probably be a big hit among civilians and parents who want their kids to get some practice interacting with pokemon virtually, but he can’t imagine that professional battle trainers or coordinators would be able to push the envelope with it.
As the lights turn on, the presenter starts talking about the demo they’d be offering after dinner to those interested (and able to pay), and Red follows most of the crowd out as he checks the schedule, then heads to another auditorium. This one’s pretty interesting too; the stage has a pokeball mounted on the end of a robotic arm, with a camera and speakers on the end.
“So picture one of these at every corner of your house,” the presenter says as the screen shows them what the camera sees. “Pokemon comes nearby?” A rattata mounts the stage and approaches the arm, which immediately swings around to point the ball at it. Soon there’s a ping, then the arm throws it and captures the tamed rattata. “No problem, right?”
Red can see there’s some interest in the crowd. This tech has been around for awhile, though its reliability is still an issue, and it doesn’t work for pokemon in the air or that come underground, limiting its uses. This one seems more refined and flexible than the others…
The presenter replaces the ball. “What about this one?” The sound of wings comes from behind them, air blowing Red’s hair, and everyone looks up to see a pidgey flying above, no doubt released by one of the assistants. The arm once again homes in on it as it gets close, pings a lock, then throws, quickly, accurately, catching the pidgey mid-air. The people below it flinch as the ball drops, but it suddenly zips back toward the arm as some thin fiber is reeled into the center. There’s applause this time, and the presenter takes the ball off, then turns it to show them the custom shell.
“More accurate, responsive, and reliable than any on the market. But wait, there’s more!”
A third ball is placed on the robotic limb, and another rattata is sent toward the stage. This time the ball doesn’t lock on to catch it; it releases an oddish. “Sleep Powder,” a voice commands from the arm, and the oddish sends some spores at the rattata, who quickly slumps to sleep. The arm withdraws the oddish, and the audience applauds again, louder.
“Did I say every corner of your house?” the presenter asks. “Well now imagine a line of them around every town and city in the region! With seismic sensors and longer arms, our tech will be deployed by private citizens, governments, gyms, and rangers to finally bring us all what we’ve been dreaming of: peace of mind.”
More applause, more questions, more notes, and then it’s off to the third presentation room, which has a pair of rattata facing each other on stage as if ready for a battle, and their trainers each wear some kind of headgear with a screen in front of one eye that reminds Red of Bill’s gear. He quickly finds his seat as the presenter steps to the front of stage.
“Welcome everyone! We at Game Freak are happy to unveil our newest generation of simulation technology; rather than a VR game, we’ve been working on an AR program that will revolutionize pokemon battles the world over. For almost a decade now we’ve seen more and more professional trainers using some form of Heads Up Display to augment the amount of information they have during a battle. But what if we could give more immediate data about the pokemon battles themselves…?”
Red watches as the big screen lights up to show a split of what the two trainers see on their small visors. The clear glass displays a green bar floating beside each of their pokemon, and Red grins as he sees where this is going.
Blue is going to FLIP!
Sure enough, as soon as one of the rattata is ordered to tackle the other, the hurt pokemon’s bar goes down slightly on both trainers’ screens.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not pre-rendered. It’s a live calculation being made based on factors like species, mass estimation, contact type,
velocity
of contact type…” The rattata that was attacked is ordered to use Double Edge, a far more powerful version of the standard tackle. Red winces slightly at the bone-jarring impact that sends one of the rattata tumbling out of the small arena. Its trainer follows it with her vision, so that they can see its “health” drop quite a lot. Meanwhile, the attacking rattata’s trainer keeps his vision on his own pokemon, whose health has also dropped some smaller amount. Half? A little less? It’s hard to be sure with such a small bar and no numbers.
“Currently, the technology relies on the careful testing and simulating of pre-registered pokemon that have fought dozens of times. Useful for trainers to have a visual representation of how hurt their own pokemon are while training. But that’s just what the launch product will feature.” The presenter paces the stage as the monitor changes from a perspective of the two trainers’ HUD to recorded footage from dozens of other tests. “Imagine what the analysis of millions of hours of battle footage from hundreds of thousands of battles, not just in our labs but also in the wild or gym arenas, will eventually let it do. We predict that within a year of widespread use, our algorithms will be able to provide an estimation of damage for every attack by any pokemon against any pokemon, not just based on how and where it was struck, but by aggregated data from every time that pokemon has been struck by that attack by that opponent in recorded history.”
Red applauds with everyone else, though his gaze stays on the rattata that was tackled out of the arena as its trainer gives it some quick care before returning it to its ball. Watching the pokemon take such a powerful attack just to demonstrate some tech made him feel a pang of something he imagines is close to what Leaf feels when she watches trainer battles. He knows it’s silly, testing the technology would require all sorts of actual pokemon fighting each other, and it’s no less important than the training people put their pokemon through while
not
being recorded or analyzed.
After a moment he begins to applaud a bit harder, already thinking of all the ways this tech could make pokemon battles safer, and give trainers in the wild an edge in determining not just how close their own pokemon are to serious injury, but how careful to be with an opponent that might die before it’s caught.
The next couple exhibits are less interesting to him, one on travel technology and another on refined compression. Red does his best to follow along for the sake of the note taking, and practically forgets that he’s on a ship until he steps outside of the last one and sees that night has fallen on the ocean around them. He heads toward the dining hall to meet up with Leaf and compare notes. He notices that a lot of the people in the various lounge areas and then the dining hall are on their phones or laptops, and wonders how strict the NDA really is. It’s probably expected that many of them would already start talking with their various teams, as long as the information doesn’t reach the press before the companies are ready to go public.
He half expects Leaf to already be typing up an article about the meat production, but instead he spots her still at the notebook writing stage. It takes Red a few minutes to decide what to eat with all the options that are on display, and he finally decides to grab a little of everything before heading to the empty spot at her table.
“Hey. Pretty exciting stuff, huh?” he asks.
“Exciting, yeah,” she says. “Sorry, in a bit of a flow… talk after?”
Red stifles the little stab of hurt. “Sure.” He frowns at himself. Since when did he start feeling hurt from Leaf being productive? They spent whole weeks barely talking to each other, each lost in their own projects.
Red takes his phone out to work on one of his, but is distracted by the notification of new trending articles. It must be from while they were still in reception range…
He opens it and starts to read. Sure enough, more garbage.
Psychic particle correlated with glucose… Psychic ability may be reduced by low melanin…
Red blinks.
Psychic power found to correlate with amount of gut bacteria?!
He had made that exact joke, back in Viridian Forest!
Red feels himself getting angry again. All this “knowledge” is useless; it’s like overlaying a graph of “deaths by wild pokemon per year” and another of “amount of pop music videos created per year.” Whether they’re correlated in a positive or negative direction, the information tells you nothing about any causal link between them.
What’s worse is the imprecision of the headlines. He has to delve into each one’s methodology to figure out what exactly is meant by “psychic ability” each time the phrase is used. In Red’s papers, he was careful both times to specify in the title what was actually tested: strength of fear based mental projection for the spinaraks, and psychokinetic lifting strength for the abra. These headlines are all just treating psychic abilities like one unified thing, even as they specifically draw correlations between the Other category and various other metrics, then take
his
research about Other being linked to stronger psychokinesis as justification for the importance of their “study!”
The sheer amount of these things that have come out in the past couple of days is itself a problem. He sees comments by people already complaining about how it’s clogging up news feeds. Sites that allow for user voting have thankfully responded swiftly, consolidating them all to mega-threads or downvoting them into oblivion, but that latter just risks a negative response to
any
future claim of measurable basis for psychic phenomenon!
If someone had asked him yesterday whether he’d ever be upset at his research being cited in dozens of papers, he’d have said the more the merrier. But… not like this. His work is being used to justify all sorts of sensationalized nonsense.
“Red?”
He blinks and looks up. “Huh?”
“I asked if you’re ready to go?”
Red looks around. The dining hall is mostly empty, as is his plate. He barely remembers what he ate. “Yeah, sorry.” He gets up, and she follows. “Did you finish your notes?”
“Yeah. You looked really focused on something, so I didn’t want to bother you.”
He would have preferred the interruption to just getting more and more upset by headlines, but he can’t think of a way to say so. He doesn’t want to bring up the articles again, after she dismissed his anger earlier.
Instead they walk the halls of the ship in silence, until Red forces himself to think of something else. “I just realized, we never signed a non-disclosure agreement or anything when we got on board… are we allowed to talk about this stuff to anyone, or post about it online?” he asks. “Since they don’t want us recording anything…”
Leaf shrugs. “The majority of guests here are potential investors and collaborators. You only make someone sign an NDA if you have leverage over them or want it, which would be pretty counter-productive for the people the companies here want to work with.”
“We’re kind of an exception to that, though, right?”
“True. That might be why we had some trouble getting on board. But they let us on, so I don’t think they’ll have much to complain about if I write about some of the stuff we saw.”
When they get back to their room there’s a note waiting on Leaf’s door. “We can let out ‘small’ pokemon at the pool area, but not in the halls, and not if it would ’cause a disturbance,'” Leaf reads. “Well, that’s something I guess.”
The expression on her face belies her casual tone. It bothers Red that he won’t be able to spend much time with his pokemon for a week, but he knows that Leaf really values the time she spends working out and playing with them. “So, is Plan B a go?”
Leaf’s slow smile brightens the hall. “Really? I thought you were joking about that. We really shouldn’t, they might get upset…”
“So? What are they going to do, kick us off the boat?” Leaf snorts, and he shrugs. “At worst maybe one of the staff finds out and we just put everything back where it was.”
“Alright, twist my arm why don’t you!” They go inside, then take a look around. “Let’s see, if we push all the furniture into the middle we’ll have a decent amount of space to run laps in…”
“Yeah, and we can move those two couches back to back for a three-step obstacle, then stack the cushions for a small wall to climb.”
“Yeah…” She’s quiet for a moment as she looks around the room, and for a moment he’s afraid she’s going to tell him to just forget about it. Then she turns to him with a grin. “Think they’ll give us extra pillows if we ask for them?”
He grins back. “Can’t hurt to ask.”
An hour later, the living room is transformed. To an untrained eye it may just look like they’ve just strewn things about at random, but the end result was each pillow, couch, cushion, leg rest, and garbage bin carefully placed from multiple tests and iterations. There didn’t end up being quite enough space for a satisfying outer track, so instead they set up a pair of parallel courses that go up and down the length of the room twice so that they can swap back and forth as they reach each end.
Red leaps forward with wide side to side movements, bare feet landing on cushions that get progressively higher until he reaches the end, hands reaching up to brush the ceiling, then coming down to balance his landing. Pichu leaps straight from the highest cushions to Red’s shoulder, and he turns and steps to the side to start on the other track, which uses the couches as a three step, followed by the coffee table that he falls onto his belly to crawl under while Pichu leaps off his shoulder and races ahead to his bedroom door, which is propped open so he can jump and grab the top, brace his feet on the handles, and leap back onto the start of the other track, usually just as Leaf and Raff finish it and leap up the couches.
Red starts to work up a sweat after a few iterations, but they’ve found the right rhythm to keep moving at a steady pace. After the training courses at Vermilion Gym, all the running isn’t too strenuous. “So how was the ball-made meat?”
“Good!” Leaf crawls under the table as Raff jumps up to run atop it. “It’s been so long since I had any that it tasted strange, but I think that was just me. The fake oddish tasted better, and the others there seemed to like it!”
“So you’re going to write a piece,” He huffs out a breath as he lands. “On that?”
“Yeah! I already talked to some of the engineers… they’ve been making meat for years now, but it was never economic or tasty enough.”
“Does it come out precooked?”
“They make both! I tried to get some for you, but they said you can get some at lunch tomorrow!”
“Will do!” Red uses his hands to vault over the couch without his feet touching it this time and stumbles, reminding himself to use more force on the next lap. “What about the other exhibits?”
“Nothing too exciting. Some new aerial surveillance and signal relaying drones for better emergency control. Useful for things like the Viridian Fire.”
“Or to start settling more of the wilderness. The automatic pokeballs will help with that too, so that it’s easier to set up defenses.”
“Yeah,” Leaf says, and he hears her slap the ceiling behind him before she asks, “This whole island chain isn’t totally inhabited, right?”
“No. There’s been talk of Kanto and Johto working together to push out past Mount Silver for new settlements, though some are worried they would be too far, and form a new region.”
“Why does that matter?”
Red shrugs as he runs. “Some political thing I guess. Never really got it.” He notices that Pichu’s energy is flagging, and unclips his ball. “Pichu, return!” He reclips the ball and unclips another without slowing down, bracing his arm as he points it to the empty space beside the bar area. “Go, Nidoran!” His pokemon materializes, and Red says “Follow!” as he reclips the ball and starts leaping across the pillow path again. “But I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon. Dad used to say there aren’t enough extra people yet who would want to live on the frontier until it stabilizes. What about around Unova?”
“The frontiers around it have been slowly expanding,” she says. “But there was a big setback a couple years ago. Thundurus hit one of the cities there, forced it to be abandoned, and there were calls to stop trying to push further for a bit.”
“Damn,” he pants. “And what do you think? Should they have?”
“I guess it made sense, at the time.” She leaps over the couches, and takes a deep breath before diving under the table. “But… eventually… I hope… we try again!”
“Same.”
The conversation lulls after that, the sounds of their movements and breaths filling the silence. The room is starting to feel hot and stuffy, and Red suddenly breaks from the course to go open the window, letting in the cool night air and smell of the ocean. He scratches Nidoran behind its ears, then approaches the obstacle course again and waits for Leaf to get to the opposite side before jumping back in. Nidoran has some trouble with the table, electing to run around it instead of trying to go under like Red or over it like Raff, and waits at the other end for Red to come out, somehow managing to look impatient. “Cheater,” Red accuses as he pushes himself back up.
“Do you think our ancestors ever imagined something like this?” Leaf asks eventually. “That we’d grow so much, connect with each other across the globe, start pushing out?”
“Maybe in a different way. Like a single empire sweeping across the island or continent, eradicating pokemon along the way.”
Red can hear the frown in Leaf’s voice. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah. But much as we might treat them poorly now, people had even worse perspectives on pokemon before we were able to catch them.”
“I know. Grandpa talks about what it was like growing up, and even then it wasn’t so bad as in
his
grandparents’ days. But people’s minds are changing, same as our tech. So as long as both keep changing…” Leaf runs out of breath, and on his next lap, Red sees that she’s stepped to the side to rest.
He slows to a stop, then goes over to the bar and considers the options there. His hand hovers over the wine, curious, but then he grabs some juice for him and Leaf, as well as water and a bowl. He returns to the couch and hands hers over, then pours some water in the bowl for their pokemon.
“Do you think one drives the other?” he asks as he takes a swallow, enjoying the way the breeze from the window feels on his sweaty face. “Like, people are more accepting of other cultures today than they used to be, but part of that comes from the ability to learn about and talk to people around the world, and travel being so much easier. If the tech for fake pokemon never advanced, would people’s morals have changed eventually?”
“I’m not sure,” she says slowly. “There are other issues where it looks like cultures made moral progress without new tech, like most regions try to rehabilitate criminals rather than just punish them.”
“Unless they’re Renegades.”
“Sure, but even they’re killed more humanely now than they used to be, most of the time. So I want to think attitudes on eating pokemon might have changed on their own, but… morals are kind of a luxury, aren’t they? Like I know that people can only worry about not eating pokemon because they have other things to eat, now. Back then it was all about survival. But maybe they would eventually have realized what they were doing was wrong, but necessary.” She glances at him. “Taking for the sake of argument that eating pokemon is wrong.”
Red shrugs. “I don’t
want
pokemon to suffer on ranches, I just… don’t really care if they do, I guess.” He frowns. “It sounds bad, when I say it out loud.”
“Mmhm,” Leaf says with a raised brow, sipping her juice.
“They’re just really delicious.”
“I get it.”
“Like
really-
”
“Stop!” she says, pushing his shoulder… but she’s smiling. “You’ll try the fake meat tomorrow?”
“Promise. I’ve got nothing against it.”
“But will you stop eating real meat after?”
Red tries to picture avoiding all meat. The food at Aiko’s
was
pretty tasty… but… “Is it… going to be available on the market?”
“Of course!
“When?”
“Soon.”
“…How soon?”
“Red!”
“I’m trying to be realistic!” he protests. “I don’t want to give an overconfident promise and then break it.”
“What about what we talked about in Vermilion? Can you at least keep to fish or something? Or just cut out any beef?”
“I think I can do that, yeah.”
Leaf turns to him. “Really?”
She looks so excited that Red smiles, warmth filling his chest. “Yeah. You know what, I’ll try it all. As soon as the cruise is over, I won’t buy any more meat that’s not grown in a ball.”
“Yay!” She wraps an arm around him and hugs him, causing heat to flush through his body and up his face. “You know it’s not actually grown in pokeballs, though, right? It’s just using the same tech.”
“Ah. Makes sense,” he mutters as she releases him, quickly raising his bottle for another drink.
“What about not eating any on the cruise too?”
“Oh come on, they’re already dead!”
“Fine, fine…”
She’s still smiling, and the sight makes Red smile again too. “Fair warning that I might change my mind after I run out of my own stocks.”
“Oh I know. But at least you’ve tried, then. And maybe you can just cut out one type at a time, see what works.”
“Yeah.”
They sit together in silence for awhile, and Red slowly regains his energy. He takes Pichu out so he can do the same, and watches as his two pokemon explore their surroundings. Now that he’s not following the order to run around with Red, Nidoran looks the most spooked. His nose keeps twitching toward the open window, and Red wonders if he’s ever smelled the ocean before.
“It reminds me of home,” he says suddenly. “The scent.”
“Were you on boats often?”
“No. But on a clear day you could smell the salt in the air from right outside my door.”
“That sounds lovely. I wasn’t there for long enough to notice.”
“We should go back sometime, when we can fly on our own pokemon. I know my mom’s not there anymore, but it’s strange to think that we’re going all over the region, and the place that Blue and I are most familiar with is the one you spent the least time in. Plus Aiko hasn’t been there at all, and she’d probably get a kick out of Pallet Lab’s ranch.”
“That would be cool, yeah. I’d like to see where you and Blue grew up. Maybe someday I can give you guys the tour of Unova.”
Just imagining it makes Red happy, and he smiles at her. “I don’t know if I mentioned it, but… I’m really glad you joined us, Leaf. I can’t really imagine the journey so far without you.”
Leaf’s looks surprised, then pleased. She picks Raff up off the floor and puts him on her lap so she can inspect his fronds, and Red notices that the ivysaur is positioned so that his plant hides her face. “Well. That was sweet. And I feel the same, of course.”
The warmth stays with him for the rest of the night.
Red wakes to the smell of the ocean, eyes opening slowly as he moves one sore limb at a time. Eventually he checks his phone and sees that it’s near noon. All the presentations are between lunch and dinner, so he should probably get up soon.
Instead he browses on his phone for a bit, first checking to see if he has any messages from Bill or Blue, then drawn irresistibly back to see if any new “research” on psychic particle or predictors has been published. There are some, and Red’s remaining sleepiness quickly fades as he searches through the headlines for anything remotely interesting.
Eventually biology forces him out of bed, and from there it’s easier to put the phone away and get dressed. He goes through the transformed living room afterward, and spots the note on Leaf’s door telling him that she’s already out “schmoozing.”
Shaking his head at her energy, he takes a walk around the outside of the ship, curious about what the other guests are doing and trying to avoid the temptation to look online again. He passes by various lounges, indoor and outdoor, and sees a lot of people either on their laptops, or in small groups and talking. Each time he tries to listen in as he walks nearby, it quickly becomes clear that they’re discussing some technology or aspect of business or investment that is way over his head, and he moves on before they can wonder whether he’s eavesdropping, interpreting the looks he gets as more wary or aloof than curious or inviting.
Red starts to feel a bit isolated as he walks from one floor to the next, seeing all the people involved in their interesting conversations that he can’t take part in. Eventually he starts to specifically look for Leaf, until he realizes he can try to use his powers to pick her mind out. He needs to practice anyway, and it’s been awhile since he tried a broad reading of his surroundings.
As he walks through a hallway and extends his senses outward as far as he can, he suddenly staggers and leans against a wall. His range is larger than before, and he senses minds in three dimensions for the first time. It feels like he’s standing in a storm, the mental impressions so spread out that their position is like a whole new level (or dimension, rather) of information for him to process. He doubts he could identify Leaf’s familiar signature even if she happens to be nearby. What jumps to his attention instead is the two psychic minds in the room above him. And a couple to his left… there are six in total… No, seven… nine…
twelve…
in all directions…
Red’s eyes fly open, withdrawing his senses as he recovers from the strain. After a moment he walks to the nearest room where he sensed psychic minds and looks around at the crowd of people in various types of casually formal attire, trying to spot anyone with more obviously psychic clothing. He sees nothing.
Why are there so many psychics here?
Red starts to wander again, occasionally extending his senses out to find psychics in the same room as him to try and identify them. Their minds quickly vanish however, blocking themselves from his senses, and he eventually gives up, not wanting to be rude even if his curiosity is burning. Also now he has to worry about thinking the wrong thoughts at the wrong time… how could so many rich and important people be okay with this many psychics around? Maybe they don’t know… he should find someone to ask about it…
“Good afternoon, everyone!” Red jumps as the PA system comes on. “This is your five minute reminder that lunch will be starting soon in the dining hall. That’s also where the programs listing this afternoon’s presentations can be found. Please make your way there if you’d like a copy!”
Red watches the mass migration begin, though some people seem content to wait where they are for awhile longer, at least. He considers asking one of them, but decides to find Leaf first, now that he knows she’s likely to head to the lunch room. He should warn her of the psychics’ presence as soon as he can, since he knows how wary she is of them after meeting Giovanni. Red decides to try and maintain his mental shield as best he can. It’s a good way to get some extra psychic practice in, anyway.
He doesn’t see her upon arriving at the dining hall, and goes to wait in line for the buffet, mind holding the default-mental-state shield in place as best he can while looking around. There’s a booth in the corner of the room where the artificial meat creators are offering samples, and he heads over after filling his plate.
“Hello! Interested in getting a taste of the future?”
“Yeah, my friend was raving about you guys last night.”
“You must be Red,” one of them says with a smile. “We told her that you might enjoy them more fresh. What can I get you?”
Red looks at the options. “Ah… pidgey nuggets?” He watches as they carefully serve him three. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Leaf is now, would you?”
“Haven’t seen her yet today, sorry.”
“Same.”
“No problem. And thanks!” He goes to find an empty table so that he’s easy to spot (and not because he doesn’t know anyone here and would feel awkward sitting beside them) and shakes some salt on his mashed potatoes, keeping an eye on the doors as he continues occasionally reinforcing his shield. Someone takes the chair to Red’s left, sitting with a contented sigh before they ask, “Could you pass that when you’re done, please?”
“Sure.” He gives it a couple more shakes, then turns and hands it to
the president, founder, and CEO of Silph Corporation holy shit
. The old man is wearing a simple button up shirt, suspenders, a red bowtie, and a kindly smile. A cane rests against the table, a white hat beside his plate.
“Thank you,” Mr. Silph says as he takes it from Red’s frozen hand. The Silph president gives it a few shakes over some strawberries on his plate, then places it aside. “Adds a bit of a tangy taste,” he confides upon seeing Red’s still-shocked expression. “You should try it, Mr…”
“Verres. Red Verres.” Red hurriedly wipes his hand and offers it before he thinks of how presumptuous it might be.
“Kazue Silph.” He takes Red’s hand in a firm grasp.
“I know! It’s an honor to meet you! I use your products all the time!”
Tone it down, Red.
“Ah, a trainer!” The president’s eyes search Red’s briefly, then he releases his hand to begin eating. Red starts to dig into his food too. “I’d heard there was a young journalist on board, and thought it might be you.”
“Oh, no, that’s my friend Leaf.” He looks around for her again, then turns back to the company president. “She’s a trainer too, though.”
“I see. Well, I suspect she’s finding a lot of material to write on. Quite the interesting exhibits, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, yeah. Is Silph going to be presenting something too?”
“No, this year we’re strictly on the hunt.” He smiles. “Which technology are you the most excited for, so far?”
Red considers it a moment, then says, “Probably the remote pokeballs? In the sense that it’s the one that seems like it has a lot of potential to save lives.”
“Yes, that seems likely. Now, what about one that you predict most of your peers will purchase?”
Ah. I’m a one-boy consumer panel.
The thought reminds him that he should put his shield back up, and he takes a moment to do so while considering his answer. “Probably the AR visor,” he eventually says. “I don’t see how that won’t be a huge hit, unless it just doesn’t work reliably. I’m tempted to invest in it myself, if I have enough money to matter.”
“Yes, that was my choice as well, assuming something else doesn’t come along that seems more commercially viable. Though these fake meats are intriguing.” He pokes his fork at a thin slice of some steak that Red assumes was ball-grown too. “Have you tried them yet?”
Red shakes his head, then takes a cautious bite of his pidgey nugget, chews, swallows. “It… tastes like pidgey,” he says.
Mr. Silph cuts a piece of his steak and tastes it, brow rising. “And this like tauros.” His jaw works as he chews. “A bit tough. Care to trade some for one of your nuggets?”
“Oh, sure!” They do so, and sit for a moment chewing the pseudo-meats. “A bit dry too, right?” Red asks after a moment. “Or is that from the way it was cooked?”
“No, you’re correct. Perhaps from insufficient fat generated in the meat.” He takes a sip of wine, and Red follows his example with his water. “Well, I’m sure they’ll be able to correct it eventually. In either case, the price of food will soon get much lower.” He eats the last of the steak, with some apparent satisfaction.
“Which means more money for people to spend on Silph products,” Red says, smiling.
Mr. Silph winks and takes another sip. “So, if you’re not here as a journalist or investor, what brought you to the Cruise Convention? It’s not often we have mere trainers here, let alone those so young.”
“Well, I’m actually a Researcher too,” Red says.
“Ah!
Verres
you said, yes? I thought your name was familiar. Something about psychic pokemon? There are quite a number of papers coming out now that cite you.”
Any pleasure Red might have had at being recognized fades at the reminder. “Yeah.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, nothing.” He makes an effort to look cheerful as he starts eating again. “The accomplishment just feels a little muted, after seeing all the derivative discoveries that came out from a mindless algorithm.”
“Nonsense. As a Researcher, shouldn’t the information be celebrated, regardless of the source?”
Red frowns. “But all of it… or at least, the vast majority of it that I saw, it’s meaningless. They didn’t actually try to test specific hypotheses, they just threw a bunch of data into a computer and picked out the correlations that fell below the .05 or .01 threshold. It’s just… noise, noise that they get attention for without providing any real knowledge. Just look at the news sites, jumping all over every correlation and sensationalizing them!”
The older man snorts. “Believe me, there is no love lost between myself and the press. Incentives, Mr. Verres, are what the world runs on, even more than money. And the incentives of journalism are inherently destructive toward any values of truth or clarity.”
Red feels a bit of indignation at that, considering both his mother’s profession and Leaf’s current activities in the field. The Silph president chews some food while Red tries to think of a polite way to disagree, unable to before the older man continues. “But that’s often the case in a free society. That’s why we must understand the role journalists play, and approach them as warily as one would a combee nest while attempting to extract what honey their industry produces. The same goes for these mass produced studies. The incentives in science are to publish, and so publications are the first metric that matters, and so all else that matters falls under it in importance. True, the majority of them will be ultimately meaningless. But as a matter of efficiency, finding these correlations the way they have seems to have a minimal associated cost. Why not see it as a filter? A filter through which diligent researchers such as yourself may eventually gain some value, as you examine the data and consider new hypotheses?”
Red doesn’t have an immediate answer to that, and takes a moment to think through his objection as he eats. “That sounds good when you phrase it that way,” he eventually admits. “The problem is that it’s sucking the air out of the room. All the researchers that are now trying to pick through the results are wasting time and energy and grant money on things that aren’t directed by any intelligence.”
“That seems like a perfect opportunity for those
with
intelligence to stand out,” President Silph says, eyeing Red candidly as he eats. “Ignore these publications and continue on with your research as though they had not surfaced. Unless your ambition is already satisfied with what you’ve accomplished?”
“No,” Red says with conviction. “No, I’ve got a lot more work to do.”
“Then take the advice of an elder, not in age, but in facing adversity. Those things that vie for your attention, but do nothing to further your goals, should be cut out from consideration. Talent is easy to find, Mr. Verres. Great success comes first and foremost from the discipline to make productive use of your time.”
“You’re right,” Red says, frowning at his plate. “I know it’s better to focus on my next project than worry about the impact of the last one. Not unless the impact was from a mistake I made.”
“Do you think you made one?”
“Not really…?”
“Then there you have it. Let others chase false gold while you seek your own fortune.”
Red smiles. “Is that a personal motto?”
“I suppose so,” Mr. Silph says as he finishes his wine. “If a man can have more than one, it has a nice ring to it. But my real motto is ‘Every minute should be spent at least as deliberately as every dollar, and every dollar as deliberately as the first you ever made.’ And on that note, I see them putting the afternoon’s schedule out, and so my allotted lunchtime is over. But it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Verres.” He wipes his mouth with his napkin, then gets to his feet. “Perhaps we’ll talk again.”
Red hurriedly swallows his mouthful. “The pleasure was mine, Mr. Silph. Thank you for the advice.”
“Advice is also easy to find. Remember: discipline.” He puts his hat on and strides with purpose toward the exit, taking a folded program from the table by it. Red watches him go, then resolves to put his attention for the rest of the meal where it should have been; deciding what he’s going to do when he returns from the cruise.
At first consideration, the question might be what research he’ll conduct next. But in truth, there’s a higher level question he has to answer, a choice centered around what goals he’s going to pursue. Is he a trainer at heart? A researcher? A psychic? Sabrina made it pretty clear that he’d have to stop being a trainer or researcher while studying with her, to have enough time for his lessons. If he decides to put one of those on pause, then becoming her pupil is the right choice. If he decides to just keep practicing his powers on his own for now, he should stay on his journey, where he can make progress in all three.
He takes his notebook out and writes:
Trainer – Increased survival skills, new sources of fortune?
p
r
otect others
Researcher – Learn secrets of the universe, leverage for fame and fortune,
discover origin of species/change the world
Psychic – Lots of mysteries to explore, unique skills and insights,
accelerated self growth
Red stares at the words. Taken as they are… he can’t imagine not continuing his research. He spends too much time thinking about things, working to test them, he doesn’t know if he could stop himself from trying even for a few months. And if he’s going to do it anyway, it would be a waste to never try and publish what he finds. And his psychic powers are a force multiplier; the things he gets from developing them are useful to practically everything he can think to do.
It seems the aspect he loses the least in giving up… is his trainer activities. It makes sense. He’s not going for badges, he’s not trying to be a Ranger, and while he
does
enjoy training his pokemon, and teaching them unique commands or getting them to pull off strategies… it’s not like he’s amazing enough that only he can protect others in ways no one else can.
Red leans back in his chair, gaze unfocused as he feels the decision crystallizing. It’s a little surprising how quickly he decided it, after waffling so much before.
Well, that’s it, then. He’ll tell Sabrina that he’ll become her student.
Which means he should keep practicing his powers. He lets his mental shield slip, then picks his spoon up and tries to feel the shape of it with his powers. His rock is in his bag, and maybe he just has some kind of block against beginner level techniques…
Red’s still trying to sense the shape of the handle past where his fingers are when he spots Leaf walk into the cafeteria, talking to a pair of women with her notebook out.
That’s not all I’d be giving up.
The thought comes like a strike to his chest, concentration scattering as he suddenly imagines actually leaving the others in their travels. A hollow sort of fear fills him, a preemptive loneliness that he immediately backs away from.
Leaf spots him and waves, then says goodbye to the other two to get food and join him.
“Hey! How was your morning?”
“Pretty short, but eventful,” he says, amazed at how steady his voice is given the sudden hole between his ribs. He latches onto the imagery and uses his powers to quickly contain it, cut off its effects on him for now, keep hidden the sudden insight at the center of it. “What have you been up to?”
“Interviews!” Leaf puts her notebook on the table and starts to eat. “Lots of them. Everyone here is excited to talk about their work, it’s like trying to drink out of a firehose.”
Red smiles at the mental image, and her excitement. “I’m glad you’re getting a lot of material. Maybe you can solve a mystery for me. Do you know why there are so many psychics here?”
Leaf pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth, then looks around. “How many are there?”
“Right now?” He quickly checks, trying to juggle the two different effects as grief starts to creep through all his use. “Um. Over a dozen in the dining hall.”
She lets out a whistle. “That is a lot. Are they all clustered together? Like maybe they’re from some organization.”
“No, as far as I can tell they only ever group in two or three at most.”
“Are they ever in groups of just psychics, though?”
“I don’t… remember?”
Leaf flips to a new page of her notebook. “Draw it out.”
“From memory?”
“No, where they are right now. Maybe we can get some ideas.”
He picks her pencil out of the spiral slowly. “It’s kind of hard to figure out people’s exact positions…” And he doesn’t know if he can maintain his concentration on the thing he’s containing in his chest that he can’t let out, particularly when the more familiar grief starts to come in force.
Red buys time by drawing a rough approximation of where the tables around them are, then starts to focus on one table at a time, quickly sending his senses out to glimpse the minds at each before drawing circles and stars around where the minds are at each table. Like pings of radar, giving him a quick and fleeting glimpse of sensations that he then tries to remember and draw meaning from, all from minimal use of his powers.
It’s hard, at times, to get a good read on exact position for each mind within a cluster, but he doesn’t worry too much about that. Instead he tries to make sure he only counts the people at each table rather than letting any minds from one blur into another table’s “zone.” He uses visual confirmation when he can to make sure each table has the right amount of people, though the occasional Dark mind throws him for a loop sometimes.
By the time Leaf has finished eating, he’s sketched out about three layers of tables in every direction. The grief is manageable, and his chest-vault is secure. He stares at it while Leaf looks over his shoulder.
“Not clustered, but also never alone,” Leaf points out.
“And symmetrical,” Red says. “Look, every time there are two in one place, there are two non-psychic minds with them. Or three… the individual psychics break the pattern, but even they’re never totally alone.”
“That might be unrealistic to expect, given how outnumbered they are,” Leaf points out.
“Yeah. Feel comfortable asking someone?”
“Sure. Who are you going to talk to?”
“Uh… well, I don’t really know anyone here.”
Leaf raises a brow. “Neither do I, Red. What you do is, you go up to them and introduce yourself—”
He rolls his eyes. “I just feel awkward doing it.”
“You mean you haven’t spoken to anyone else here yet?”
“Of course I have,” he says automatically. “I spoke to… a couple of the people from the ball-meat company—”
“—please don’t call it that—”
“—and,” he says with some pride, “I
may
have had lunch with President Silph just before you arrived.”
“Really? That’s awesome! What did you want to talk to him about?”
Red opens his mouth, then closes it. “Career advice,” he says at last.
Leaf gives him a level look.
“He was actually very helpful.”
“Uh huh. So what did
he
want from
you
?”
“I think he just wanted my demographic more than me. But he was nice enough. Not a fan of journalists though, apparently.”
“Well, that’s no surprise. Most rich and/or famous people aren’t, given how easy it is for some hack to just write whatever they want about them and have thousands of people lap it up without interest in any kind of clarification or rebuttal.”
The bitterness in her tone takes him by surprise. “That’s fair, I guess.”
“Sorry, famous grandpa, remember? Anyway, Silph has more reason than most, lately.” She chews her food, eyeing him speculatively. “Did you tell him your last name? Because he might be a little miffed from the article your mom published.”
Red stares at her. “What article?”
“You don’t read your mom’s articles?”
“Hey, I’ve been busy. Do you read everything your mom puts out?”
“…Fair. Anyway, your mom wrote about some corruption from Silph employees not long ago. Bribing a mayor and stuff.”
“Huh.” Red considers the conversation in light of that. “I did tell him my name, but he didn’t seem to react to it. Not in that way, he actually recognized it from the science side of things.”
“Oh. Well maybe he doesn’t pay much attention to articles about his company. I’m sure there are a lot, and he’s probably busy.”
“He did give that impression, yeah.” Red shrugs. “I’ll ask my mom what she thinks after the cruise.” Maintaining the block around whatever’s in his chest has gotten slightly harder as the grief starts to build up at last. Just the mention of his mother makes him terribly homesick, for no particular reason. He clears his throat. “So what’s on the agenda today?”
“Presentations for some kind of holo-communication device, automated potion dispersal? What does that mean… uh… improved scuba equipment, trainer coordination software…” She starts to take notes of questions she wants to ask of each presenter, forehead creased with concentration as she works.
Red just stares at her, the words fading from his comprehension as he feels a warmth in his chest…
She’s really pretty when she’s so focused.
Red blinks, a sudden sinking feeling mixing with the warmth as the block around his chest suddenly cracks open, and the insight spills out to suffuse his thoughts.
“Red?”
“Hm?” His gaze snaps to hers.
“You okay? You spaced out a bit there, and looked like you just remembered something too late.”
It takes a moment for Red to shake his head. “Nothing important, just trying to figure out what Bill would want us to attend the most.”
Just realizing that I have a crush on you, Leaf, you’re smart and pretty and confident and good, and I like spending time with you, and-
“Right. I guess we’ll just have to split up again to attend as many as we can.”
–
and leaving you is going to be the hardest part of going to learn from Sabrina, and I’m just realizing all this as I’m about to leave you, and now I don’t want to.
“I guess so, yeah…” The block is completely gone, and now he feels hollow inside, even as he tries to convince himself that it will just be for a few months, maybe a year at most, that she would be fine with Blue and Aiko, that he would still be able to talk to her and occasionally see her… “That’s probably for the best.”
Somehow the exhibits on the second day just aren’t as interesting as the first.
Of course, Red reflects, that might just be the new feelings clashing around in him taking up his attention. He does his best to focus on the presentations, but doesn’t dare use his powers any more today, since he can feel the grief lurking at the edges of his thoughts already. It’s hard to tell what relationship they have with exacerbating each other, if any, but dealing with both would
really
suck.
The most interesting tech demo is the advanced potion delivery system: at first he imagined a more technical and useful version of the idea he had when he was young about filling a balloon with healing potions to throw at injured people. Unfortunately too much exposure of it on undamaged flesh would cause other medical issues, so application needs to be pretty precise unless the liquid can be cleaned off soon after, which it won’t be able to in most cases where you’d need to apply it from a distance anyway.
Instead the company is developing a drone that takes in its surroundings, scans for open wounds, then shoots a high powered mist of droplets at any it detects. It’s effectively a more precise version of having trained medic pokemon, and is similarly limited in cases like when Red and the others found the trainer in the field full of beedrill back in Viridian, as the wild pokemon that make the area unsafe might just destroy the drone. But the demonstration video showed how it could be helpful in combat situations, where it frees up trainers from having to switch to medic duty.
After the exhibits are over, Red meets up with Leaf again for dinner, where they exchange notes and try out the new artificial meats. This time the options are all plant pokemon, so Leaf gets some steamed bellsprout while Red munches on fake oddish. Just as flavorful as the “real” kind, if a bit less juicy, and the bellsprout he swaps with Leaf for is better.
They wander the boat after eating, passing from the pitch dark of a cloudy night over the ocean to the bright and cheerful lights of the boat’s corridors. As they near doors to the common areas, Red hears the sounds of conversations and subdued revelry. Leaf pokes her head into them, seemingly at random, until they reach one that seems to strike her fancy. “Let’s see what’s going on in here,”
“No, I’m okay,” Red says. “I’ve never really been into big crowds or parties…”
Her brow furrows. “Are you shy? I never noticed you having trouble talking to strangers before…”
Red shrugs. “It’s different if I have something to talk about with them. I just feel a bit out of place, here.”
“Well, if you’re going to be a Professor one day, you’ve got to learn to mingle. Come on, this is part of your PR training.” Leaf takes his hand, warmth spreading from the contact all the way up his arm and through his chest as she pulls him into the wide, sparsely crowded room.
Red doesn’t put up much of a fight. “Should I take notes?” he asks with a slight smile.
“Absolutely. Observe: humans in their native habitat.” Leaf gestures broadly at the room. “A luxurious cruise, where their every need is catered to, and their only concerns are social.”
Red snorts. Then he notices that Leaf is looking expectantly at him, and grins as he dutifully pulls his notebook out. “What part of that was actually an important lesson?”
“None,” she cheerfully says. “Just making sure you’re paying attention. What we’re looking for is a moderately sized group, where an extra arrival or two wouldn’t come off as intrusive.” She gestures with her elbow as they pass people, all of which do indeed look like ‘moderately sized groups,’ no fewer than four and no more than seven, as far as Red can quickly discern. “There’s not really such a thing as one that’s too big, but when groups get big enough in a setting like this they tend to fracture into smaller ones, and we don’t really want to be an active cause to that unless there’s someone who seems like a straggler themself that we want to try and poach from a conversation. Then, look for those with natural openings for someone else to step into… or sit in, or whatever. See there? Group of six.”
Red follows her gaze. “Yeah.”
“Lots of empty space between the members that we can sidle into. And for what they seem to be doing… ideally you want to enter at a time where one person appears to be the main one talking, like either telling a story or explaining something, rather than a more intimate and active conversation. An energetic debate works too. Something that doesn’t come off as private, basically, something we can enter as participants.”
Red dutifully notes down the bullet points. “Okay, so we’re going to join that one?”
“No, it sounds like he’s talking about trade tariffs, and I don’t know about you but that’s not super exciting to me. Let’s try that one near the corner… Notebook away first, though, they might get the wrong idea. Look casual and curious. Yeah, like that.”
“I’m not—This is my normal expression.”
“Perfect.”
Red shakes his head and follows as she unobtrusively walks by another group, then another, until she sidles into an empty space to listen to two people who seem to be arguing about differences in regional markets based on trainer culture. Eventually someone else poses a question about the relative “star power” of different league members, which seems to give Leaf permission to ask a question of her own after that one is answered about the effects of different educational attitudes. The answer to this prompts another argument, which leads the conversation onward as members of the group occasionally excuse themselves and are replaced by others.
Red is content to just listen, and not jump into the conversation without something particular to say. After this goes on long enough, however, Leaf seems to feel he’s not being sufficiently mingley.
“Go find another conversation, if this one’s boring you,” Leaf eventually murmurs. “See if you can find your own group to infiltrate.”
There’s a moment of unease as he considers walking around the room alone just to find someone to force into talking to him, but he doesn’t want to look like a coward. “Yes ma’am.” He wanders off, listening to the different kinds of conversations and looking for similarities to the one Leaf gravitated toward. As he drifts between them to listen for an interesting conversation, however…
“…about Raikoth, though getting enough at once will be…”
Red’s head turns at the familiar word. Wasn’t it something Bill mentioned working on?
He finds the speaker the next time they say something, and frowns. It’s a group of just three people, two girls and a guy. All three are relatively young, and the main speaker is animated as she talks, hands moving constantly as the other two nod along. Would one person be too much of an intrusion? They’re not quite positioned in a “closed” way, with two of the sitting on opposite ends of a couch while facing a third person in a chair. Another chair is sitting open across from it… should he take the fourth corner of the square? Are there rules for being the person that makes a group look “closed,” especially if he doesn’t know any of the others?
He drifts closer all the while as he frets, until finally he’s just sort of hovering near the empty chair, looking at something else as he listens to their conversation. Something about incentives for early speculators…
Hey Present Red, you know the longer we just stand here the more awkward it’ll be when we finally make it clear we’ve been listening the whole time, right?
Yes Future Red, but I currently have no control over my legs as the thought occurs that dying of awkwardness may be impossible, but suicide as a cure for awkwardness is not.
That got dark, Present Red. If it’s any consolation, I won’t hold you accountable for any awkwardness we endure. That blame will go strictly to Past Red.
That does help, actually, thanks. This
is
all his fault.
Hey, screw both of you, let’s see how well you can say no to Leaf! Or are you going to run and tell her you took the coward’s way out after all?
That sounds like Future Red’s problem.
Joke’s on you Present Red, now that you’ve thought this, you’ll have to do it soon enough that your memory of episodically experienced moments will still make it part of your continuous present self!
Shit, you’re right!
Red forces himself to move around the chair and plops down on it while looking at the person speaking.
Which causes everyone to stop paying attention to her and stare at him.
You fools, you’ve DOOMED US ALL!
“…Hi? Can we help you?” the girl who was speaking asks.
“Yes!” he says, too quickly. “I mean no, sorry. I was just… I heard you say something about ‘Raikoth’ and I think Bill mentioned it and I was just… wondering what you were talking about. Sorry. I can go.” He pushes himself out of the seat.
“Wait, hang on.
Bill
told you about it?”
“Yeah?”
The three glance at each other. “What did he say, exactly?”
Red slowly sits back down, heart pounding. Maybe this was a mistake… would Bill have wanted Red to advertise that knowledge? He never said anything about keeping it secret. “Uh. Just that it was something that would help with research funding and publishing using… prediction markets, I think?”
“Huh,” one of the others says. “Yeah, that’s about right.”
“And he called it by its project name,” the original speaker muses. “Guess it’s okay that you know, then. Why’d he tell you in the first place?”
“To cheer me up, sort of. I had some problems with the research publishing world.” Red thinks of the recent flood of churned out articles. “Still do, come to think of it. I didn’t mean to interrupt, though, I was just curious to know more. Are you guys working on it?”
“Yeah, actually.” The girl studies him briefly. “Our presentation is one of the last ones, and we were just going over what to highlight, given potential failure modes. Maybe we can use you as a soundboard, since you just know the general points… and you’re familiar with research funding and publishing, apparently?”
“Oh, yeah. I have my Researcher license.”
“Wait, wait,” the guy says. “Are you Red Verres?”
Red smiles, wondering if being recognized is ever going to get old. Probably someday. “Yeah, that’s me.”
The guy looks to the other two and jerks his thumb at Red. “This is the kid who caught like two hundred abra for research, and gave half of them away, or something like that. He’s responsible for the recent churn of psychic paper grist.”
“Woah, I’m not… I mean first off it was closer to a hundred, and we didn’t
give
them away, we sold them at a third their market price. But more importantly I don’t like to think I’m
responsible
for the recent articles just because they followed my single, relatively simple paper.”
“It’s cool, he’s not blaming you,” the other girl says. “Happens a lot when new discoveries pop up, big or small. Which is kind of why we’re working on this. I’m Haley, by the way.”
“Rick.”
The girl he interrupted when he sat down raises her hand. “Sarah. So you tell us… What do you think of the state of current research?”
Red hesitates. “Well… I only really know about pokemon research.”
“Good enough,” Haley says, propping her chin on her fist. “What bothers you about it?”
“Getting grants,” he immediately says. “Which is kind of understandable given how many trainers are out there that might be asking for money to experiment with their pokemon. But it also probably discourages a lot of independent researchers who are starting out.” He grimaces as he remembers the ache in his fingers from typing in Pewter. “I had connections and got lucky, and then that paper wasn’t conclusive enough to be publishable. And since getting published is necessary to get the research bought by the labs that update the pokedex, there are a lot of journals that will publish just about anything, no matter how sound the research methods or useful the result, and skip right over things like peer review.” Red sighs. “And of course the more of those there are, the more researchers will manipulate the data or adjust their methodology to meet whatever minimum standard they can.”
“Seems frustrating,” Rick agrees. “And the root of all of those problems is?”
Red blinks. “All?”
“Yeah. Say most, if that helps. If you could change one thing for maximum impact, what would it be?”
Red’s nervousness is long gone, mind turning itself to this new challenge. After thinking about his frustrations of the past couple months, he eventually says, “Non-professional reviewers? Like if there were researchers whose only job was to peer review and replicate stuff…”
“Not bad,” Haley says, while Sarah waggles her hand side to side in an even less enthusiastic endorsement. “It comes with its own complications,” she acknowledges with a glance at Sarah. “Instead, what do you think of making sure scientists who come up with an experiment can’t be the ones to test it?”
“But… then who would?”
“Other scientists!” Sarah says. “The way things work now, researchers are both the people who come up with the theory they want to test, and then do the experiments to test them. Right away, you’ve got a bunch of biases interfering with what should be a truly objective process. What if, instead, anyone could come up with a theory, and outsource the experimentation to a neutral, special lab that has no skin in the game?”
“I see why it removes bad incentives,” Red says, speaking slowly as he thinks through his words. “But… I
like
coming up with research ideas and testing them.”
“And there’s the ego thing,” Haley says with a sigh. “No offense to you, this is part of what we’re worried about. Too many prominent researchers may insist on testing their own hypotheses. People aren’t used to the idea of getting credit just for coming up with a hypothesis that pays off when someone else does the work. Or they just feel protective of their ideas, insist that no one else can do it justice.”
Red digests that, and has to admit that part of him would feel skeptical that others did his own experiment right if he’s not involved at all. Well, not
any
others, if Doctor Madi or Professor Elm or Bill or Professor Oak did it, he’d accept those results. “Famous researchers may be able to work out agreements between themselves, but what about lesser known scientists? What if no one wants to try their idea out? And how does that fix funding or publishing?”
“You said it yourself; the prediction market,” Rick reminds him.
“Oh. Oh! So people bet on what research they think will be worth running?”
“Not quite. People bet on what they think the outcome of a particular research question will be. Some particular hypothesis might start out negative-sum, with the missing money going to fund the research when the betting pool becomes large enough. But we were talking about ways to convince corporations or labs or regional governments to subsidize payouts.”
“In a somewhat randomized way, of course,” Sarah says. “Which is another hurdle they would likely balk at.”
Rick nods. “Once some can be convinced to do that, though, you’ve got positive sum markets that start to look very lucrative to the average citizen that might want to make some money, not to mention investment firms. Instead of reviewing hundreds of proposals by dozens of labs trying to get a taste of the yearly research budget pie, governments can just pay that money to Raikoth, marked specifically for a particular
kind
of research they want to see done. Private organizations do the same thing: take some of their research budget, put it into Raikoth on specific ideas they want to see tested. And when those preferences become known…”
Red thinks it over, and slowly smiles. “Then researchers can propose ideas that match what the money is available for, which brings more money in to fund them as people start to bet on the outcomes. That’s awesome!” Sarah chuckles, and Red lowers his voice. “It sounds too good to be true, really. What about the lab or researcher who does the actual experiment itself, though? The consulting scientists would have to be watched to make sure no one involved is betting.”
“Naturally. The oversight would come from investors on both sides, and once a lab or researcher is selected, they’d take proposals from both and decide on an experimental draft. Then they’d publish it.”
“Yeah, pre-registration to make sure they don’t change the methodology was one of the answers I considered giving.”
“More than that, it’ll be the exact paper that’s published, just with the numbers all blank. ‘We compared three different levels of muk exposure and found that the highest level had X percent more health problems, characterized by fever, rash, cough, and so on, than the lowest, Y.’ After the research is done, just fill in the numbers, add a Discussion section, and boom. No alterations in changing how the results are shown or which tests are done during the data gathering.”
“And since the research odds are being made public,” Haley says, “Everyone can weigh in, with not just their money, but also their reputation.”
“Which means some will abstain, of course,” Sarah responds with a sigh.
“She’s a cynic,” Rick tells Red. “But not wrong. We’re still trying to get enough big names to get in on it so people can’t just avoid getting involved.”
Red grins. “Yeah, I can think of a lot of people who wouldn’t want their mistakes to be public.”
“Oh, yeah. Researchers and consulting scientists are going to be held to a new standard, completely by natural incentives. A public record showing a history of accurate predictions will become not just financially lucrative, but give a lot of prestige that makes particular researchers more likely to have their own ideas funded and tested out in the marketplace, or even hired to consult.”
“And,” Haley says, “If the results don’t feel conclusive enough, and people are still arguing over whether it’s true or not, a replication study can be funded the same way, because people obviously still care.”
“What if an idea doesn’t get funding?” Red asks, thinking of his search for spinarak experiment funding again. “What if no one cares enough about the proposal?”
“Then we’re no worse off than we are now.” Haley shrugs. “But remember, this can be crowdfunded incrementally. People have opinions about things, people want to make money with little effort, and there are guaranteed to be science hedge funds that go around trying to make a quick buck off someone’s hypothesis.”
“My favorite part?” Rick asks with a smile. “The people who keep pushing bad ideas, even after research debunks them.”
“Oh, right!” Red laughs. “They’ll keep betting against the research! Until they go broke, anyway, or admit that they don’t believe it enough to put money on the line.”
Sarah snorts. “Some of them will stay in denial, insist that the system is corrupt or biased somehow anyway. But yeah, it’ll punish that kind of thinking pretty hard, and make their views mostly irrelevant. Same with companies falsifying reports by paying researchers to do the studies for them. With Raikoth, there’ll be a profit motive for everyone to be on the lookout for corruption.”
“Sounds great,” Red says, feeling wistful and frustrated as he imagines such a system. “I hope you guys finish it soon.”
“Depends how the post-cruise funding goes, but with Bill’s help and connections we’ll hopefully get there eventually.”
Red nods, lost in thought for a moment as he considers how different research fields would be once they’re done. He’d miss not being able to come up with his own experiments, but picking from a list of others to try could be fun too, and he can still come up with hypotheses for others to test… “Well, thanks for explaining it. I’ll let you get back to your conversation now.”
“No problem!”
“Bye!”
Red is out of his seat and looking for Leaf when he remembers that he had a secondary mission, and turns around. “Oh, one more thing…” He leans over the back of his chair, lowering his voice. “Do you guys happen to know why there are so many psychics here on the ship?”
“Sure,” Rick says with a shrug. “Everyone hired one, for when we’re meeting with potential partners or investors. It’s a basic way to check for honesty, and to ensure our own thoughts aren’t being picked apart during negotiation.”
That… makes a lot of sense. “Got it. Thanks again.” Red heads off to find Leaf, glad that mystery was solved so easily.
Red wanders around the room looking for another conversation to join until Leaf finishes hers, but doesn’t find one by the time she gets up and makes eye contact. She tilts her head at the door questioningly, and he nods.
“Well? How’d it go? I saw you talking to some people,” Leaf says with a smile.
“Good, actually!” He shares what he learned as the two head back to their room.
“Nicely done. And yeah, I got a similar explanation about the psychics.” She’s quiet a moment, then sighs. “I’m glad it’s something so innocuous, and that everyone on board seems to know about it, but I still can’t help but feel a bit paranoid.”
Red frowns. “From what they said it’s just for explicit meetings, though. I doubt they’d care what random participants think.”
“Sure, and I know that off the cruise I could be talking to a psychic at any point in my day and not realize it. Still just a bit wary after the Giovanni thing, I guess.”
Red has no reply to that. Soon the topic is forgotten as they reach their quarters and repeat last night’s mix of training and talking about the exhibits of the day. Red brings his metapod out and props it up against the wall, then puts Pichu and Nidoran through their paces, not wanting to risk Charmeleon in the enclosed (expensive) space.
Once they and their pokemon are tired out, they decide to try some of the assorted drinks from the room’s bar. Leaf opens one of the miniature liquor bottles, some kind of plum flavored rice wine that they both take turns sipping and making faces at as they try to acclimate to the taste. Red’s lips tingle each time they touch the bottle mouth, and he’s not sure if it’s from the alcohol or from his knowledge of what was just touching it. Soon his cheeks feel flushed, which he’s pretty sure is
not
from the alcohol. Or not exclusively, anyway.
Eventually they start pouring bits into cups and mixing them with fruit juices and sodas to see if they can make it bearable, after which they just start mixing sodas and fruit juices to try and invent the perfect beverage. After Raff tries to sneak some for the fifth time, Leaf starts looking up what sodas are safe for ivysaur to drink. The resulting expressions and eagerness on her pokemon’s face as he laps the fizzing drinks up from a bowl send them both into laughing fits, and soon they’re bringing the rest of their pokemon out to see all of their reactions too.
By the time midnight rolls around, Red goes to bed feeling enormously content. Which, in turn, makes him feel dread for when the cruise ends and he has to leave Leaf again. He stays up late and stares at the ceiling as Pichu quietly snores beside him.
Red sleeps in again the next day, and wakes up for lunch with a vague sense of despair that’s exacerbated by not seeing Leaf in their rooms, or even in the cafeteria. He tries once again to immerse himself in each exhibit to occupy his mind, but he can barely pay attention to them until it’s time for the one simply titled “Replication breakthrough.”
Red makes his way to the listed room wondering if it has something to do with scientific study replications or some more efficient way to replicate goods and speed up production, until he notices that everyone around him seems to be moving in the same direction. Soon he suspects that everyone on the boat is heading to the same exhibit, a common bloc that everyone’s supposed to attend at once, and he wonders just how big a breakthrough it will be. He starts to look around for Leaf, wondering which direction she might be coming from and hoping to snag a seat near her.
Upon entering the auditorium, however, what immediately takes Red’s attention is the live charizard that lies curled up on the side of the stage. He considers walking up to the presenter and asking him what he thinks he’s doing, letting a
charizard
out here, this is a
boat
after all, but it’s a brief thought compared to his awe and admiration. The pokemon appears to be sleeping, its slow breaths expanding its sides in a steady rhythm that’s hushed but still clearly audible over the crowd. Red finds his seat while barely taking his eyes off the great lizard, its orange scales glinting from the many lights around them. It isn’t until he finds a seat that he wonders at what its presence here might imply.
Eventually the lights dim but for the ones illuminating the stage and the middle aged, athletic man standing beside the pokemon. “For decades, we used pokeball technology to merely catch and release,” the presenter says. “It’s only recently that we began to edit the physical properties of those inside the ball, and then their mental experiences.”
The man holds up an ultra ball and withdraws the charizard into it. He then aligns the lens with a machine on the table behind him, and the monitor behind him lights up to show the charizard slumbering in the simulation its ball presents for it. He takes something out of his pocket, and a moment later it expands into another ultra ball.
“Witness, an empty ball.” Its click echoes around the quiet room as it opens, showing the reflective inner surface of the base and lid to the audience. The speaker moves it in a slow half-circle so everyone can see before he closes it and places it in the receiving slot of the PC behind him. “And our custom hardware, which has no pokemon inside it: only a carefully measured amount of certain substances.”
The giant monitor behind him starts to list the contents in the form of a container scan. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Calcium, Sulfur… Red sees the amounts start to drop off rapidly, and mutters “Holy shit” before he can help himself. By the murmuring and muttering that’s filling the room, he’s not the only one that suspects where this is going…
The presenter ignores them, waiting for the scan to finish displaying everything there. Eventually it stops, the last elements listed as Other. The ultra ball with the charizard in it is still displayed separately, showing that it hasn’t left its ball. “The next step is obvious. What can be broken down, altered, and released whole again, should also be able to be copied. All this matter simply needs a fitting schema with which to be arranged, a template that’s provided by our good friend Carnus. Let’s say hello to Carnus again, shall we?”
The presenter takes the ultra ball out of the machine and points it to the open space to his left… but not the one that the charizard was in. Nevertheless, there’s a flash, the auditorium’s shocked reactions almost drowned out by the sound of the charizard appearing: the same hue, the same proportions, and lying in the exact same position.
“Woops,” the man says, smiling at the audience as a buzz of conversation grows even louder. “Wrong ball.” He points the original back toward his right, and another charizard comes out: the original Carnus.
“Holy
shit,
” Red says again, barely able to hear himself as shouts and applause break out in the audience. Red stares at the two charizard, looking back and forth as thoughts crowd his head, too many to make sense of. Cloning has been imagined in fiction since before Red was born, he grew up on stories of how it could change the world and knew that some people, somewhere, were working on it… but always in the same way he knew people were working on nanotech and genetically engineered hybrid pokemon and infinite energy sources. It wasn’t something he expected to see any results of anytime soon.
This changes
everything
, the entire fields of catching and training pokemon just became much less important, pokemon value by rarity is practically gone… hell, this totally outdoes Red’s abra trick, obsoletes it and any others for catching large amounts of rare pokemon, the sheer
scale
of how much this changes makes Red feel like he’s in a dream…
The presenter lets the noise continue for another few seconds as he clips the two ultra balls to his belt, then raises his hands, palms out. “Hold on, everyone, don’t get too excited yet.” The room quiets down almost instantly, and Red feels his mental footing refirm. Of course there’s something else, some catch…
The presenter goes to the cloned copy and puts a hand on its shoulder. “While this Carnus is a living, breathing charizard, and not just some statue made of biological parts, there are still some flaws with the process that we’re trying to figure out. The cloned pokemon’s autonomous functions all seem in good order, but they don’t respond to any but the most extreme stimuli, and always in what appears to be a fairly mindless way.” He looks a little sad as he says it, looking at the cloned charizard and giving its shoulder a rub. “We’re working hard to figure out what’s going wrong, and with your help, I’m sure we’ll get there soon.”
He smiles and steps back up to the front of the stage. “People said it was impossible. That despite all our technological marvels, the complications involved would make this a step too far. And we’ve all had doubts, one way or another. But today, the goal of pokemon cloning now appears to be years away rather than decades. Since we have some of the finest minds in biology, tech, and business in the room, we’re hoping that this demonstration will bring us the talent and funds we need to make history, and truly change the world. We look forward to hearing from you.”
The room explodes in applause, though there’s a layered, stilted quality to it, as much of the audience is slow to get over their shock. The presenter bows, then gestures to his side as he names the team leaders standing there, ready to be approached. Some people are already moving toward the stage, either to talk to them or examine the clone, while the rest of the audience breaks into a hundred different conversations.
Beside him, Red hears a pair of poketech engineers speculating about potential data loss from the order in which the pokemon is reassembled, while one of the women ahead of him turns around in her chair to begin an animated conversation on the effects of even minor mistakes in the base material amounts with the man sitting beside Red. He tries listening to one conversation first, then the other, but both are on specifics of the fields that leave him with the now-familiar feeling of being out of his depth, and instead he just sits and stares at the two charizard as his mind fills with wonder and speculation. The notebook page in front of him is blank, and he eventually just writes “Converting base matter into cloned pokemon, autonomous living functions, no mind?”
As soon as Red writes it, his mind extends outward, curiosity like a restless itch. His head immediately bows against the cacophony of thoughts; trying to focus through it is like he’s trying to feel a raindrop on a single patch of skin in a thunderstorm. Thankfully the charizard’s mind is different enough that he can isolate it from all the humans’, focus his thoughts on its blunter/fuzzier/more singular rhythm…
But there’s only one of them.
Red frowns as he tries harder to isolate a similar mental signature, but there’s nothing even remotely like it in the room. Red opens his eyes to confirm that yes, the cloned charizard is still there, and feels a twist go through his stomach.
Did they create a Dark charizard?
After a moment Red’s skepticism kicks in. There’s no way they haven’t hired a psychic to help diagnose what’s wrong with the clones, they would know by now if they’re somehow turning the pokemon Dark by testing psychokinesis on lifting its tail or something. But the alternative is that they just don’t have a brain, which seems unlikely, considering it’s meant to be a complete clone, and is at least able to breathe on its own… then again, maybe they just recreated it with some other autonomic nervous system. How would he know there’s an actual brain in its skull? It’s not like anyone would open it to find out. Also he can’t imagine why they would do that on purpose.
Maybe it’s not brain activity that my powers detect. Maybe it’s… mind activity?
Red needs to talk to a fellow psychic. He uses his “echolocation” to search for any other psychic minds around him, focusing as best he can with his eyes open as he slowly turns to match faces to hits.
He finds a few nearby, but his sense of them fades when he gets out of his chair and starts to approach them. Red immediately stops, not wanting to seem aggressive. The next psychic he homes in on doesn’t move away, but when Red focuses on the person he thinks it is he finds the woman looking at him with a guarded, almost hostile expression. Red holds his hands up in a gesture of apology while stepping away.
There’s got to be a better way to do this…
He finds his seat again and closes his eyes, then focuses on his curiosity, trying to project it as best he can without forcing it on others. He then adds his sense of general… openneness, his desire to talk to someone and learn and share information distilled into a feeling that doesn’t really have a name.
He’s starting to feel some grief undermining his concentration, but does his best to isolate it. He hopes whatever he’s doing feels more like a sign that says
I’m very interested in chatting with anyone who can feel this
rather than
HEY PSYCHICS! COME TALK TO ME RIGHT NOW!
“There are over a dozen Gifted in this room too polite or wary to ask you what you’re doing,” a voice says, deep and roughened by age and cigars, and Red looks up to see an older man with short, grey hair, a thin mustache, and a striped suit and hat. “But novelty overrides such concerns, for myself. Or perhaps that’s just your feelings splashing over me like a bucket of paint.”
Red quickly stops the projection and forms his mental shield as he turns to the man. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude, I just figured it would be better than walking up to strangers and telling them I know they’re psychic. You know, in case they don’t want to be outed. If that’s a thing people worry about.”
The older man raises a brow. “And why would you need to speak to a fellow Gifted so urgently?”
“I just wanted to ask some questions about the charizard. I’m Red, by the way. Red Verres.”
“Watari.” The psychic turns to the charizard with no apparent recognition. “I admit that this situation
is
rather intriguing in its own right. At first glance, it appears to vindicate those Gifted who have always spoken of a ‘soul’ that exists separate from the mind, and insisted that this is what we are in truth interacting with.”
Red blinks, skepticism warring with the evidence of his (extra sensory) perceptions. “Well,” he says, speaking slowly as he considers the problem, “I guess if I was thinking in terms of disproving the hypothesis that the clone is missing a soul, I would first have to determine whether it being brain dead was a more important variable. Do you know if anyone has ever
lost
the ability to have their mind sensed, through an accident or something?”
The psychic drums their fingers along the top of the chair in front of him. “Not that I can recall, short of the sorts of injuries that would kill someone.” he eventually says. “Even those with extreme mental trauma have some sensorium that can be sampled, even if their thoughts or emotions are, in essence, gone. They are not… this.” He gestures toward the cloned charizard. “This emptiness.”
“What about the opposite?”
“Gaining a sensable mind, where there was none before? Only if you count children.”
Red rakes the fingers of one hand through his hair, missing the weight of his hat. He’d never thought to wonder about that, and he should have. “What age do children become detectable?”
“Depends on the species,” the man says, giving him an appraising look. “Humans, after a handful of months within the womb. Pokemon that are born from eggs have detectable minds long before they actually hatch, which can be anywhere from a few weeks to even longer than humans.”
That… doesn’t track with what little Red knows about brain development. “Shouldn’t they be detected earlier than that?”
“By what measure? Whatever your political or philosophical frame, I can assure you that someone has come up with an explanation that fits. If you’re speaking purely from the perspective that active brain activity should be detected by a psychic, however, I do believe that is the question at the heart of this mystery. We only detect that which we can understand and feel ourselves in some fashion, after all.”
“Right,” Red says, frowning. “Thinking about it more, I’m mostly confused at why I can’t at least detect what the clone’s body is feeling, since that at least seems like it shouldn’t require it to be conscious. I’ve merged minds with my pokemon while they were napping before, and it still felt like
something,
and of course the original charizard’s mind is there… Is this clone just totally unable to sense the world around it?”
“I’m sure they have Gifted on staff to try and understand where their technology has gone wrong,” he says. “Or they’re here to attract those that can better help them assess the problem, along with the more obvious recruitment of money and other talents.”
“Are you thinking of approaching them?” Red asks.
Watari glances at him. “I am already quite gainfully employed.”
“Oh, cool.” Red smiles. “Are you one of the truth checkers?”
The psychic stares at him, and Red’s smile eventually fades. What is
with
psychics and their weird social norms? Is he committing some taboo that Ayane never told him about?
“Uh. You don’t have to answer.”
“Who
are
you, really?” the man asks, seeming genuinely curious.
Red is taken aback not just by the question (and the confirmation that he doesn’t recognize Red’s name) but by the implied context around it that he feels utterly unaware of. “I don’t…” Red stops, thinks a moment, then says slowly, “I feel as though I’ve been dropped into a movie and don’t know my lines, or character. Did I say something that strange? I’ve met four psychics already, and their jobs never seemed like a secret…”
The older man meets his gaze for another few moments of silence while Red tries to keep from fidgeting nervously, and wonders if he should drop his shield. Maybe it’s making him look guilty, as though he has something to hide. But even if he drops the shield now he’ll be wondering if he’s meant to be keeping something hidden, which will inevitably draw up things like Bill’s secret, thus making him seem guilty as soon as he starts thinking about the very fact that there’s something he wants to keep secret at all. Maybe he should try to partition that meta knowledge into its own shield to keep it separate—
“Oh!” Red’s eyes are wide as he considers that briefly, then realizes the danger and lets the train of thought go. He looks up at the bemused psychic. “Sorry, I think I just figured out how we do the ‘amnesia’ thing. A little. I was told not to experiment with it on my own, but now I’m actually worried I’ll do it accidentally.”
The older man slowly blinks. “Now
I
am the one who feels a character in the wrong play. Which, I’m sure, is the point.” He considers Red a moment longer. “Do you by chance know the story of how General Hideyoshi fooled the Mori clan’s undefeated psychic warlord at Himeji Castle into falsely believing that he was surrendering?”
“Uhh…” Red wants to say that he doesn’t know much history, or that the question doesn’t make him feel any less like he’s cluelessly in the middle of something that he doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t want to admit to ignorance without at least
trying
to figure out the answer.
So instead he puts his attention into actually trying to guess what the ancient general had done, and why the older psychic was asking him about it in this particular context. How would Red fool a psychic? He couldn’t use another psychic or dark person to lie to them, they wouldn’t believe anything they said. Professor Oak told him that the best thing to do to prepare for meeting a psychic is to make sure he has nothing on his mind that he’s worried about the psychic learning. This was fairly easy to do when he met Narud, since he didn’t know anything important, but harder with Sabrina, when he did.
Though, actually… it wasn’t Red’s information that he wanted to keep Sabrina from knowing. It was Bill’s. And Bill hadn’t
told
him that information, he had figured it out himself, after already giving Red the tickets. Bill can’t have been worried about people here finding out things about him, but the very act of warning Red about psychics would prompt Red to be on the defensive. Which would make it seem like he’s hiding something regardless of whether or not Bill has something to hide.
Hell, if Red hadn’t even known it was a big deal, he wouldn’t have even had to try and keep himself from thinking about it. But even if an interrogator isn’t specifically looking for some information, they would be able to sense that feeling of guilty desire to deceive or hide something, and ask the right questions to bring it to the forefront of Red’s mind either way.
The older psychic seems amused that Red is actually giving the idea some thought, and doesn’t interrupt his thinking. Red’s doesn’t need his powers to try and put himself in the other man’s shoes and look at the world from his perspective. Red isn’t the general in this circumstance; he’s the one sent by the general, who would be Bill. Red’s psychic, so that kind of breaks the pattern of the hypothetical, but if there isn’t some norm among psychics not to ask what people do, then maybe there’s one specifically on this cruise…
He realizes with a sinking feeling why hiding in plain sight is the ideal form of deception. If “everyone knows” why there are so many psychics on board, then any psychics not on board for that reason aren’t given additional suspicion. Except, perhaps, from other psychics, and so
of course
a psychic asking another psychic what they do on the cruise is frowned upon. Espionage seems the easiest answer, but Bill didn’t even know Red was psychic when he first invited him, and thought that he still didn’t know how to pick up on emotions when he gave him the tickets, so it’s not like he would worry about that. But he definitely knew before Red came on the cruise, and still said nothing.
Which means saying something would have just made things worse, or that he was purposefully pretending not to know that Red was psychic so that he could act surprised upon finding out so that Red could assume that he had no ulterior motive for sending Red…
Complexity penalty. That way lies madness.
He can entertain it as a possibility, but for now he has no evidence to confirm it one way or the other, and it would just distract from more probable likelihoods.
“I guess,” Red says slowly, “If I were that general, I would convince my negotiator or second in command or whatever that we were surrendering. Maybe even fake suicide, and stage the beginnings of a surrender. Have my people start dismantling the camp until the negotiator leaves. Maybe even send some prisoners who are told and see the same thing. Then, they wouldn’t need to worry about honesty: you can’t betray a falsehood or even the possibility of a ruse if you don’t suspect one yourself.”
“So you do know the story.”
“No, I just… it’s obvious, once you think about it.”
They stare at each other in silence for another few seconds while the dominos finish falling one after another in Red’s head.
I’m not actually a secret agent of Bill’s
he thinks, then doesn’t say, recognizing how useless a defense it is, even against someone who can read his intentions.
I don’t
think
that
I’m a secret agent, really, I wasn’t given any instructions beyond to just take notes about the presentations,
would be similarly pointless, since the person being anticipated is the only one who knows what he’s actually after.
“I just wanted to talk to someone about the charizard,” he finally says, feeling an odd sort of shame. “Sorry for bothering you.”
“No bother at all,” the man says, and tips his narrow hat. “Have a good night, Gifted.”
Red watches him go, brain feeling like he just went through a battery of tests. He sits idly for a few minutes until the crowd finally begins to thin out as people make their way out of the exhibition room.
“Red!”
He looks up to see Leaf on her way toward him, apparently having spotted him on the way out. His heart swells at the sight of her, chasing away his dark thoughts.
“Hey! What do you think?” He gestures at the two charizard. “Pretty crazy, right?”
Leaf is close enough now for him to read her expression, which doesn’t look particularly impressed, let alone awe stricken. “Yeah. Pretty crazy.”
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. “Is there something you’re waiting for, here?”
Red glances at the crowd near the presenters, which looks like it won’t be thinning any time soon. “I guess not. You going somewhere specific?”
She shakes her head. “Nowhere. I was just going to walk around the boat. Maybe go to our room and cry a bit. Or scream.”
Red stares at her in shock. “Why?”
“Not here. Come on.” She starts walking, and Red quickly follows her. The halls of the boat are a bit crowded as people rush this way and that, but soon they reach one of the doors to the outer decks, which are practically empty. Eventually, Leaf says, “Please tell me you understand at least a
little
bit why I’m so upset right now.”
Red rubs his temples. “Leaf… normally I’d be happy to try and model you, but I just finished some spy movie crap with another psychic, and my brain still feels soft.” She gives him a surprised look. “I’ll tell you later, but for now it would really be nice to just have a straightforward conversation.”
“Okay, well then being straightforward, I’m pretty disgusted by the world right now. Cloning mentally crippled pokemon is just the start of what looks to be a pretty horrifying future.”
Red’s never heard so much venom in Leaf’s voice, and tries to pick his words carefully, forcing himself to try and model her perspective despite his earlier protest. “If it helps, there’s no mind there at all that I could sense. It was as close to literally braindead as I could imagine, as unthinking and unfeeling as a rock.”
Leaf looks surprised by that. “Okay. I guess that’s not quite as horrifying as it could be.”
“And I know we don’t agree on the weight of pokemon personhood, but I can sort of understand why you would be weirded out by the idea of cloning Joy or Raff. It would basically treat them like commodities, right?”
“Yeah, that’s part of it. I know Aiko would be pissed about it because it’ll just encourage people to all raise copies of the same pokemon, instead of taking care of all the other pokemon that already exist.”
Red didn’t think of that part. “Yeah. Though it would mean people aren’t breeding dozens of pokemon just to try and get one particularly rare or powerful combination of genes. That’s good, right?”
“Oh no, they’ve got a much better market for that now.”
“What do you mean? They said they just stored all the needed elements and…” Red trails off. “Huh. How do they even know how to stabilize each combination of molecules? That Other metric must be full of something specific, but they didn’t just list it out… I mean, we still can’t artificially recreate charmander oil in a lab, that’s one of the first things I looked up after we started out. But… that clone’s tail had a flame so I guess just copying the form is enough…”
“Right, that might just be the result of putting the right biological organs together in the right places,” Leaf says.” Artificial pokemon meat is made by specific software to turn the right elements into the right pattern of biological compounds as efficiently as possible. But whatever script
they’re
using to fit atoms into the whole blueprint is
bound
to be more prone to error the more precise they try to be, and the main issue is that meat is still something we understand how to code as output, while other stuff pokemon make or have as part of them are not.”
“They’re not trying to code one from scratch, though, they’re just copying the process that happens when you bring a pokemon out of its ball.”
“No they’re
not,”
Leaf says as she stomps along the corridor and out onto the deck of the ship. “They’re applying that process to a new bunch of matter! That’s important if we’re thinking of what goes into the ball in the first place, think about the ‘flying particles,’ we
definitely
don’t know how those are emitted! Maybe it’s just about putting the right organs in the right places too, but what if it’s not? Even if its brain worked alright, it might not have been able to breathe fire, or fly. They probably just put together something impressive enough to show for investors.”
Red considers this silently for a while as he follows Leaf to the railing at the edge of the deck. The two stare out into the dark waves below and brilliant stars above as Red wonders how accurate her suspicion is. Leaf may be too cynical, part of the mindset she’s been cultivating to be a journalist, but either way, surely the psychics on board would notice something that deceptive. Plus, many collaborators might not actually care.
But ultimately he realizes it’s irrelevant to the real point. “Okay, let’s say they can only really effectively clone a pokemon by using other pokemon. For a while, anyway, eventually it’ll get figured out when we understand them and how their abilities work better. But Leaf, don’t you get it? They’ll eventually be able to bring pokemon back to life with this!”
“No, Red, they won’t! They’ll just make a clone using the remains of the previous pokemon, or others. There’s no continuation of consciousness like there is when we digitize a pokemon in their ball, or store them, it’s not analogous to sleep, it’s just turning dead matter into living creatures.”
“Why is
that
bad?”
“Because there are
already living creatures
around!” Leaf waves an arm in a gesture that’s probably meant to encompass more than just the ocean around them. “Come on, Red. Don’t tell me you haven’t already thought of what this will probably lead to.”
“I was distracted, really. I get it now, though, you think people are going to just… store a bunch of charmander for biological parts. But even if people
need
to use charmander to make a charizard, nothing says they have to be
alive
first
.
”
“And who’s going to stop them from using living pokemon?” Leaf shakes her head. “You can’t see past the potential benefits of this, that’s the problem. Like everyone else, you’ll just accept whatever cost there is as unimportant compared to the gains.”
An announcement interrupts Red before he can respond, alerting them all that dinner is being served. People around them start to change the direction in which they drift. “Leaf, I don’t—”
“Sorry, can we table this?” Leaf lets out a frustrated breath. “I have to go, I made plans for a couple interviews during dinner.” She starts heading to the dining hall, and Red follows her with an ache in his chest. He’d hoped to eat with her and talk more, but she clearly wants some space from him.
He contemplates going to the dining hall and sitting alone, or trying to strike up a conversation with someone. After the stressfully enigmatic talk with the psychic, however, he finds the prospect daunting, and just grabs some food to take to his room, thoughts still swimming with amazement at the cloning technology, curiosity about what it was doing wrong, and, more often than he’d prefer, the conversation he had with Leaf, and how irritated she was, and how irritated he’d made her…
He’s still in bed an hour later, food eaten, mood swinging between various pessimistic thoughts. Eventually he has the presence of mind to realize he’s just sulking, and brings Pichu out to keep him company the way he would if his depression was particularly bad. That comparison distracts him briefly; what he’s feeling now isn’t nearly as strong as the feelings of using his powers too much… of missing his dad. But he still would have thought he’d be better at overcoming it than this.
He needs to get his mind off this frustrated worry that she’s going to hate him forever just because they argued before he leaves the journey. Red takes his laptop out and starts typing up a report of the cloning presentation for Bill and doing his best to ignore his argument with Leaf. Blue he’s used to not getting, they just have such different priorities, but Leaf… If only he wasn’t leaving soon, he might not be so fatalistic about it all…
He’s still writing out his thoughts about the presentation when there’s a knock at the door to the living room, and Red stares at it a moment, heart hammering. “Come in!”
Leaf opens the door and pokes her head in. Her buneary, Alice, curiously sticks her head in from around Leaf’s knees, nostrils flared at the lingering scent of food. “Hey. Are you joining us tonight?”
Red smiles, some weight rolling off his shoulders. “Sure!”
Leaf smiles and closes the door, and he quickly changes into his workout clothes, body feeling light and full of energy. He pauses as he changes, a bit amazed as he realizes how much of a shift in his mood and energy level was dependent on just knowing that Leaf wasn’t mad at him. He quickly grabs his notebook and writes out,
find out what the link is between mood and energy/motivation level, see if it can be harnessed independently or summoned on command?
Then he summons Metapod and Pichu, and carries Metapod into the living room to lean it against the corner.
Pichu runs off to say hi to Leaf upon spotting her, as usual. She smiles and gives the pokemon she caught an affectionate rub, then sends him back to Red, who steps up to the opposite side of the obstacle course. “I shifted some things around,” she says. “Haven’t tested it much, but let me know if it’s not working for you.”
“Right.” Red watches her go around the course to get an idea of what the new configuration is intended for, then starts his track when she gets to the end of it.
Soon he’s gotten into the new rhythm of things, and is wondering if he should bring up their previous conversation. It feels risky, and he doesn’t want them to argue again. But he also doesn’t want the topic to have ended on such a negative note, and he never had trouble talking to her about things before. She might find it odd or disappointing if he started now.
“So, about what we were talking about, before,” Red says carefully, stretching his thoughts out to test her mood.
“Yeah?” Leaf seems curious, not hostile at all, mostly focused on her workout. Red withdraws so he can focus on his own and talk at the same time. “Oh! You said something about psychic spy stuff?”
Red misses a step and almost twists his ankle on the edge of a couch cushion. He’d
completely
forgotten about that, he was just so upset at the idea that Leaf might be mad at him that he forgot…
“Right, that.” He summarizes the conversation with Watari, and Leaf stops exercising so she can listen, causing him to slow to a stop too. As he explains his suspicions, she starts to pace by the windows, an intense look on her face.
“Okay, I’m back to suspecting something shady is going on,” Leaf says. “I think we should tell the captain or event organizers, just to make sure they’re aware of how many psychics there are here.”
“But we don’t even
know
how many there are, or should be,” Red says. “What are we going to say? ‘Hey, there’s more psychics than we two kids who have never been to one of these before expected and one of them seemed secretive about his job?'”
Leaf sighs. “I know, we need more info first. Still, I’d feel pretty silly if we didn’t raise the concern and it turned out to be something important just out of fear of being embarrassed.” She gets back onto the obstacle course, and Red starts moving again too. “I
really
need to figure out how to guard my thoughts and mood from intrusion. We should practice that sometime.”
“Yeah.” Red’s mood plummets again as he realizes it would have to be sometime soon. He should tell her he’s leaving… But it’ll just depress him more, and he was enjoying thinking about other things. “I’m a bit psychic’d out today, but maybe tomorrow night, or the one after?”
“Sure. And I’ll see if I can get a five minute conversation with the captain or someone else with authority tomorrow.”
They exercise in silence a bit, and Red’s thoughts go back to the argument from earlier, the things he didn’t get a chance to say.
Just out of fear of being embarrassed.
That’s not
quite
why Red’s hesitant to bring the conversation up again, he’s more afraid of spoiling the mood, but he knows it’s going to continue to bother him if they just leave the conversation there. So he considers what the best opening statement would be to set a more positive tone, and the next time he vaults over the two couches, one after the other this time instead of all as one maneuver, he catches his breath and says, “About that other thing… from earlier. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. I think I might be too quick to just accept the opportunities.”
“Yeah?” Leaf asks from behind him, sounding surprised.
“Yeah. But I also think we might have drifted off point, a little… I was curious to know, what if we forget about this technology as it currently exists and talk about the
ideal
? Maybe we disagree less than it seems, philosophically.”
“Maybe.” Leaf’s buneary hops straight over both couches at once, its ears just missing the ceiling. It lands on her shoulder, then rebounds forward. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, if we could just collect a bunch of dead matter for the elements and work out the algorithms to
perfectly
duplicate a pokemon, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen will get you most of the way there for most—”
“People aren’t going to want most pokemon, they’re going to want the rare and powerful ones. You think most people have a ton of iron lying around to turn into a steelix?”
“Okay, but pretend they just buy iron in bulk to use, and can easily purchase any rarer elements they need, all ethically sourced. I know you have doubts about that actually happening, but hypothetically, would you still be against being able to revive your pokemon?”
“But I
wouldn’t
be reviving them. Like I said, I’d just be making a copy.”
“A copy that’s using like 90% the same matter?” Red pants as he leaps from side to side between the chairs. “Like if you make a backup copy of your pokemon, and they get killed,
and
you have the extra elements around to repair whatever wounds they got and bring them back to their
previous saved state
… is that bad?”
Leaf is quiet, and he wishes he could see her facial expression for longer than a couple seconds at a time as they pass by each other. He’s about to use his powers to check her mood when she says, “I can’t say that I won’t be tempted to just… turn some bushes into a new Raff if something happens to him. But there are other pokemon in the world that could use a loving trainer. I should just raise another one and raise them instead. To be honest, ever since we’ve been to Aiko’s ranch, I’ve been wondering if I should even catch any new pokemon, outside of like a life or death situation.”
Red tries to wrap his mind around that, and fails. Not just the idea of not catching new pokemon they encounter in the wild, that requires a whole separate conversation and time to contemplate. What he really can’t imagine is being given the ability to return a dead pokemon to life, and just… starting over with a new pokemon instead of regaining all the time and effort he’s already put into his. To lose the
relationship
between himself and his pokemon…
“I think you’re an incredibly moral and caring person,” Red says. “And I feel sincerely awed that you have that level of care for each pokemon as an
individual
rather than a… I don’t know, a pattern of interactions with a persistent chain of experiences? But what if it happened to
me
? Would you really not want me to come back to life just because it was a copy?”
“Do
you
want a clone of you just picking up where you left off after you’re dead?”
“Of course! I mean for all I know, someone secretly kills me and puts a clone in my place every few months while I’m asleep, right? If I died and someone cloned me from a backup I might not even notice if it were done carefully enough. I’m basically a clone of Past Red, and I’d be upset with Past Red if he didn’t want me, as
Present
Red, to exist, just like I’d be upset with him making a decision that ignored my well-being. Similarly, I have to consider what’s best for Future Red when I make decisions, who’s kind of not-yet-created clone of me. And if I would be mad at Past Red for not caring if I exist, it would be a dick move to not want
Future
Red to exist.”
Leaf stops to drink some water, and gives some to Alice too as she stares at Red with an expression he can’t quite place. “You have the strangest way of thinking sometimes, you know that?”
Red stops to rest and hydrate himself and Pichu too, and briefly samples her mental state as he does so. There’s more admiration and pleasure than confusion, and he grins. “You realize how that sounds, coming from you?”
Leaf laughs. “Fair enough. I didn’t say I don’t like it, though.” She gives her buneary a nut from the pouch at her belt, then gets back onto the track. “But okay, let’s say you do know you’ll be cloned if you die. You wouldn’t go charging into dangerous situations, would you?”
Red considers that as he takes another drink, still warmed by her words. “I’m not sure, actually. If there was really no cost, and by putting myself in danger I could save others… but wait, if that was possible for me I guess everyone would also be able to be revived. Or cloned. Whatever.”
Leaf is frowning at him as she jogs by. “Don’t you think there’s something perverse about that? Would we even value life if it was that easy to replace?”
“Yes? It’s not like we’d be suddenly okay with someone’s backup being wiped out in that circumstance. ‘Life’ and ‘death’ would just have a different meanings.” He watches her move around the track, waiting until she’s opposite him to rejoin. “Wouldn’t
you
want to be immortal?”
“If it was actual immortality that I could end whenever? Sure. But clones… I don’t know. It just feels like that’s not
me
anymore. And if copies of me are just using up resources that other people could be using, that seems really narcissistic. No offense.”
“Some taken. But…” Red shrugs as he runs. “I like myself… uh, mostly. I like my values. I like my goals. I want them to continue, even if it’s through a clone. I guess maybe I am a narcissist?” That thought is unpleasant, but he can’t deny the truth of what he said. “Though I think that word means more that you don’t care about others… I wouldn’t kill someone else to make a clone of me.”
“Why wait until you’re killed at all, then? Why not just clone yourself, if the tech is available to do it out of inert matter?”
Huh. Now that they’re talking hypothetically, the possibilities of what the new poketech would let them do if they ever fix the problems with storing humans
would
allow cloning humans… What a weird world that would be.
But not one he feels intrinsically opposed to. “I think I could get along with myself,” Red says. “And that way I could have one of me focus on research, one of me focus on training, and one of me focus on my psychic abilities.”
“And how would the yous decide which does which? Drawing lots? If you can’t decide between them now, why would your clones be okay with only doing one over the others, and not eventually get upset at being stuck with one?”
Considering that takes Red’s attention for awhile, trying to model himself as a
version
of himself that is aware of
other versions
who are going to go off and do other important work so that
he
can focus on training/research/psychic abilities. He
thinks
he’d be okay with that, as long as he can keep checking in with his other selves to see what they’ve learned and maybe work together sometimes…
His musings are interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. Red and Leaf both slow to a stop, their pokemon immediately halting beside them. The trainers exchange a look, then reach for their pokeballs.
“Wait,” Red suddenly whispers, and bends down to pick Pichu up. “Too loud.”
Leaf picks Alice up, and they quickly head to their rooms to put their pokemon away as a knock comes again. Despite his nonchalance to Leaf when they first came on board, he suddenly imagines a dozen potential consequences to breaking the rules of the cruise, including having their pokeballs taken away for the remainder of the journey, or being barred from attending any further exhibitions.
“Stay,” Red says to Pichu. “Rest.” He pours some berries on the ground from the pouch at his waist, then takes the whole belt off and puts it in an open container box before returning to the living room to grab Metapod and stick it in his closet. Leaf is closing her door by the time he comes back out, and the knock repeats, louder, as they move together to answer the door. Red opens it and sees the boat steward from their first day standing there with his fist still raised.
“Hi… Paul,” Red says, remembering after a moment before he has to look at the name tag. “What’s up?”
The young man glances back and forth between the two smiling, sweaty, somewhat winded trainers. “Good evening. We’ve received noise complaints, from both those below
and
above your suite, over the past few nights.”
Oops.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Normally your conduct in your own rooms would be your own concern,” Paul says, voice a bit stiff. “But due to age…”
“Oh!” Leaf says, and Red turns to see her blushing furiously. It makes her look particularly pretty. “Oh, no, it’s… look…”
She takes a step back, surprising Red, who’s confused at both the implication and her sudden decision to show off their ad hoc gym.
The steward stares at the transformed living room, eyes widening. “Was your room… not to your liking?”
“It’s just a place for us to work out,” Red says.
“We have facilities onboard…”
“Privately.”
“Of course.” Paul is giving Red a level stare, and he wonders if the young man is remembering what they wanted before and putting two and two together… “I’ve been asked to ensure nothing untoward is occurring, however.”
‘
Nothing untoward?’ Do people really talk like that?
“Um. Sure.” Red steps aside too, watching Paul walk in and frown at the obstacle course. He tries to imagine it from his eyes, and wonders if it just looks like a jumbled mess from the angle of the doorway.
The steward goes over to the furniture, examining the expensive looking couches and cushions. “And just the two of you have been climbing and running over these?”
“Yes,” Leaf says before Red can wonder if there’s any telltale marks of their pokemon’s claws cutting at the material. “I’m sorry, I didn’t consider the potential damage to them from how rough we were being.”
Paul’s gaze lingers on the edge of one couch, fingers running over the top, then he walks around the room, making Red nervous when he approaches Leaf’s door in case Alice makes some sound, or he decides to investigate it. Instead he continues past to the bar, where he takes in the small mountain of empty containers there. Red is suddenly glad they only opened one alcoholic drink, long buried by all the juice bottles and soda cans.
“Did we drink too much?” Red asks.
Paul turns to them just as a muffled thrumming and crackling comes from Red’s room. “What was that?” he asks, turning to Red’s door.
“I left my TV on,” Red blurts out, causing Paul to turn back to him as a panicky voice in his head wonders if Pichu fried something. Hopefully
not
the TV…
“You left your TV on,” Paul says, not a question.
“Right.” Red tries not to look nervous or glance at Leaf.
“While you exercised.”
“Yeah. For the… background ambiance.”
Both Leaf and Paul stare at him, now, the silence suddenly incriminating.
“Wait, no,” Red says, cursing himself for being a terrible liar. “I think that was my alarm going off on my phone, actually. I forgot all about it. That’s why I set it. So I wouldn’t forget… to send an email.”
“I see.” Paul’s hand rises to rub his eyes briefly. “Would you mind if I check your room, sir?”
“Check my room?” Red asks as he suddenly sends his powers out toward Pichu, enmeshing their minds and pushing past the sensations it sends him as he hurriedly sends his vague fear at his pokemon. Not mindless fear, that might make him lash out at anyone who walks into the room, but specifically the social fear of awkwardness, of some indistinct threat. It’s easy to project the desire to
curl up and
hide
… “Not at all!” Red lunges forward before Paul can reach for his door knob so that Pichu smells him coming through the door first, still sending the impulse to
hide
and
be quiet
as he opens the door and holds it wide for Paul’s inspection.
Paul is frowning at him, but after a moment steps into the room and looks around. Thankfully there’s nothing that looks electrocuted, and on top of that all the berries from the ground are gone. The steward eventually steps back into the living room.
“Thank you. Please try and be more considerate of the other guests, and refrain from any more indoor athletics.” He glances at the windows. “And try not to leave the windows open for too long. The salt and wet isn’t good for the furniture.”
“Of course!”
“We’re sorry for making trouble,” Leaf adds. “But actually, now that you’re here… would you mind passing a message along to the captain, or telling us how we could speak to him? It doesn’t have to do with any of this! Totally unrelated. We just have something that may be important to ask him.”
Paul gives her a skeptical look that’s so subtle it
must
be trained, but merely dips his head. “I’ll inform the Chief Steward and let him decide to pass the message along or not.” He examines the obstacle course once more as he walks past it, and Red is suddenly glad they keep the window open. The ocean breeze is nice, and it’s useful for pokemon waste removal, but the smell of the ocean is also more than a match for flushing out not just their sweat, but any scent of their pokemon. “Have a good night.”
“Night!” they chirp, and Red relaxes his projection as soon as the front door closes behind the steward.
Red and Leaf look at each other, and their overly wide, cheerful smiles slowly shrink into more relieved and real ones as they relax and lean against the walls on either side of the door.
“Red, you are the
worst
liar!”
“I refuse to feel bad about that.”
“You left the
TV
on
?
”
He turns back to his room. “What
was
that, anyway? He must have been cooking one of the berries, but I thought I trained him not to do that indoors…” They both go to Red’s room, and he looks around to ensure again that there’s no damage. “Pichu, here,” he whispers, tapping his leg.
A pair of black and yellow ears emerge from under his bed, and Leaf gasps as Red stares at the shape of them. They’re long, and thin, and—
“Your timing is just the
worst
,” Red says, hands on his hips, but he’s grinning wide as his newly evolved pikachu finishes wriggling out from beneath the bed and runs up his bare leg. “Gah! Nails! Sharp!”
Leaf giggles as she watches him dance in place until his pokemon reaches his shorts, then pulls itself up his shirt to rest on his shoulder and start nuzzling his cheek. “Shh! Do you want Paul to come back?”
Red grumbles and carefully repositions Pichu…
Pika
chu, so that he’s settled more comfortably on his shoulder. “Good point. I’m not sure if we actually fooled him.”
“Yeah. It sucks that we can’t train with them anymore, but at least this happened first. Congratulations, Red!” She scratches the fur between Pikachu’s ears, and laughs as he runs along her arm to her shoulder instead.
Red goes to check on Metapod just in case he has a butterfree now too, but the dull green pokemon is still sitting where he left it. He sighs. “Well, they can stay out until morning, at least.”
“Yeah. Let’s go put the living room back together and try out some new sodas.”
Red falls asleep easier, that night, though his dreams are full of versions of himself, all talking with each other and fighting over who would get to be the one that stays with Leaf and the others on their journey. Each time he thinks he’s won, his perspective shifts to a different clone, and the argument starts anew.
On the fourth morning of the cruise, the ship stops by the northernmost of the Sevii Isles so people can shake off whatever cabin fever they might have before the return trip to Vermilion. Knot Island is long and thin, with a massive, dormant volcano called Mt. Ember hogging most of its landmass at the northern end. The port at its southern end is highly focused on tourism, with lots of restaurants, hotels, and offers of guided trips to the mountain or the other Sevii islands.
Red and Leaf spend most of their time ashore by exploring Treasure Beach, so called because the tides often bring in pearls, shells, scales, or other valuables from the unusually high number of aquatic pokemon around the island. There are people who scour the beaches as a second job or profitable hobby, but most tourists are required to stay relatively near to the town to avoid wild pokemon, which means the area has been mostly picked clean. Since Red and Leaf have their pokemon to protect them, they move farther along the coast. Crimson flies above them looking for danger while their other pokemon help them dig, with varying degrees of success.
Luckily no wild pokemon attack them, and Red’s just happy to spend time with his newly evolved pokemon. Pikachu is incredibly fast compared to when he was a pichu, able to dash from the shoreline to the tall grass beyond the sand and back before Red can call out a command to return. They break up the digging with occasional training exercises, and even Leaf seems happy to do things like target practice again. It takes Red almost an hour to get used to Pikachu’s stronger and more accurate electric bolts, but isn’t sure how much of that may have to do with the difference of the beach’s air humidity.
After a few hours they manage to find a tiny pearl that some shellder spat out, as well as a small pocket of ruby “star sand,” the deteriorated remains of staryu and starmie gems that often find their way to shore. It’s not much given the time investment, but upon seeing Leaf’s sad expression when she carefully scoops the ruby grains into a pouch, Red manages to cheer her up a bit by suggesting they give the money from selling it to Aiko’s ranch. Eventually they return to town to try one of the restaurants there for lunch before they head back to the ship. Since it’s technically off the ship, Red orders food without any pokemon in it, which also seems to cheer Leaf up. They spend most of the meal talking about what other options there are for tasty, pokemon-free salads and pastries.
Afterward they head back to the ship, and Red tries calling Bill to see if he has anything to say about the psychics on the cruise. The inventor doesn’t answer, as usual, so he calls Ayane next.
“It’s not
unusual
for us to keep details about jobs to ourselves,” she says, and Red can hear the frown in her voice. “But that does seem like a context where it wouldn’t be as big a deal as you’re reporting. Do you have any reason to believe something criminal or wrong is happening?”
“No,” he admits. “It’s just a feeling. Have you ever been asked to come on one of these?”
His teacher laughs. “No, Red, I’m afraid I’m not quite as renowned as to be hired by the sorts of people on the Cruise Convention. But plenty of businesses employ psychics to help in their negotiations and to tell if they’re being influenced when they know other psychics will be around. Your plan to talk to the ship’s captain seems reasonable, but I wouldn’t start throwing accusations around without something more concrete to report.”
Red thanks her and says goodbye, then turns to Leaf, who’s on the phone with his mom.
“Uh huh. Yeah.” She notices he’s free, and says, “Hang on, here’s Red.”
He takes the phone from her. “Hi Mom!”
“Red, can you repeat what Mr. Silph said to you?”
Red blinks, her tone forestalling any questions he wants to ask. Instead he just recalls the conversation as best he can.
When he finishes, she lets out a breath. “Okay. And just to be sure, he came to you, right? Was there any reason to believe that he might have known you were on the boat before he arrived?”
“I don’t… think so,” Red says, trying to remember what might have hypothetically tipped Mr. Silph off. He turns to Leaf. “You didn’t post about us coming online, did you Leaf?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I thought about it, but decided not to drive up expectations in case I wasn’t able to write something. I… did tell someone at Aiko’s ranch, a guy named Adom, but I don’t think
he
would have told anyone, since he told me something about the cruise in confidence.”
“Leaf says—”
“I heard her. So there’s one potential source, aside from Bill himself. I’ve never met him, do you think it’s something he might have done?”
Red closes his eyes and tries to model Bill as best he can.
What does he want? Why did he send us here? What purpose do we serve in being here?
He doesn’t know enough, it’s all speculative. “I can’t think of anything, but… I mean, the two probably do business together. Mr. Silph might have asked if Bill was coming, and he told him we were instead?”
“Yes, that’s what I was afraid of.” The tension in his mom’s voice adds worry to Red’s confusion. He can’t imagine what his mom is so concerned about, but she’s not the type to worry needlessly, and clearly she has some information he doesn’t. “And he hasn’t talked to you again since that first time?”
“No. What’s going on, Mom?”
“It’s a long story, but the less you know the better, from what Leaf told me about all the psychics on the ship.”
Red’s hand tightens on the phone as protective anger creeps up his temples. “You think he’s trying to get to you somehow, through me?”
He acted so friendly, too…
“Maybe not explicitly. Just stay calm and avoid him as best you can for the next few days. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course. Sorry if I said the wrong thing to him—”
“No, hon, I’m sure you didn’t, and you couldn’t have known either way. I could have told you earlier… though maybe it’s best that I didn’t after all. I’m sorry you’re getting caught up in this.”
Red feels curiosity warring with his sense. She
just said
that the less he knows the better, and he’s still itching to know more. “It’s okay,” he says after a moment.
“Does that mean you won’t try to pry into it yourself?”
Red is acutely aware that the last time they met in person she was berating him for breaking a promise to her. She’s not using the word, but she doesn’t have to. “You can tell me when the cruise is over though?”
“Yes, and I will. I was planning to soon anyway.”
“Okay, then.”
Silph probably has a psychic constantly in his mind to let him know if another tries to invade it anyway.
“Thank you, Red. Just enjoy the rest of your cruise as best you can. I love you. ”
“Love you too, Mom.” He hands the phone back to Leaf, who says goodbye shortly after, looking as troubled as him. “Well? What else do you know about all this?”
“I promised I wouldn’t say, Red, plus the psychics…”
Plus the psychics. Meaning she promised in a context separate from knowing about them.
But he’s sure she has her reasons, and slowly lets the anger go as he breathes out. “Alright, fair enough.”
Leaf looks a bit surprised. “Really?”
Red smiles and starts looking through his phone directory again. “I’ve found that trusting you is pretty easy, in general. Come on, let’s see how Blue and Aiko have been doing.”
Turns out, not so well.
“Oh,
no!
” Red hears Leaf exclaim, hand over her mouth as she listens to whatever part of the story Aiko is on. “Are you… is everyone alright?”
Red himself is still in a mild state of shock as Blue finishes summing up what happened in the tunnels. “That… really sucks,” Red says, thinking of how much time and effort he and Blue put into training Kemuri back in Pewter. “I’m sorry, Blue. What about the girl who got hurt?”
“She’s set to undergo some more specialized treatment. We’re still waiting on updates to see how much she’ll recover.”
“Damn.” Red wants to say he’s sorry again, but it feels inadequate.
I should have been there…
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?” Red glances at Leaf, who’s pacing restlessly with a concerned look on her face.
“You warned me to be careful. I should have been more prepared.”
“I wasn’t thinking that, actually. Just… wishing I could have helped.”
“Oh. Yeah, it would have been good to have you down there.”
Red isn’t sure how to respond to that. He wants to say sorry again, this time for not being there, but it would feel hollow, knowing that he’ll be going to train with Sabrina soon. Again he feels like he should say so, and again he balks at making the words real, not sure how to actually approach the topic given yet another example of what he’s risking if he leaves.
“How’s the cruise, anyway?” Blue eventually asks after the awkward silence spins on a while.
“Oh, uh, good,” Red says, relieved. “Some of the tech is really cool…
oh shit,
Blue I totally forgot, you guys haven’t heard anything yet, right? It hasn’t leaked?”
“
What
hasn’t leaked?”
So Red sums up the pokemon cloning tech demonstration, along with all the shortcomings, both admitted and imagined by Leaf.
“Blue? You there?”
“Yeah,” he says, sounding a bit dazed. “I’m here.”
Red grins. “How blown is your mind?”
“Red… that’s…”
“I know.”
“How long?” Blue demands. “How long before it’s ready? I…
damn
it, I already wiped Kemuri’s ball… why haven’t they already announced this?”
“I don’t think they know, yet.” Red notes his own surprise; he hadn’t expected Blue of all people to want to bring back his pokemon instead of get a new, top shelf mon. But after further thought, it makes sense: Blue has never wanted to be seen as taking an easy route. He wants to prove he has what it takes himself to train and raise the best pokemon. “Honestly, I’d be surprised if they even know what’s wrong. If it turns out to be trivial, maybe they’ll be ready in a year or two. If it turns out not to be, well… a decade, maybe a bit more?”
Blue lets a breath out. “Yeah. Alright, then. Still, this is going to throw the markets into chaos.”
“Not just pokemon markets,
all
of them.”
“Shit, yeah. Is there any way we can use that?”
“People are talking about which stocks to short sell, so maybe that. I’m not really sure how it works though: something about borrowing stocks, selling them, then buying them back when the price is down.”
“I’ll check with the others, and Gramps and Daisy, maybe someone will know how we can get in on it. Damn, I don’t have time for this now!”
“What’s going on?” Red asks.
“I’m getting ready to fight Leader Surge. Trained up my dugtrio, just seeing if I can get a last minute evolution out of Gon to cover for Kemuri’s spot on the team.”
Red hears the clipped, tense note in his voice. “Have you gotten the chance to talk to Surge yet?” he asks, trying to get the conversation somewhere more positive.
“No.”
Dammit. “
He’s either really busy or too above talks with random trainers at the gym. Either way, he’ll have to give me some face time after I beat him.”
Red grins. That’s more like it. “Well, good luck. I’d say I’ll be cheering you on, but I don’t think the ship’s net will handle streaming.”
“No sweat, just watch it later. I’ve got some ideas I want to test with you when you get back.”
Red opens his mouth, then closes it again.
Just say it.
“Red?”
“You haven’t asked the others to try them out?”
“Different sets of skills. It’ll be too late to help with Surge, but I want to see if I can get my team to respond to stressed syllables on commands. What do you think?”
Huh. That would be hard for some pokemon with less acute sense of sound, but would really allow for more variation in each command’s specificity…
“It sounds like a good challenge. But… Leaf can probably help with that more than I can, since it’s not necessarily combat related.”
“I’ve got another idea for her. Plus, you can use your powers to figure out when my pokemon are hearing different pitches, right?”
“I could, yeah.”
There’s another pause before Blue says, “Well, it was just an idea.” There’s a frown in his voice, and Red knows his own hesitation was clear. “It’s fine if you’ll be busy with something else.”
“I might be, yeah,” Red says slowly. He struggles one last time to explicitly say it, and fails. It seems this is the closest he can come for now. “I’ll let you know when I get back?”
“Alright, sure. Anyway, I gotta go. Enjoy the rest of the trip.”
“Sure. Good luck with the match, and say hey to Aiko for me.”
Red ends the call, and stares at the phone for a bit, wondering why it’s so hard for him to tell Leaf or Blue that he’s going. Should he take it as a sign that he’s not actually ready to leave, that he would regret the choice later? That there’s some part of him that doesn’t want to go? Except that’s not a new insight, he
knows
there’s a large part of him that doesn’t want to go.
Red feels his thoughts going in useless circles and contemplates getting his notebook out, but decides to check his messages and email instead while he still has some internet connection. Soon the boat announces that it’s preparing to sail again, and Red sees Leaf finally end the call as they make their way back over the docks together.
“Hey. Crazy stuff, right?” he asks.
“Yeah.” Leaf looks troubled, and Red assumes it’s about their friends almost dying underground until she says, “Red, Aiko reminded me of something I wanted to talk about, before we came on the cruise. She told me about you using your powers to remove your pokemon’s conditioning, and let them follow their battle instincts at just the right moments.”
“Yeah, Blue calls it
sakki.
It translates basically to ‘killing intent,’ which isn’t quite accurate for what I feel when I use it. That depends a lot on the pokemon
…
” He trails off as he sees her expression. “What about it?”
“I don’t understand how you could do something so reckless. Aiko was saying you’ve been careful, but all it takes is one slip up, and you could have your license stripped, or worse.”
“Oh, no, it’s not like that!” he says, smiling. He sees a flash of irritation on her face, and stops. “Come on, Leaf, you know how risk-averse I am. I wouldn’t do it if it was that dangerous! Like I said, it depends on the pokemon. I refused to use it with Charmeleon after he evolved because I wasn’t sure it was safe.”
“I know you’re
sane,
Red, I’m just concerned that you can’t actually
know
how dangerous it is, and the consequence if you’re wrong is too high. Don’t you think if that sort of thing was safe, other psychics would have thought of it by now?”
“We don’t know that they haven’t,” Red points out. “Battle Trainers are so secretive already, and a lot of psychics like to act all aloof and mysterious on top of that. A psychic battle trainer who figures it out would be twice as unlikely to tell anyone, they’d just want to keep the advantages it gives to themselves.”
“Did you at least reach out to Professor Oak or Psychic Ayane to see? Or Sabrina? She’d know if anyone would, right?”
Red hesitates a moment. “Not… yet, no—”
“Swords of Justice, not you too, Red!” Her hands cover her face. “Why are
you
keeping secrets now?”
Red feels a flare of indignation as he remembers how he specifically chose not to keep the ability to himself. “I’m not, there just wasn’t time! I told the others, didn’t I? That’s how you found out about it in the first place!”
“But none of them are psychic! And they’re battle trainers, none of them are going to tell you not to do it anymore!”
Invisible bands squeeze around Red’s chest even as his indignation grows. Why are they arguing
again,
he doesn’t want to argue with Leaf, even more than arguing with Blue or his mom it makes him feel
wretched
… “The way you are?”
“Yes, the way I am! I’m
worried
about you, Red,
and
Aiko,
and
whoever else you guys might test this thing on!”
“Leaf… I appreciate the worry more than you might believe, but really, you don’t know what it’s like, using it. I’m in their head the whole time, remember? Feeling what they feel. I started using it with Pikachu before he evolved, and he didn’t feel any kind of desire to kill, even in battle, it’s just a useful way of knowing when a good time to use an electric attack is. I did it again on the beach today, and there was no sense of… leashed violence or desire to kill anything, he was just thinking about how his electricity would act. What’s wrong with that?”
Leaf rubs her temples. “Nothing, but that’s one pokemon in some situations. I don’t want you to let your guard down and then get taken by surprise when some other instinct surfaces.”
“I know what to look out for. If my pokemon starts to want to attack a human or go for a kill, I’d just end the mental state to stop them.”
“And what if Aiko figures out a way to imitate it, but without whatever safety you might get from the mental link? It’s just a ridiculous risk to take, all for some advantage in trainer battles.”
Red frowns as he considers that. Does he actually trust others to use this kind of ability without a psychic connection? “I mean yeah, that could be a problem. I’ll talk to her about that too, if you want.”
“That’s not enough, not if you continue to use it. Even if she says okay, others might figure it out and try.”
“So… what, you
do
want me to keep it secret, now?” Red asks, bewildered.
Leaf makes a sound of frustration as they board the ramp leading back to the ship, causing one of the older cruise members to look over at them. She lowers her voice, though still sounds like she’s holding back a yell. “I don’t know! At the very least, you should ask Sabrina or your teacher from Cerulean.”
“Yeah, of course.” He
could
have brought it up with Ayane, but she’s not a trainer, and he’s going to be with Sabrina soon… “I
was
planning to, you know. Really.”
“Alright. But in the meantime, you’re way too confident about a risk that might get you labeled a renegade, just for the edge it gives you in a fight. Don’t you think it’s possible that getting into trainer battles may have warped your perspective a bit?”
She’d said the magic words:
too confident.
“Hang on, I need to process that.” Red pulls out his notebook and starts to write out the benefits of practicing the mental merge… no, specifically the
sakki
that arises in battle, as they reach the deck of the ship and find a table to sit at so they can watch the cast off. Waiters are circulating with beverages, and Red distractedly takes a glass of chilled juice as he works, nearly spitting it back out for being bitter instead of sweet. He sets it aside to concentrate, and after a minute shifts to outright goal factoring the decision as he starts to break it down into each piece of value he gets from it.
But it’s hard to focus, hard to tease apart each motivation on the spot. All he can really think of is that it makes him stronger as a trainer, and helps him learn about his pokemon. And… well, he enjoys the company too, the camaraderie. The challenge, coming up with new strategies, thinking about ways to beat theirs…
“You might be partially right,” he eventually says, leaning back in his seat and reaching for his juice again before remembering the taste. “But it’s not winning itself that I care about. It’s… There are a couple things, and I won’t deny that it’s exciting to use it in battle and pull off a win, but it’s not that I need the
win
, I just… it’s the craft of it.”
Leaf stares at him over her own fruity beverage. “The craft of turning your pokemon into a killing machine?”
“No! To… gah, I don’t know how to describe it.” Red taps his pencil against the page where he wrote some question marks. “It’s a creative thing, I think, and also a competence one. There’s just this
rush
when a plan comes together, you know? Being connected with my pokemon enough to know what they’re thinking, to be able to stop them when I need to, to judge the right time for changes in their mood, integrating all that into a strategy… I feel like I’m
good
at it, I mess up a lot but rarely the same way twice, and each new battle is like a new puzzle—”
“So play the sims!” Leaf exclaims, then glances around self-consciously and lowers her voice again. “Or figure out other skills they can do, like a Coordinator! Or just… keep battling but without this thing with your power. Why do you have to risk their lives, or others’ lives?”
“But that’s the other part of it,” Red says, voice lowered too. “We’re
all
risking our lives! If this is something that might help keep us alive at some point, I need to practice using it in fights.”
“But that sort of thinking could justify anything!” Leaf shakes her head and puts her drink down as she leans back in her chair. The expression on her face rends something in Red’s chest. “It’s no use. I thought… I don’t know, Red, I thought you understood, but you’re just like everyone else, even Aiko…” She sighs and covers her eyes with her palms. “Is it me? I know I’m not the
only
person in the world who feels like
how
we use our pokemon should matter too, but maybe I’m just fooling myself by trying to be a trainer too.”
Red feels like there’s an iron ball in his gut. He wants to insist that he
is
different, though clearly he’s not, or that there’s nothing wrong with her, but he can’t think of a way to
show
that rather than just
say
it. “Maybe if… if you try to explain again, from the bottom… like your base values, what you’re building from and why they matter?”
“It’s no use, Red. I think you just have to feel it yourself, or it won’t matter.”
Red’s not sure how to respond to that, and they sit in silence as the boat finally starts to move below them. Leaf lets her hands fall from her face, and Red relaxes slightly when he sees her eyes are dry. They watch the shore start to recede away from the ship, until the island and its mountain are just a part of the horizon. Her words keep running in Red’s head until he realizes the answer is right there in them.
Red turns to her. “So show me.”
Leaf glances at him, wary. “Show you?”
“The way you feel. Show me, while I’m reading your mood. We never tried me learning that trick you did with the abra, maybe that will help me understand your perspective better.”
“Well first of all, it’s not a trick,” Leaf says.
He makes a brushing off gesture. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. When I shift my mental state to match someone else’s, I actually
feel
what they do. Mental powers work by symmetry.”
Leaf looks suddenly speculative, which is much preferable to her despair or frustration. “I remember hearing you say something like that before. But it’s only temporary, right?”
He shrugs. “Sure, as temporary as any other emotion.”
“I mean, it doesn’t affect your worldview, your day to day life. You can feel sad if you merge with someone who’s watching a movie that makes
them
sad, but you won’t start feeling sad every time you watch that movie afterward… will you?”
Red opens his mouth, then closes it. “I… don’t know, actually. I doubt I’d feel what they feel every time, but I’ll still have the memory of their sadness, and might be able to experience it at least somewhat the way they do.” He grins. “This is something I really want to test, now.”
Leaf seems to grow excited too. “Okay, yeah, why not? Let’s see, the exhibits are starting in like ten minutes. Maybe tonight, after dinner?”
“Sure!” He returns her wave, then makes his way to the next presentation with some relief. He was worried they’d end the argument on a down note, but instead he’s going to get a unique opportunity to change his views on something. That’s normally enough to excite him on its own, but he can’t help also having a spring in his step at the thought that it might bring him and Leaf closer together. All he has to do is understand where she’s coming from, and maybe even help her better understand him too.
Leaf has a nagging sensation that she’s missing something.
It follows her all through the presentations that afternoon, causing her thoughts to keep circling back to the experiment she and Red are going to try. At times she’s elated: if there’s a way for Red to really, truly feel the way she does about pokemon, how could he go back to feeling the way he does now? He’d
have
to see how important it is to minimize their suffering.
But something about that train of thought bothers her, and she finally realizes what it is on her way to dinner, once she’s not trying to split her attention so much.
Mental powers work by symmetry.
Red already explained how powers are split by reception and projection; if he can mimic what she’s feeling in order to feel it himself, then what would stop him from projecting what
he
feels about pokemon so she has to feel it too?
Not that she thinks Red would
do
something like that…
But it does mean that any sort of thought or mood altering that the powers facilitate must be temporary. The alternative would mean…
“Leaf!”
She looks up and sees Red waving at her from the corner of the dining hall. She goes to join him, and his smile fades as she sits down. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Red, have you heard anything about psychics being able to change how others feel about something permanently?” A chill works its way up her spine as she thinks of the way Giovanni (probably) set a psychic to read her thoughts (and possibly project moods onto her!) without her even knowing. “Sorry, better question: how do we know they
don’t?
Is there anything you can think of that would stop it?”
Red blinks. “Well, first off, I think others would figure that out. Even if there was some worldwide conspiracy among psychics, which, I mean, no one’s told
me
yet, there are also some people
just
psychic enough to notice when others are merging with their minds, and they’d have no reason to keep quiet.”
“Couldn’t they just make someone feel ambivalent about it?”
“They would have to feel ambivalent about it too, which they clearly don’t if they’re going out of their way to force it onto others. At best maybe, they could just spread the feeling that it’s a good thing to do? But changing how you feel about something isn’t the same as changing how you
think
, and psychics can’t give others amnesia, so people would notice their views suddenly changing…” He trails off, and she sees her worry start to reflect on his face. “Though… I guess if someone
was
able to do that, like if it was a unique power of theirs, we wouldn’t necessarily know about it. In both cases, it would depend how subtle the effect is, given the context it happens in.”
Leaf looks around. “Like if the psychic just hung out at the buffet and projected an enjoyment of a certain fruit, people could just naturally think they’re in the mood for that fruit.”
“Temporarily, that would work, sure. To make it permanent…”
Leaf watches Red’s expression as it shifts into his now-familiar ‘thinking face,’ and she smiles when he brings his fork to his mouth without realizing that most of the spaghetti on it fell off. Whatever Red’s other flaws might be, she appreciates how readable he is. He’s not just a bad liar, as the recent incident with the ship steward showed, but he expresses all his emotions so guilelessly that it’s clear he’s not even aware of how he wears his heart on his sleeve. There’s something uniquely pleasurable about interacting with someone whose honesty is paired with such openness. Even if there really is some massive psychic conspiracy out there, she knows Red wouldn’t be able to keep it from his friends if he ever finds out about it. “Operant conditioning?” she suggests.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. If the psychic is craving that fruit themself, they can project that craving. The target eats the fruit, and assuming they like it… or maybe if the psychic is eating the fruit too they can project their enjoyment… I mean, it would be hard to do for multiple people all at once, but…”
“But the idea makes sense, right?” She feels icy fingers around her heart. “Forcing people to feel positive things until they associate them with whatever they’re doing, the same way we train pokemon…”
“It… doesn’t seem impossible.”
The two of them stare at each other for a moment. “How many psychics are here, again?” Leaf whispers.
“A lot. But it would require massive effort to do something like this. We’re probably being a bit paranoid,” Red says, though his voice is also lowered.
“Are we? Because even if it’s really hard to do, I don’t know if it’s possible to be paranoid enough about people who can literally change how you think and feel.” She sees his expression shift. “No offense, I know
you
would never do something like that, but you can’t expect everyone to have the same moral compunctions—”
“Wait.” Red starts eating faster. “If you’re that worried, we should talk more in our rooms.”
Leaf can hardly argue with that, after she’s the one that brought up the concern. She feels warmth inside at how willing he is to take the concern seriously, even if he’s skeptical, and tries to focus on the flavors of her food as she finishes eating, all too aware of how many other psychics may be around them. When they’re both done, she leads the way out of the dining hall, trying not to visibly hurry.
She feels a little better once they’re in the empty halls, but Red doesn’t start talking again, so she decides to wait until he deems it safe. He seems to relax once they near their rooms, and opens his mouth to say something when he stops suddenly. A second later she notices the note taped to their door, and watches him tug it off and flip it open.
“It’s from Paul,” Red says. “The captain isn’t available to talk to us, apparently, but the head steward can for a few minutes tomorrow morning.”
“Oh. Good enough?” Leaf still isn’t even sure what they should say to the captain anyway. “They probably just want to make sure we’re not wasting the captain’s time, first.”
“Yeah.” Red opens the door and leads the way into their mostly-reconstructed living room. “Which we might be.”
“Even considering what we were just talking about?”
Red sits on one of the couches, two hands rising to his head. One goes for his non-existent hat briefly, as the other runs its fingers through his hair. “To be clear, it’s not that I think people aren’t immoral enough to do something like that. I’ve been trying to imagine how it might actually be done, and the scale and effort required would just be immense.”
Leaf lowers herself into the seat across from him, tucking her legs under her and wishing she could summon Raff. “You’re still new to all this, Red. You can’t know what a really experienced or powerful psychic, or group of them, is capable of. I’m more curious to know why I haven’t heard people talking about this before. Like, not even psychic villains in movies or books do this.”
Red’s gaze drops to his folded legs. “Probably because the only way to stop it would be to kill all psychics.”
Leaf frowns. “That’s not…”
“Isn’t it? Really think about the consequences of what you’re saying being true. How do you think society would react? What possible solution could non-dark or non-psychics come up with that actually wards off that kind of fear?”
Leaf thinks for a few minutes, and Red lets her, eventually taking his notebook out to write in. How
would
she try to be safe from a threat like this? Write down all her major opinions and preferences, check over them every month? Write out events that might realistically change people’s preferences so she can track those that make sense? But people sometimes change their preferences for no apparent reason at all.
Leaf remembers hating hummus sometime between when she first tried it and after she stopped eating pokemon, until one day she tried some again and it tasted great. At the time she thought that one just had a really good recipe, but after that she enjoyed most brands to some varying degree. She also thinks about a show she watched before coming to Kanto. It was about a bunch of angsty teenagers who went to a special school for kids with magic powers, but kept whining about how empty their lives were when they could have whatever they wanted. At first she watched it to laugh at how terrible it was, but eventually she started to actually get invested in the story and enjoyed it, for the most part.
All of which is normal behavior that everyone probably experiences from time to time… except maybe it’s not, some of the time. Leaf doesn’t actually believe that some psychic employed by Big Hummus is going around singling kids out to make them change their tastes, but if she ever changes her mind about something that’s more important, she’d probably feel pretty paranoid if she
knows
that psychics could cause that change.
Leaf’s recently filled stomach churns as she thinks of the ways society would probably react to that knowledge. No psychic would be able to do business with someone without them being suspicious… or marry a non-psychic… and, yes, it’s even possible that they might get killed, depending on the culture. From what she understands, Kanto has a history of treating its psychics with something close to reverence; today they’re respected and valued beyond most other professions. Unova’s past treatment of psychics wasn’t nearly so rosy, and they’re much less high-status today.
“I don’t think a mass killing would happen,” Leaf says at last, and Red tucks his notebook away. “But I agree that it would definitely get dangerous for many, and there would be… social consequences.”
“Mmhm. So maybe some psychics
can
do this, but they all have a huge incentive to hide it if so. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First we should know if I can even change my own views permanently before we speculate about psychics changing someone else’s. And even if I can, that doesn’t mean others can. It might be unique to my way of thinking. Or my powers, which may be the same thing. And that
still
won’t mean I can change others’ beliefs or values.”
“I get it. But even just changing your own seems… creepy, to me, now that I’ve thought about it more. You’re not worried about suddenly changing who you are?”
Red shrugs. “Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Not sure. I guess because I change all the time, and it’s only sometimes deliberate? And it’s not like I don’t know who I’m changing into, in this case: someone more like you.”
She stares at him, heat prickling her cheeks. “That’s… pretty flattering, Red. But if it’s that easy to just decide my values or perspective is better than yours, why not just… change them?”
“Well, what if I can’t? That’s the point of this, isn’t it? To see if there’s some extra feelings or something that would help me actually change my values in a way I normally can’t?”
“Sure, but this seems like more of a trick now. Is it really okay to
force
yourself to change?”
“Why wouldn’t it be, if I’m choosing it? If I’m stuck on some value that causes suffering, then hopefully at some point I realize it and that value loses its strength relative to one that helps me be more moral, but why not shortcut that process if I can? If some sociopath realized their lack of empathy was harmful, wouldn’t we be glad that they might want to take a pill and change, if they could?”
Leaf grins. “Are you trying to get me to argue against my own views?”
Red smiles. “No, promise.”
“Because, I mean,
I
certainly think that it would help you be more moral, don’t get me wrong… I just don’t get how you can make that decision about your own values. The idea of my values being changed like that is kind of scary, to me. Like I’m killing off a part of myself.”
“It
is
an interesting question about how one ‘decides’ on their ethics,” Red admits. “I guess it’s more about meta-ethics? Like if I think the change in views would make me have more moral beliefs, I might tweak one of my values in a way that my other values tell me would make me a better person. But why am I prioritizing some over others, so that they can gang up on it? Maybe that value is more important than I think, and once it’s tweaked, I might change a different one that I normally would not have been okay with changing. Even if it only happens two or three times, I might end up changing myself to someone that my original self would find abhorrent.”
“See, exactly! You
definitely
shouldn’t try something like this if that’s even a possibility. If you can change your values through reason, rather than brute-forcing it, you should. Otherwise, how would you actually
know
it’s a better moral position?”
“Values don’t always run on logic, though,” Red says, shrugging a shoulder. “Some are just… formed out of whatever basic experiences people have. Take the sociopath example again. Someone who doesn’t empathize with suffering is going to have a harder time understanding why suffering is bad. At best they can just recognize consequences to it that may interfere with other values they have. What if I just have faulty wiring?”
Leaf shakes her head. “There’s something
wrong
with those people, though, you can’t compare something like this to that. I mean, by wrong I mean ‘by my values,’ obviously, but I also mean on a somewhat objective scale?” She frowns. “It sounds like I should feel guilty about saying it, and I do, a little, but… if there’s something
different
in their mental wiring or the chemical mix that influences how they think or experience the world compared to 99.99% of other people, we can recognize that as the fault of biology.
Any
difference isn’t bad, again by my values—”
“I get it,” Red says with a grin. “You don’t have to keep repeating ‘by my values.'”
“Okay. But I just mean that it’s not the difference itself that I think is bad, but the
kind
of difference this in particular is. It’s just such a huge breakdown of a core experience in society, which leads to some pretty important values. As long as we have that common ground of basic values to draw on, particularly things like… Anti-Suffering, and Happiness, and Truth, and Logic…” Leaf trails off, thinking about the people who argued against her Pewter Museum article. They would
say
that they valued those things… “Well, we’ll still probably disagree about a lot of stuff, but on a long enough timeline, with enough resources and discussion, we should be able to reach agreement eventually. If there aren’t other values that take precedence, I mean. And I don’t think there are, for us. I don’t think there’s something
missing
in you.”
Even as she says it, she feels a bit of doubt inside. Maybe there
is
something missing in Red… but if there is, it’s missing in the vast majority of people, and the only reason it seems more clearly missing in him is because he’s so reasonable otherwise. Leaf remembers the discordant feeling she had after realizing that Aiko doesn’t eat pokemon despite being a trainer, and wonders again if there’s just something wrong with her own self. Maybe from their perspective, there’s something missing or warped in her. She doesn’t
think
she values humans any less just because she also cares about minimizing pokemon suffering, but objectively, she’s less willing to trade-off one for the other, so it seems pretty obvious that she
does
. Which… may be bad, actually.
“Well, that’s nice to hear,” Red says with a smile. “But I don’t think that means we shouldn’t try this experiment. We don’t even know if it would permanently change anything, and I’m okay with risking it, for something like this. Worst case scenario is that I think more like you, a little, and that doesn’t seem so bad.”
Leaf frowns as she tries to put into words the twisted feelings of worry and danger she senses about all this. If she’s wrong to feel the way she does, she’d hope that reason and evidence would be enough to shift her views. If Red actually changes his values like this… what would stop her from just as easily changing her own if subjected to the same thing? “Why not try something less core, then? Like the fruit thing, just to see if it works?”
“I mean, we
can
, but… I really think it’s alright, Leaf. If it was this easy to mess up, Ayane would have told me about it. I’m just going to be sampling how you feel, for now, the same as I’ve done with her. Not trying anything new or fancy.”
That… does sound reasonable. Leaf lets her breath out. “If you’re sure…”
“I am. Trust me.”
Leaf nods. She
does
trust Red. Even if he sometimes thinks in ways that she finds frustrating or lacking in empathy, she mostly believes that he’ll find the right answer eventually, and recognize it when he sees it. “Alright. Here goes, then.” She repositions herself to be more comfortable, then closes her eyes and tries to focus on how her brain feels, then how her emotions feel, trying to detect when he starts.
She still hasn’t noticed anything by the time Red quietly says, “Okay, ready.”
“You’re merged with me?” she asks, voice also quiet. She suddenly feels a tension in the air, nothing supernatural, just an intimacy that makes her feel oddly vulnerable. “You can feel what I feel?”
“Yeah. I don’t feel anything different, though.”
“Well, what do you feel?”
Red is quiet, and she peeks under one eyelid to see his expression. It seems normal, but also slightly flushed. “Nervous?” he says at last.
“Oh. That might be me, then, yeah. Did you want me to start?”
“Yeah. Just show me how you feel about your pokemon.”
“Alright.” It’s easiest to imagine Joy first, with her big blue eyes, her white and pink fur, the happiness she always shows at cuddling. Leaf smiles as love for her pokemon fills her, and soon she’s thinking of Raff too, with his toothy grin, and Crimson, flying so fearless and free, and Alice’s floppy ears.
She almost forgets that Red is even there until she hears him sigh. “Wow. That’s… nice.”
Leaf grins, eyes still closed. “Isn’t it?” She thinks of her companions’ pokemon, from Pikachu with his timid explorations to Maturin’s bold bids for snacks or affection, to Eevee’s energetic drive to keep up with the other, more experienced pokemon. Leaf’s thoughts briefly touch on Kemuri and the others who she never met that got killed or hurt in the tunnels, but she shies away from that pain, instead focusing on all the other pokemon out there, with all their quirks and mysteries, all their quiet, private lives, all the fascinating wonders of unique biology that they are. Even the dangerous ones, and they’re almost all dangerous by default, are living beings whose suffering is sad, and could be made to live happier lives with human assistance. Soon she feels an endless ocean of warmth inside her, a swirling cauldron of wonder and joy and gladness that she can tap at any time by just thinking of the shining future that may some day come, when every living thing is free to live without suffering.
Red doesn’t say anything this time, merely letting out a long, slow breath as they bask in the feeling together. For a moment she imagines what it’s like for him,
not
feeling this way. She always thought it must be
lonely
to only love a few things, a practical rounding error in terms of absolute numbers of living things. Like whole swathes of the world are just lacking in color or beauty…
Leaf’s eyes fly open as Red makes a strange choked sound, and something in his expression clears as he relaxes. “Sorry! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” His eyes open, and after a moment he smiles, looking a bit dazed. “That was… really nice.”
She examines him for a moment, but he really seems genuinely happy about what he felt, and eventually she smiles too. “Right? So how do you feel about pokemon now, if you think back to that feeling?”
“One sec.” He closes his eyes, and she watches as he breathes deep, then lets it out. “I can feel… some of it. But it’s a memory of a feeling, not the feeling itself. Like remembering that I used to enjoy roller coasters.”
“Oh.” Leaf can’t help but feel disappointed, even though part of her is glad that he didn’t permanently alter himself that easily.
“Hang on, though, I’m going to see if I can recreate it.”
“And that’s safe?”
“Yeah, like I said I did this with Ayane all the time, mimicking states of mind… this is just an unusual one in some ways…” He trails off as he continues to breathe, eyes closed.
Leaf watches him a moment, curious and mildly worried as his face starts to twitch in minor frowns. After surreptitiously checking the time and letting a few minutes pass, her curiosity wins out. “Well?”
“It’s not… really working…”
“How come?”
“I’m trying to mimic the state of mind, but other feelings get in the way. I’ve never had that happen before. It’s hard to focus without letting them mix.”
Leaf frowns. “Other feelings?”
“They’re a bit hard to explain. There’s some grief, like usual when I use my powers a lot, but it’s just a small part of it.”
“Well, can you project it, so I can feel what it’s like?”
Red opens his eyes in surprise. “Uh. I don’t think I should. It’s not… pleasant.”
If he’d said it was dangerous, that would be one thing… but unpleasant she can handle, if it means better understanding what he’s going through, and what obstacles are in the way of seeing eye to eye. “Hey, you risked having your values altered by me. I think it’s fair to see what you’re going through when trying to recreate how I felt.”
“Uh. Okay, then. Starting…”
The psychic connection is felt immediately, this time, like some giant drain got unplugged deep inside that endless ocean of joy in her, its waters rapidly receding from the shore of her thoughts as it gets sucked down.
She barely has time to panic before more sensations are there, the drain revealing jagged rocks that don’t translate into words, but in flashes of insight and concepts that only roughly bring up errant thoughts about how pokemon
hurt each other all the time,
they
hurt humans,
they
killed Red’s dad, killed Blue’s parents,
they’re not
people,
they’re just
biological machines,
they’re
monsters—
She starts feeling a sort of creepy-crawly disgust, a fear of something
alien
, and suddenly imagines bug pokemon, all the most vicious and creepy ones, until she physically flinches.
—
they’re wondrous but dangerous, they feel sensations but they don’t care about anything, they can’t, any joy they feel around us they were conditioned to feel, they’re Other—
The ocean is almost gone, and rain falls in her head, down her cheeks, dark clouds of fear and anger and under it all there’s that
grief
—
“Stop!” Leaf says, voice strained, and she gets one last snapshot of feelings not her own, a horror at hurting someone incredibly precious, the sensation rapidly fading even as it leaves her with a glimpse of herself that shocks her, a tenderness and desire to be near her that utterly distracts her for the space of a breath.
Then the feelings seem completely gone, and Leaf opens her eyes to stare at Red, emotions mixing violently inside her. Anger, fear, disgust… is that really what he thinks of pokemon? Pity, grief, affection… there’s so much pain, there, she sensed it tingeing every thought. And that last thing… she feels butterflies in her stomach as she suddenly realizes what she sensed.
Surely she misread that? Red gets flustered from time to time, and she always thought it was cute how clearly unused to being around a girl his age he is… but that glimpse of how he saw her, far more idealized than how she sees herself, makes her suddenly second guess her usual perceptions. Leaf’s cheeks start to burn at the level of affection and esteem he holds her in. Had she really thought him an open book, if she missed something that big?
And despite the sharp disagreement in their philosophical differences, he
admires
her perspective. That came clear, even through the dark feelings.
She wishes she could say the same about his.
Red is looking down at his legs, chagrin clear on his face as he breathes steadily. “Sorry about that,” he says, not looking at her, and she wonders if it’s the grief he’s apologizing for, or if he understands what else she glimpsed. “It’s gotten a lot better lately, believe it or not…”
“Red,” she interrupts, putting her confusing feelings aside and taking a deep breath, trying to consider her next words carefully. “I… I think you need help… Your thoughts, they’re…” She almost says
twisted
, but she understands the root of that twist now, doesn’t she? Pity fills her as she imagines living with that grief every day, it’s a wonder he can find any joy and affection in pokemon
at all…
“They’re all colored by that loss, and I understand it, I think, a little anyway, but you can see that it’s not reasonable, can’t you?”
Red frowns, crimson gaze coming up to search hers. “I’m not sure what you mean…”
“I mean, have you considered that the… the loss of your dad, the trauma of that, may be what makes it so hard for you to care about pokemon? What makes you think of them as… ‘
Other
?'”
Red’s face clears. “
Oh
. No, it’s not what you think, that’s just how it always goes with my powers. The grief isn’t related to what we were thinking about.”
She stares at him. “You really believe that. That those feelings you had… the thoughts they translated to, things like pokemon just being biological machines, you think that’s normal?”
“I mean…” He’s frowning now, still not meeting her gaze for more than a heartbeat at a time. “I don’t know what ‘normal’ is in this context, but I don’t think it’s related to my dad, if that’s what you mean. I don’t hold all pokemon accountable for what happened to him.”
“Don’t you?” she asks, voice softening.
“No! The way I think about them is… I mean, it feels completely separate, like obviously it’s informed by tragedies like that, but it’s still built on… you know, rational basis, on observations, on what I value.”
But that would make it so much worse,
she thinks, biting her lip to keep from saying it. “I don’t… think you’d necessarily be able to feel that, if that’s true or not, I don’t think you’d
know
that, that’s how trauma works, it… it exaggerates negative things…”
Red’s brow is drawn, his lack of understanding making her heart sink. “I’m telling you, that’s not how it is,” he says. “You’re just linking the two feelings because they seemed so entwined in the projection. Look, I’ll send you something unrelated—”
“
No!”
Red’s frown slips, and he looks ashamed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… make you feel that…”
Leaf makes a conscious effort to relax. She hadn’t meant to yell… “No, that’s alright. I just don’t… want to feel it again right now, or anything remotely like it. And I believe you, that it’ll come across regardless of what the topic is. But… that doesn’t rule out the idea that they’re connected.”
Red looks frustrated, and also a little guilty, still, as he nods and suddenly gets to his feet. “Okay.”
“Okay?” She watches him go to where his shoes are, confused and nervous.
“Yeah. I get it. I’ll think it over.” He slips his sneakers on, and with a start she realizes that he’s leaving.
Leaf’s hands find each other, twisting as she wrestles with her worry about having hurt him. She didn’t mean to push him away… “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Just want to clear my head.” He still won’t look at her, even as he steps out the door and closes it behind him.
Leaf watches him go, unable to think of anything else to say. In truth, she could use some distance too. She knows it’s irrational to blame psychic powers for what Red’s going through, how his views were formed, just because it’s how she was made aware of them, or how he has to keep revisiting them. And she knows Red would never force that feeling on her. But she can’t help but wish in that moment that all psychics lost their abilities, if it was the only sure way to ensure he never feels the way that projection did again… and to ensure that she never has to either.
Red wanders through the halls, a violent stew of emotions causing a trembling somewhere in his stomach. His thoughts constantly dash around and collide, with a single refrain going around and around in different iterations.
I hurt her.
He passes by rooms where people talk and laugh, feeling like a ghost drifting by, untouchable by whatever is around him.
I made her feel bad.
Eventually his feet bring him up enough stairs that he emerges onto the deck of the ship.
I made her scared of me.
On the first few evenings of the cruise, the decks were often populated by attendees looking to enjoy the sun set over an uninterrupted horizon. Red goes to the eastern side so he can have the ship’s rails to himself. He barely notices the changes in the sky as the sun dips toward the water behind him, instead focusing on his breathing, on calming himself.
He screwed it all up. This week was supposed to be fun and educational, and a chance to get closer to Leaf. Instead they just keep having arguments, and now his final chance to bridge the difference in their views completely backfired. Instead all he accomplished was disgusting her and driving a wedge between them, all because he didn’t think to stop and recognize how his grief might feel to her, how unused to it she would be.
Irrational as it is, for a moment he wishes he didn’t have his psychic powers. If it meant undoing what had just happened, if offered at this second, he would give his abilities up to turn the clock back and take away whatever hurt he inflicted on her.
But that’s just childish. It’s not the fault of his powers, it’s his. He should have gone slower. Should have taken the time to examine what was so hard about mimicking her state of mind, recognized that his partition had weakened too much, insisted on waiting.
Instead Leaf asked him to show her how it felt, and he didn’t want to deny her.
And now she’ll probably never let me try anything like it again.
Maybe just not anytime soon, but if the cruise ends and they still haven’t resolved this, if he leaves to train with Sabrina… he and Leaf will just keep drifting further apart. He
knows
they will, it feels like a branching timeline in his head, where one path leads to futures he’ll be forever barred from if he doesn’t get the chance to understand her better.
Why
is
he choosing to leave her? Leave all of them, that is? Blue and Aiko could have been killed in those tunnels. How can he help keep Leaf safe, keep them all safe, if he’s not with them? His goal factoring was done before he knew how close they’d come to dying without him even being aware. How could he risk going off with Sabrina and finding out second-hand that they… that she…
Tears prickle at his eyes as he feels the ache of losing his dad, mixed with the feeling of wanting to be with Leaf, of preemptively missing her, like a gouge in his chest, so sharp it makes him actually put his hand over his heart, trying to hold the painful emptiness closed.
I can’t do it.
He can’t leave her. Not like this. If he does, she’ll just… go on thinking that he’s a monster. He has to stay, to show her… show her how he can stop eating pokemon, how he can stop using the
sakki.
He’ll have to tell Sabrina no. Maybe she’ll have an opening later, a few years from now… he’ll be a better psychic then, anyway, he’ll keep practicing. He’ll even stop training so he can practice more, that way he can show Leaf that he’s taken her seriously,
and
he’ll get more control so he can copy her mental state the next time they try. Surely there would be a next time, if he stays…
There’s a voice inside wondering if he’s really okay with that, with not spending any more time with Blue and Aiko’s friends at the gym, with not exploring the use of his powers in battle. But it’s a small voice, easily shouted down by his other desires and fears. Red rubs his face, then moves away from the railing to head back to the room and tell Leaf. His heart feels a bit lighter just having made the decision.
As he walks through the halls, he notices how oddly quiet everything is. There’s no sound of chatter or cheer coming from the various common rooms, though the lights are on. Dinner should already be over, people were already gathering in various lounges when he was headed to the railing… where is everyone now?
He sends his mind sense out briefly, a bit longer than a locating ping, just enough to get a sense of the general “mood” of the thoughts…
Worry. Panic. Resignation. Sorrow.
Red stops in his tracks, eyes wide, then bursts through the door to his side where he sensed a crowd of people, about to ask what’s happened—
His eyes absorb the information in bursts, jumping from place to place:
A monitor, hanging on the wall.
The timestamp on the news footage, a few minutes old.
Dark roiling clouds, blotting out half the horizon like a cloak.
Stabs of light illuminating the coast below them.
“…dropped from cloud cover less than ten minutes ago, according to eyewitness reports,” the news anchor is saying, voice distant to Red’s ears. “It was only for a few moments, but combined with satellite images, we can now confirm that Zapdos is making its way in a north-northwestern direction.” The image shifts to a storm projection map that shows the cone of probability engulfing Amber Town, Vermilion City, and possibly the Pokemon Tech campus farther to the west. “The League has confirmed deployment, and Rangers are enacting Tier 3 emergency protocols for the tri-city area…”
Red can’t breathe. A sliver of air enters and leaves his parted lips, but attempts to suck in a deeper breath, to ground himself, aren’t working. His fists clench until his nails dig into his palms, but he doesn’t wake up from the nightmarish haze that’s surrounded him.
Not fair, it’s not
fair,
summer is practically over, why would it come
now
, why would it come
again…
He forces himself to cut off that line of thinking, to close his eyes and try to predict what would happen next.
There’s no question of trying to convince Blue to keep to an edge of the crisis zone, to help how they can without risking himself. Blue and Aiko are
there,
right in the path of the storm
.
Zapdos is coming to
them,
faster than a mounted pidgeot could fly, even if they had one to carry them, even if there would be any around not already in use to evacuate.
And Red is all the way over here, out to sea with rich and intelligent and influential people who are just
standing around
and murmuring in worried tones, just
watching
…
Just like me.
Red’s feet pound the carpet of the halls as he runs for his room, gasping in a sharp breath now that his body is forced into motion, unaware of when exactly he started moving. He passes by the corridors and cabins unseeing until he bursts into his bedroom and starts grabbing everything he has out and tosses them into a container box as thoughts keep bubbling to the surface of his panicked brain, uncertainty about what he’s doing finally slowing his hands as he gets to the notebook he’s been using for the exhibits.
What if Zapdos turns? There were parts of that projection cone that carried it away from Vermilion. He can’t teleport back to the ship once he leaves, he’ll miss the rest of the presentations… would Bill understand? Or what if Blue and Aiko and the others are out of town already, gone on some trip after his battle with Surge was over? No, Blue would go back as soon as he hears…
Red needs data. He needs to know how often these projections have been wrong in the past, needs the base rate so he can…
So he can what? Find a reason not to go? Convince himself that a 10% or 20% or even 50% chance of being wrong is worth staying safe on the cruise? The excuses are already there, within easy reach.
I’m here on Bill’s assignment, I don’t know for sure if Blue is still in the city, I’m mentally exhausted from using my powers earlier—
He slaps the excuses down, one at a time, forcing himself to stuff the next thing into his bag, then the next, then the next, until he suddenly hears running footsteps, and the bang of the living room door slamming open.
“Red?!”
Leaf. He hadn’t even checked if she was still here, she must have gone out after he did. Red stays frozen in place, tempted suddenly to stay quiet, to teleport away without telling her so that she stays here, stays
safe
…
His connecting door opens a moment later, and there she is, face flushed and breathing hard. “Red, Zapdos is…” She trails off, wide eyes taking in his mostly packed bag.
Red straightens, meeting her gaze. “I’m going,” he says, hoping she decides to stay,
stay, Leaf, please…
Leaf nods, fear and anxiety fading as resolution takes their place. “I am too.”
Welcome back everyone! Getting back to work was rough this month, so expect a moderate amount of editing over the weekend, as this one didn’t have a chance to get much proofreading. Hope you enjoy it, and as usual, all feedback welcome, either here or on /r/rational!
Chapter 59: Interlude VIII – Organization
Sakura thought she was out of tears.
There were plenty, when they first told her. When she first saw her baby brother’s remains, when they interred him beneath the earth. Six years old, and grown so fast. Already talking about his dreams. Already preparing for his future. Only to have it snatched away by a monster in the shape of man.
Over a year of tears after that, as the trial went on. As her mom, first in shock that her son could be gone, then in denial that her husband could be the killer, went from a source of added distress to an infuriating enemy, to a monster of a different shade. Months of tears, of listless despair punctuated by fits of crying, of sobbing herself hoarse. And then the final verdict.
Not guilty.
That storm should have squeezed the last drops out. When she rose from her exhausted sleep the next day, feeling drained, feeling
empty
, she thought she’d cried her last tears.
There was only one thing left to do, and tears weren’t part of it.
Dry eyed, she planned. Dry eyed, she kept her mask in place. Pretended to be glad that the monster was free. Expressed relief that it was all a misunderstanding. Her mom insisted that now they could “really grieve” for Sokka. As a “family.”
Yes mother,
she said. But there were no more tears to give, and eventually her mother left her alone.
It was easier when she was old enough to leave. When she could go from planning to action, didn’t have to pretend anymore. Just another few months to find the right pokemon. To train them without using their pokeball, after the initial capture. To give them the right commands and training, to overwhelm the initial conditioning.
More difficult was the timing. The monster went to nearby incidents all the time, to fight the other monsters. To act the hero, or maybe help him believe himself one. There were a few times she went with him, fought alongside him, keeping a different death hidden in her bag each time. But there were always others around.
Until one day there wasn’t. It was just the two of them, keeping the pokemon to the edge of the forest. It’s been unruly since Articuno flew by and buried a third of it in snow, a different population expanding too much every week as the ecosystem re-balances in the wake of the loss of habitat and Pressure induced rampage.
She was distracted the whole fight, looking for an opening. Worrying that someone else would come. Worrying she would miss her chance. And distracted by his smile, after they took down the third wave together, their movements and orders coordinated from multiple fights together. An encouraging smile. Like they were comrades. Like she’d forgotten. But that was the point, so she smiled back.
And when his pokemon was injured after what seemed to be the last wave, and he went forward to heal it, she looked around, withdrew her pokemon, opened her bag, and spoke a single syllable, low, under her breath. Just enough for the weedle to hear.
And to spring.
And to sting.
And sting. And sting. Until his raticate finally managed to scramble over despite its injuries and crunch it between its jaws.
“Sakura,” her father gasped, hand scrabbling weakly at his bag, body locked in pain. “Po…nnn…”
She moved to him, took his concerned and injured pokemon’s ball off his belt, returned it. Then she simply watched until his movements slowed to sluggish twitches, then stopped altogether.
Something in her loosened, after that. A knot of anger and grief she’d been holding onto for years. But still, she didn’t cry. She had no more tears.
She never saw the camera, set high in the trees to mark the perimeter. She thought she was safe, until the Rangers showed up.
She defended herself, mask cracking just a little as she poured passion into her voice, tried to call upon her grief and direct it to serve her. But still, she didn’t cry. Once it became clear that she would be branded, she came clean. Reported where her other lethally trained pokemon were kept. Waited for the end.
Now she sits strapped to a chair in a secure room in Viridian Gym, and her death comes in a neat black suit, his movements quick and purposeful without seeming hurried. He sits in a chair across from her, and his voice is the same deep, commanding voice she has heard in interviews, turned toward something new. Perhaps an attempt at gentleness.
“Hello, Miss Uryuu.”
Her gaze rises to meet his. “Hello, Leader.”
Giovanni Sakaki does not look disgusted, or fearful, or angry, or shocked, or even carefully professional, the way all the expressions she’s seen since being caught were. Instead the young Leader looks… curious?
“Are you comfortable?”
It’s a question she doesn’t expect, not just from her executioner, but also from Leader Giovanni in particular. She never really paid too much attention to her city’s pride, didn’t seek out stories of his childhood here, or his rise to Champion, or his political efforts that preceded his recent return home to head Viridian Gym. But people talked, information was hard to avoid, and what she’d learned of her Leader was that he was a man with keen perspective, intense focus, iron will… and a willingness to do what needs to be done, no matter how controversial.
She could admire that, in the abstract way she was able to admire anything, while obsessed with her own singular goal.
Insofar as she allowed herself to imagine her execution at his hands, it was always quick and efficient. Perhaps he would briefly berate or lecture her for wasting his time. Instead he asks her if she’s comfortable, and the numbness that has surrounded her since she was branded finally fades around the edges as she wakes up to how her body feels.
She was allowed to use the bathroom, thankfully, but not fed in the past… ten hours? She thinks she’s hungry, but it’s hard to tell. Her legs are a bit cramped from being in the chair for so long. Rear a bit sore. But not bad, all things considered, and given what’s about to come…
Or is she mistaken, somehow?
“Does it matter?” she asks, and clears her throat. “You’re here to execute me, aren’t you?”
The Leader’s dark gaze stays steady on hers, and after a moment he reaches into his jacket and removes a syringe, placing it on the table to his side.
Her eyes linger on it, then she looks away. “I’m fine, then. Just…” She wants to say
get it over with,
but can’t quite form the words. Her heart is beating faster, some instinctual will to live reaching up even at this late stage.
He doesn’t respond to the implication, instead saying, “Could I trouble you to tell me why, first?”
“I already confessed.”
Giovanni is quiet, a moment. “Let me rephrase. You confessed to what you did and why you did it. But you could have just stabbed him with a knife, risked an investigation, at worst gone to prison for a decade or two. You could have attacked him with your pokemon openly, thrown your life away to ensure his death. Instead you were meticulous. You tried to thread the needle, tried to make it look natural.”
She stares at him, unsure of what to say. Of what he wants from her. Her numbness is still fading, her awareness of her body and situation only growing in her final moments, and she’s not sure she should thank him for that.
“You wanted to live,” he says simply. Not a question.
She looks away. It seems cruel, to ask her now.
Why
. Why did she try so hard to kill him in just the right way, if she knew what she was risking?
“My brother,” she says at last. “Would have wanted me to.”
“And so you were patient, and careful, and tried to give yourself the best chance.”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Do
you
want to live?” he asks. There’s something calculating in his demeanor, she knows, but he also seems genuinely curious. “Or is it just the wish of what your brother wanted, that kept you from simply ending him the moment you trained your first pokemon to attack humans?”
Sakura doesn’t know how to answer that. She spent little time with friends, after, or fun things. She knew, on some level, that if she succeeded then she would one day have to consider those things, but she always put that off for later, considering it a distraction, and a seductive one at that.
But at this moment, with the syringe so close (What’s in it? Something painless? Or is Viridian’s new Leader old fashioned enough to have filled it with weedle venom?), and the hard chair beneath her, and her rumbling stomach, she thinks of how much she’d rather be safe at home in bed, or at the cafe by her old house, having her favorite dish with some plum wine. That would be… rapture.
“Yes, I would prefer to live for my own sake too,” she says at last, voice angry as a tug of longing goes through her. “Is that what you want to hear? I didn’t take you for someone who has time for… cruelty.”
“I find there is often a regrettable overlap between what is cruel and what is pragmatic,” the Gym Leader says, sounding undisturbed by her accusation. “I’d say it is intention that ultimately matters, but I know others disagree. What if you could never see your family again, your friends, your home? What if living meant exile, in a land far away, your old life left behind?”
She stares at him, anger twisting into confusion at the sudden change in topic. “I don’t… yes. Of course.”
“Would you train pokemon to kill again?”
“No.” A flame of hope is lighting in her chest, suddenly. Is this some final trial? It seems impossible to contemplate, that a Renegade would be allowed to live after admitting her guilt, she’s never heard of such a thing…
exile
… “I only did this because of my brother, I’d never—”
“What about teaching others how to?”
She blinks. “What?”
“Would you teach others your methods for training pokemon without their ball? For lethal commands, if it meant you could live?”
She stares at the Leader, whose face is still curious, eyes intent. She shakes her head, just once, the motion aborting as she realizes she doesn’t know what he’s asking her, what she’s answering.
Giovanni sighs, seeming to read her expression. “I’m sorry. I’m getting your hopes up. These are just hypotheticals, you understand. I wanted to get to know you, a little. I try, for all the Renegades that fall under my jurisdiction. Some rage at the world or some particular target, others are excessively greedy or impulsive. And of course, there’s the simply mad.” He shrugs a shoulder. “You seem one of the rarer sort. Poor judgement, but not excessively so. I find it tragic. A waste. You would have made a fantastic coordinator, Miss Uryuu…”
She stiffens. Here comes the moralizing, the judgement—
“…I’m sorry our society has failed you so thoroughly.”
And then it comes: her eyes prickle, her throat feels clogged on her next breath. A single tear escapes, and she breathes in, whole body shaking once.
She’d wanted to be a coordinator, once.
Sakura regains control quickly, embarrassed. Still, it’s better to feel something, at the end. To know she isn’t dry and dead already, after all.
“I’m sorry too, Leader,” she whispers. “Not for… that. For the trouble I’ve caused.” She swallows past the lump in her throat as her pulse speeds up, as she steels herself, closing her eyes. “Thank you for speaking to me. For looking at me like I’m a person, still. I’m… I’m ready.”
There’s silence, for a while. And then she hears the syringe scrape against the table slightly as it’s picked up. “Goodbye, Miss Uryuu.”
She feels the prick of pain, and then spreading numbness, and then nothing.
Silver watches on the monitor as a trio enters the room where Father sits. He has long-since memorized his father’s body-language: the current pose is one he internally dubbed The King in His Castle, a position of calm strength, inviting supplicants in magnanimously.
The three guests don’t look like the usual supplicants, however. All three are dressed in red and black, and their leader has hair a shade lighter than Silver’s, though still closer to red than orange.
“Hello, Maxie. It was good of you to come. I hope your quarters are suitable?”
“Giovanni.” The tall, thin man’s tone is cold, his aloof face seeming to permanently be set in an expression of sharp focus and slight annoyance. He’s a stark contrast to his right hand man, who’s round and cheerful, or the girl to his left, who seems unconcerned with anything around her, gaze staring off in the distance from beneath her hoodie. She’s technically wearing a uniform like the other two, but seems less committed to treating it as such, with lots of personalized touches. “Our quarters are quite pleasant. Your hospitality is appreciated. But what I care about is your answer. I would have it now, if you’d please.”
“Of course. I’ve already requested two labs to wind down operations and prepare to collaborate with your people, and have Senji picking a field team.”
“Excellent. As ever you vindicate my confidence in you. This removes two points of failure from our path, bringing our estimates of success to—”
“—seventy-three percent—” says the woman in a distant tone of voice.
“—and will allow us to move forward on the next stage by—”
“—six months, four days—” says the round man with a grin.
“—ahead of schedule. Your payment will be delivered tomorrow. And the search itself?”
Silver’s mouth hangs open slightly. The two had spoken without hesitation, Maxie pausing for each to supply the information as if they were extensions of himself. Father has a lot of really cool minions (he’s not supposed to call them that when they’re around) but he doesn’t have any who do stuff like
that
. Silver wonders if the three are psychically linked, then realizes they wouldn’t have had to talk separately.
Father shifts to Apologetic Resoluteness between breaths. “I’ve reviewed your plans extensively, and had many of my most trusted advisers do so as well. I’m sorry, but I can’t support that endeavor at this time.”
“Hm.” One hand goes up to adjust the tall man’s glasses. “And your reasoning?”
“Assuming the legends of Groudon’s powers are accurate, it does not diminish concerns about secondary effects,” Father says with his hands steepled below his chin. “Creating more landmass can be incredibly valuable, but upsetting the water cycle can have effects on the climate beyond what is immediately noticeable.”
“This is not new. I am eighty-three percent confident that the extent of his abilities are exaggerated.”
“Be that as it may, the effects on even a single region can have dangerous externalities.” Giovanni’s hands fall to his desk, clasping there. “And you know of my position on the
current
crop of weather-wielding pseudo-gods facing my own region.”
“Prudence as a virtue has taken you far, but I see the makings of a fault in you through it,” Maxie says, speaking as though to a student. Silver has to admit, the man is brave to talk to Father like that. “I’d hoped your vision and mine could meet somewhere. Do let me know if there’s some alteration on my end that would change your answer. I would put it under most serious review.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s simply impossible at this time. Even if we could come to some agreement, I have too many pressing projects to tend to.”
“Understandable. The offer is open. So long as you do nothing to impede our efforts, future alliance is possible. Good day.”
Silver watches as Maxie turns to leave and the man with him turns on one heel within a heartbeat, as if waiting for the movement so he can walk in step with his boss. It would probably look more impressive if the woman had done the same, but despite being on point with her earlier calculation, it takes a full three seconds before the woman notices that they’re leaving and turns to follow them.
Father waits until they’re at the door. “Yes, about that…”
The tall man stops, hand out for the handle, then turns his head to father, just enough to reveal his profile.
“I believe you know how much I value peace. Peace, and the lack of investigation that comes with it. If things come to war between you and Archie, I will have to, regretfully, join my forces to his, in order to resolve the conflict as quickly as possible.”
Silver leans forward. He can’t make out any changes in Maxie’s expression on the monitor, from this far away, but the woman’s voice still comes clearly, quiet though it is: “Fourteen percent.”
“Unthinkable,” Maxie says, sounding as though his jaw is stiff. “You, assisting that brute? That
pirate?
His goals are… epistemically…”
“Just business, Maxie. Strategically, the fighting would end soonest if I were to work with him. As I said, I value the current peace immensely. Perhaps that will soon change, but I only thought it fair to warn you, given our history.”
“Does he know?”
Silver can’t see Father’s expression, but he can guess: Who Do You Take Me For. Or perhaps I Will Give You a Moment to Recall Who You’re Speaking To. A subtle but powerful difference.
“Thirty one percent,” the girl says into the silence.
It looks like Maxie might say something after that, but after a moment he simply dips his head in the barest of acknowledgements and opens the door. His lieutenants follow him out, and the video feed cuts out, turning the screen into a dark mirror through which the red haired boy sees himself.
Silver leans back in his chair and places his hands beneath his chin as he tries to think through his father’s reasoning. He expected his dad to keep himself neutral in the budding shadow war in Hoenn, particularly if either side drags the whole conflict into the open. He could have even warned that he would side against whoever attacked first, as a deterrent, but he very specifically seemed to choose not to do so, and warned that he would pick a side instead. Father wouldn’t tell Archie of course, it would just incentivize him to start a conflict he could be confident he will win, but still…
His thoughts circle fruitlessly from there until Silver notices the repetitions and gets out of the chair to finish his history lessons. His tutor expects him to complete the whole book by the end of the week, and when he complained to Father, the Gym Leader merely looked at him and said that he was welcome to attend a regular school if he’s finding his workload “too great a challenge.” Which of course just made Silver want to work twice as hard to prove it wasn’t
that,
it was just
boring
compared to training his pokemon or honing his throwing and catching reflexes.
But that sort of argument only occasionally works on Father, and he has to space out when he uses it with lots of actual work done. So Silver rewards himself for going back to his study desk with a braided whip of gummy candy and gets to work as he eats it, half a dozen sweet and sour and salty flavors filling his mouth as he reads the next question he’s on:
This chapter recounted how the three southern Kanto warlords finally agreed to negotiate for alliance after over ten years of diplomatic relations. Describe, as though you were each of them, first their reasoning for resisting, then what they believed each of the other two warlords’ reasoning was.
Silver studies the question, eyes narrowed as he sucks on the end of the gummy braid, then gently peels a string off with his teeth. The book he read didn’t really go into much of what each warlord thought of the other two’s reluctance. One of the warlords, Takeda, never even wrote about his political thoughts, and instead practically all the writing directly from him involved his records of training pokemon to be ridden into battle for combat purposes rather than just transport. So, as usual with his tutor’s assignments, Silver would have to look up secondary and ancillary sources to try and model the ancient warlord’s perspective.
This takes him over an hour to do, and his candy whip is long gone by the time he finishes. He eyes the jar afterward, but it’s only there for reinforcement of positive actions, and he doesn’t think his father would think “continuing to do the same task because I’m getting bored but didn’t stop” qualifies. Not that he
is
getting bored, but… they’re just so tasty.
Once he finishes with Takeda, however, he does think he deserves another to keep working, and that he can justify it to Father later. He gets up and goes to the jar, only to stop as the screen snaps back on and he hears his father say, “Thank you, Kiba. Let him in please.”
Silver blinks, then hurries back to his seat in front of the secured monitor that’s connected directly to the camera in Father’s office. The candy can wait.
Once again the door opens, this time without a knock first, and in comes an athletic man with dark skin, a roguish beard, and a dark navy coat that flares at his knees when he walks. He’s followed by his own pair of minions, an even more muscular man who’s almost as wide as the door and a woman with wild hair that goes down to her waist. Silver wonders if everyone in their organizations dresses the way they do, and how they keep them secret if so. If Father made everyone that works for him wear a uniform… well, that might be pretty cool, actually, judging by his visitors today.
“Gio! Good to see you!” Archie walks up to Father and extends an arm to his side, as if getting ready to slap the Gym Leader. Silver’s eyes go wide, and his mouth drops open as Father’s arm rises to meet it when it swings, and the two clasp arms. He’s
never
seen Father greet someone with anything but a brief handshake, a nod of the head, and just once, a bow.
“Welcome, Archie. Shelly, Matt.” The minions get the head nod, and nod or wave back. “I take it the voyage went well?”
“Ahh, well enough, well enough. We were in the area anyway, you know.” Like Max, Archie doesn’t sit on the available chairs, though he does lean his arms against the back of one while his subordinates lean against the walls farther back. “Great operation you’ve built here, Gio. Could use some of your touch again back home, even on a part time basis. I miss our talks.”
Father snorts. “You miss having someone who would argue with you, you mean.”
“Ha! These two will do it,” Archie says, jerking a careless thumb over his shoulder. “But about different things than you. All under the same flag, we are. Not the same. So? You’ve considered my offer?”
“I have. I can gather the information you asked for, and possibly even acquire a copy of the blueprints.”
Archie’s eyebrows rise. “Seriously? You have operatives in Slateport?”
“Seriously,” Father says, tone bland.
“‘Course you do. And in return?”
“You would need to refer at least another six staff by the end of the year.”
“Six.” Archie taps his fingers on the back of the chair. “That’s asking a lot, Gio. Only got another two lined up, both of them Dark.”
“If it helps, all six can be, just this once.”
“Aye, it does,” Archie admits. “What do you need so many for, anyway?”
Father smiles. “How do you travel so far, so fast?”
Archie grins. “Maybe someday you’ll find out. Guess that applies to me too. Alright, six more. Will you be signing onto our venture, then?”
“Unfortunately, I have to decline for now. Too much on my plate to try and operate from multiple regions at once.”
Archie shrugs. “It’s not Gio the
warrior
we need. You can think from anywhere, direct from a phone or cam, can’t you?”
“Through trustworthy intermediaries, perhaps. In some advisory role. But manpower is hard to spare, obviously.”
“Good enough! And for the rest?”
“For that, I cannot help you. To release such a beast into the oceans would be catastrophic if even half of the legends about it are true. You would need to capture it instantly, or it would be nearly impossible to ever stop.”
Archie snorts. “I never took you for one who let fear get in the way of greatness, Gio.” Silver blinks, feeling surreal at watching a
second
person talk to Father like this, one right after the other. Who do they think they are? “These powers are going to be used one day. It’s either us or someone else, this one or some other, and the sooner we’ve done so, the better prepared we’ll be.”
“You’re speaking of Maxie.”
“Aye, and others. But mainly him, for now.” Archie’s face is solemn, voice flat.
Father lets out a sigh. There are no stances now, Silver suddenly notices. His father is just… being himself? No, surely he’s still setting his body language deliberately, just not in as strict a sense. “The very last thing I need, currently, is any kind of attention. If there comes a point where you and Maxie come to blows, I’m afraid I’ll have to side with him, just to end the fighting quicker.”
Silver flinches as the big man suddenly grips the chair, face fit to pick it up and smash it over Father’s head. “That madman? You would pick him over me?”
“I’d
prefer
to pick neither,” Father says, face and body still totally “natural” and relaxed, but tone suddenly harsh. “If the two of you would just sit together and—”
Archie shakes his head, releasing the chair and stepping back. “After what he did? Not happening. Not if the world was ending and he came to me on his knees.”
Father sighs, but nods. “Then I hope the two of you can find some other path to victory that doesn’t cross each other’s…” Even without a visual angle, Silver can hear a small smile in Father’s next words. “Exciting as it might be to face you again.”
Archie is quiet for a moment, face still livid… and then he cracks a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Aye. Exciting as it might be.” He turns, and the other two step away from the walls to follow him to the door, not at all in lockstep, but clearly at attention. “You’ll have your people, Gio. Just get me the info.”
“Won’t you stay a while, enjoy some—”
The door closes behind the three before Father can finish speaking. After a moment he shrugs, as if to himself, and the screen goes dark.
Silver sits where he is, absorbing the new information, candy and history lessons forgotten.
There’s no way Father would send his people to both Archie and Maxie at the same time and tell them to fight each other… or would he? It wouldn’t be too hard for them to recognize each other and avoid attacking each other. Maybe they could sabotage both organizations from within, but that could just delay the conflict…
Silver smiles. He thinks he has it: if Father puts people in position and has both Archie and Maxie killed, it would end the fight as well! They spoke like they were friends, but, well, Father pretends to be friends with lots of people, if not exactly in the same way…
Satisfied with his answer, Silver eventually goes back to his work, rewarding himself with another candy whip. Once the assignment is done he plays a sim for a couple hours, grinding his team up in preparation for a gym challenge until a family of primeape start rampaging nearby and kill him. He scowls and shuts the game off. He knows he’s supposed to party up with others if he spends too long in the wild, but most of the other players are
dumb.
If the developers made the game more realistic he could have had his pokemon dig a hole and stayed in it with an air tank to avoid the primeape instead of being forced to fight them again and again until his team went down.
Silver takes his anger out on a nearby punch-dummy shaped like a hitmonchan (he’s sure no one would be stupid enough to actually punch a hitmonchan, but it does a cool thing where it spins and hits back if he hits it hard enough), then goes to watch some of Father’s recorded battles. Not the ones from his gym, but from before he was even Champion. There aren’t nearly as many, of course, and their quality is poor; most are recorded by people’s phones, and many are incomplete, either starting at some midway point in the fight or ending before it finishes as the recorder gets scared off or distracted.
But they’re
real
. Father’s fighting for his life, even as he’s still developing his skills. His verbal commands have little of the iron calm they do today, and his physical motions aren’t nearly as efficient… but he seems more
alive
in the footage than any other time Silver sees him.
The one he eventually settles on was recorded from the fourth floor window of some building in Fuchsia City. On the street below, Father uses a donphan to clear the road of the various pokemon running through it, until a crowd of people start to run down a different intersection that had seemed safe a moment ago. They’re being chased by a venusaur that lumbers toward them, and if there are any trainers left behind it that are still alive or able to try to slow it down, the camera footage doesn’t see them. The rare pokemon is throwing razor leaves at the fleeing people, cutting at their knees and ankles until they collapse, then sending vines out that glow green and start to melt the flesh of the downed humans upon contact.
Silver knows that objectively he should be disgusted or sickened by the gruesome deaths he’s seeing. He knows that’s what
most people
would feel. Or say they would, anyway, and the emotion in the repeated “Oh, Arceus, oh, lord, no,” by the guy holding the phone seems genuine enough. But Silver’s too busy anticipating what Father would do next, imagining what he would do in his place.
So when Father summons a geodude and a machoke, and the machoke picks the geodude up and throws it at the venusaur, Silver has already anticipated the explosion that almost makes the recorder lose their grip on their phone. The venusaur had tried to bat the hurtling rock pokemon away as it sailed at it, but by the time it was close enough, it was too late.
The image before the explosion looked like many of the injured victims were close enough to get caught in that blast, but it’s hard to tell in the aftermath, and the recorder just stays on that street long enough to confirm that the venusaur’s head is gone and quietly swear before he quickly pans back to Father’s donphan when it bellows in pain. The ground beneath it is crumbling, and soon plants begin to grow up through the pavement, lashing out at anything nearby.
“Watching these again?”
Silver twists in his chair to see Father standing by it. He hadn’t even noticed him come in, and wonders how long he’s been there. “Rhetorical question. I think you’re actually asking for justification. It feels… judgey.”
“Do I sound judgemental?” Father asks, eyebrows raised.
“No. Just curious.” Silver turns back to the screen. “But it still feels judgey.”
Father pauses to consider that. “My real question was, what are you looking for, in these old videos? I ask with curiosity, to know if there is something valuable for you in them, but yes, also with a predisposition that you are wasting your time.”
Silver nods. “I want to learn from you. But in most vids, you’re too far away. You’re like a character in a movie. Here you’re…” Silver gestures toward the screen, where the younger Giovanni is spraying a potion onto his pokemon and yelling some command to a different one, too late, his hands blurring as he drops the potion bottle and slings a pair of pokeballs out. “Closer. I can see what you’ll do next, sometimes. I spot mistakes, though those are rarer.”
“Oh? Was there a mistake here?”
“Yes. The geodude and machoke should have been out and prepared ahead of time. The only downside would have been slowing you if you had to run, but in that case they could have served as a distraction, or been deployed first in case it would have avoided a rout in the first place.”
“Good catch. Yes, this was the battle that led me to always having a pokemon on standby during every fight, one that would not respond to any commands but the one I would give if I had to run. This combo in particular is a bit too risky, now. Can you guess what I use instead?”
Silver thinks it over. What would he want protecting his retreat if his life was in danger? It has to be able to adapt to a lot of different threats, and not be easily taken out. Tanky pokemon are no good, though, most are slow, and he needs something that can be a credible threat, not just be run around by something fast and lethal enough.
“How worried would you be about collateral damage? Public perception?”
“I’m curious to know your answer, without knowing either of those.”
They watch the screen until the end of the video, when the person recording suddenly pulls the phone back into the apartment a couple seconds before the whole building shakes, and then the feed ends. By then Silver has already crossed out a number of obvious but insufficient options. Pokemon like Dragonite and Tyranitar are powerful, but it would be a waste to keep them exclusively to last resort bodyguard duty. Pokemon with good crowd control are a must, but also those that aren’t weak to too many types. Speed is what he keeps going back to. What’s faster than the fastest jolteon? Able to do indiscriminate damage in a wide area without risking himself?
As soon as Silver mentally swaps himself with Father, still trying to answer the original question at the same time, he has it. “Something psychic. A mental attack, fast, hitting everything around it… except you.”
“It’s remarkable, what psychic pokemon can do to the reactions of those around them, all without causing any damage, mental or otherwise.”
Silver smiles, briefly, but it fades as he browses the videos available for what to watch next. “Do you ever miss it?”
Father sits on the arm of his sofa, face thoughtful as he watches Silver select another video. “No. No matter how strong I became, I was only one man trying to hold back an endless tide. Even then, I realized it. From the beginning I knew I had to build my individual strength only insofar as it allowed me to grow my collective strength.”
“But doesn’t that mean you’re not the strongest anymore?”
“I was never the strongest. My excadrill was far stronger.”
Silver frowns at him. “You’re being pedantic.”
“Not so. My point is my power was always in the pokemon I had under my command. On my journey, I had a few dozen. Today I have hundreds. More importantly, if something happens to me, the system I’ve created would ensure the work continues. Now, are you ready for dinner?”
Silver is. It’s his turn to pick the dinner, so they have sashimi and cranberry juice. It’s clear that Father dislikes the juice, but Silver smiles each time he drinks it and makes a face, so he keeps sipping it. The two sit alone to eat today, a luxury that Silver always treasures, even if it gives Father the freedom to ask him questions about how his studies are going.
He answers them as quick as he can, then goes to the question that’s really been interesting him. “Father, why did you promise both of your friends that you would support their enemy in a fight?”
“You haven’t guessed?”
“I think I have. It was to have them both killed by one of your agents once they trusted you, right?” Silver smiles.
Father’s chopsticks pause on the way to his mouth, ever so briefly. Silver isn’t sure if others would have noticed it, but he notices everything Father does. “Do you think I would kill my friends?”
Silver shrugs. “If you had to.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“If you were just doing it for fun, maybe. But you’re trying to stop monsters. You have to be a stronger monster to do that, don’t you?”
After a moment of silence, Silver looks up from his food to see that Father has stopped eating, gaze distant. He hesitates, realizing that calling someone a monster is
probably
not considered polite. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Father immediately says. “No, you didn’t. You simply held up a mirror to show me the sort of man I appear to be. I’m glad, that you can do that for me.”
“Oh. Okay.” Silver’s legs kick beneath the table as he tries to figure it out on his own, but eventually his worry that he
did
say something wrong is too great. “Why?”
“Because,” Father says, and begins to eat again. “Perhaps if your grandmother had such a mirror, she would not have become quite the monster she did.”
Silver still isn’t sure he understands that either, but he resolves to figure it out himself instead of going on about it for the rest of dinner while there are other things to ask. “So I was wrong? About your plan?”
“Yes. I decided that the best way I could ensure that my friends did not fight was to make them think I was more on their opponent’s side than theirs. As long as both believe I will side with their enemy, and thus put them at a severe disadvantage, then both have an added incentive not to begin hostilities. And since both know why I would not tell their opponent that, they also have an incentive not to refer to it themselves, or tell any of their own people, for fear that it would get to the other.”
“Huh.” It made sense, in a roundabout sort of way. “I guess it’s better to lie to friends than kill them. How often do you do that?” Silver is thinking of the shows he watches, sometimes, and how often secrets between the heroes cause trouble. He doesn’t bring them up; Father doesn’t like him getting his sense of what’s realistic or true from media, and Silver knows how much smarter Father is than the writers of the shows or movies from the rare nights when they watched something together. Silver would be asked to write out what the characters did, what he would do instead, and then Father would point out all the better choices they could have made.
Father takes a sip of his juice, grimaces, puts it down. “Perhaps most would not need to. For certain people, however, secrets are required to ensure safety.”
Silver nods. This he understands; secrets are what keep him safe. Father puts a lot of effort into ensuring his enemies don’t know Silver exists or where he is. But still… “When do you know that it’s safe to share a secret, then?”
“When the consequence of it staying hidden becomes worse than the consequence of it getting out. Or when someone’s trust is about to be broken.”
Dr. Light watches the rest of the team file into the room with a barely controlled, simmering anger that makes it hard to sit still. One or more of these eight idiot geniuses has broken ranks, and now they’re all going to be paying for it.
“Alright folks, let’s get this started. I’m sure we all have important things to get back to,” she says. As head of Cinnabar Labs, she’s the de facto highest ranking administrator in the room. Not that she asked to be; she was happily working on her gene editing research until 2.351 “awoke.” Labs across the region shut down rapidly after that as staff consolidated to work on all the breakthroughs that followed. Unfortunately that meant senior staff quickly became supervisors as they had more people to manage, and supervisors quickly became administrators. Soon she had less and less time for research, and before she knew it she was administrator of the whole lab, a job Dr. Fuji would have been much better suited to…
She forces her thoughts away from that sad path. Better not to think about it, and besides, she has more immediate worries.
“What’s this all about, Ivy?” Dr. Burnam asks her, and she meets his gaze, searching it for any sign of complicity. “Next administrator meeting is supposed to be in a week.”
“You may have noticed the word ’emergency’ in the email,” she says, voice dry. “It can’t wait until next week. Someone’s drawing from the communal pool out of rotation.”
A few people at the table curse or mutter under their breath, and Dr. Light tries to watch them all at the same time, as well as everyone else. It’s no use, she knows that, she’s not going to be able to tell who’s in on it just by watching for guilty tells. If they were the sort of people with tells, they wouldn’t have their jobs.
“Now obviously we can’t just get a psychic in here and have them check for guilt,” she says, which elicits some chuckles from the room of dark and psychic scientists. “But I’d like to resolve this without getting Giovanni involved. I hope I don’t need to remind you all that part of our jobs is to try and solve these sorts of problems before they get to his desk. He’s got enough on it.”
“So what’s someone doing?” asks Dr. Martin. “How are they getting away with it? There’s logs for every request, isn’t there?”
“Sure, yeah. Have you checked it recently?”
The man frowns. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I—”
“—she’s not implying anything, it’s a simple question.” Dr. Bosch interrupts. “Have you looked at it recently, or do you just sign your name and move on?”
“Look, when you make it sound like—”
“Enough,” Dr. Light says, already feeling a headache coming on. “I brought the book, just take a look at it yourselves.” She lifts it from the portfolio from the stack behind her and starts passing it to her left, where people begin to rifle through the pages of signed names, times, and requisitions.
Dr. Martin shakes his head and frowns, passing it on with a puzzled expression. Dr. Sato does the same, but Dr. Brown’s brow rises, and she sees that he spotted it. “A lot of these are just scribbles.”
“What?” The woman next to him takes the book and looks it over, then scowls. “Who did this?”
The others are clamoring for a look now, and Dr. Light raises her hands. “No need to check yourselves, it’s not that complicated. I’m pretty sure my 5 year old niece has done something similar when she needed her mom to sign a note for school once. At least one person has been just scribbling something that looks like a name on the form, but it’s illegible. Avoiding electronic records keeps us safe in one way but opens us up to shit like this. So, let’s get to the bottom of this now. Quick and easy. If you’ve been doing this, raise your hand.”
Everyone stares at each other, some in consternation, others in bland confusion. Dr. Light drums her fingers on the table, hoping with every passing second that someone does the right thing… until it becomes clear that no one will.
“Dammit people,” Dr. Collins says with a disgusted look. Head of the reconstructive cloning program, and suspiciously good at finishing his projects on time. She hears he drives his people to the bone, though, so it may just be that. “I’ve got two samples that need to be monitored for the rest of the day, I don’t have time for this.” He makes to get up.
“
Sit. Down,”
Dr. Light says. “We
all
have places to be, but this is serious. People aren’t just asking for supplies, they’re asking for staff too.”
“Well, then, what’s the issue?” Dr. Brown asks. Mechanical R&D. He’s working on making environmental suits resistant to cold, heat, and electricity all at once, including Mewtwo’s. “Just ask them who they worked for.”
“Thanks, Mark, I didn’t think of that,” she says with a sweet smile. “Maybe if we’d spotted these right away that would have worked, but no one remembers whose lab they assisted in every day for the past five months. Anonymous records, folks! Get it through your heads. Unless one of you wants to put your name on some file that might get emailed? We can cast a vote, what do you say? Anyone?” She glares around the room, but no one raises their hand. “Thought not. So what’s the solution here?”
“Don’t
you
have one?” Dr. Martin asks.
“Clearly not, or she wouldn’t be asking,” Dr. Collins says. “I don’t see what the solution
can
be, though. We’re all hurting for manpower at some point. We just need to check the book daily from now on, make sure no one makes a request without printing legibly.”
“That’s only half the problem,” Dr. Light says, and sighs. Most of her anger is spent. “The reason people are doing this, I’m pretty sure, is that it lets them get through crunch time on their projects. We’ll have to implement a project scale down—”
The whole room starts to shout her down, but she takes the binder and slams it on the desk until it’s quiet. “I don’t like it either, but we’re running our people ragged like this! If we all follow the rotation, no one gets burnt out, but we clearly can’t do that, so this seems like the best option.”
“Easy for you to say,” Dr. Sato says, taking her by surprise. “Of course if there’s an emergency going on, Cinnabar Lab will get the priority, even outside of rotation.”
Her temper flares back up. “I’m sorry, do
you
want the living superweapon’s room to be understaffed on the day it happens to decide it wants out? I know it won’t be
your
people who get pasted to bloody jelly first, but—”
“No one’s saying they want that,” Dr. Brown says, holding up a soothing hand. “I think the main argument is that we all have critical projects to work on, and without the ability to pull people as needed, many of them will fall through.”
“And if everyone pulls at once, or people start to pull extras with scribbles,
normal
projects are falling through,” Dr. Romero says, speaking up for the first time. “I’ve got a backlog that I’ve been waiting for some openings in the roster to tackle. Now I know why it’s been taking so long.” She shakes her head. “We should be better than this, folks.”
“If we could just hire more staff—” Dr. Collins starts, only to have Dr. Brown make a sound of exasperation.
“Not this again. It’s not going to happen, Perry, not anytime soon. You don’t think Giovanni’s been trying? We’ve practically tapped the whole island dry.”
“Hell at this point I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of retraining the electricians and janitors,” Dr. Bosch says with a smile. “It’s not like we can hire interns or temps from the outside and have them sign an NDA, right?”
The discussion continues off topic from there, but Dr. Light makes no effort to rein it in. She knows better than to stop a bitchfest this massive before it lets off some steam, and despite what Dr. Sato said, she knows what it’s like to be hurting for manpower too.
It’s a simple coordination problem: nine labs set up in Kanto, with enough full-time staff to run maybe seven of them at once… but all nine are working on critical projects that can’t be stopped or delayed. Ostensibly. In truth, any of them (except maybe Cinnabar)
could
wind down some operations, consolidate, and take turns using the same resource pool, but… no one’s really willing to be the one to do that first.
So people make special requisitions of resources or general staff to deal with some emergency or opportunity, and then the lab they came from falls behind, so
they
do it, and on it goes, until all anyone’s accomplished is overworking everyone to complete a “normal” week’s worth of productive work instead of recognizing that the expectations are unrealistic. The first person to admit their lab could get by with less would just
get by with less,
freeing more for the other labs, who now don’t have to sacrifice as much.
All that would be okay if there was maybe another 100 staff to go around, but as Dr. Bosch mentioned, it’s not like they can hire just anyone, even for small positions. The two full-dark labs are the greatest drain on scarce resources, as Giovanni tries to bring a second lab of Cinnabar’s capabilities up to speed for project 3.0.
It’s a point of major concern for her, since she doesn’t know what will happen to 2.351 if they finally do get the staff needed to scrap the risky hybrid and start anew. People have been expecting it for years, but the logistics are just too great a hurdle. They still don’t know how unique 2.351 may be: the second lab that tried to recreate it kept failing, and no one’s sure if it was the presence of the other minds that were needed, or some quality of that combination of minds in particular, or even just one of them.
Those projects were shut down quickly. Erring on the safer side to avoid an explosive intelligence growth only to create batch after batch of varying degrees of “feral” mewtwo has been a nightmare to contemplate, and she doesn’t envy Dr. Sato for having to deal with it. Getting most of his geneticists poached by Dr. Martin’s hybrid project didn’t help either…
“—think it’s clear that this is more widespread than any of us want to admit,” Dr. Brown says. “Not that I’m admitting anything, but… just supposing you’re all in on it, I guess I’d think that’s just the normal state of affairs, and I’ve been missing out. I do sort of feel that way, to be honest.”
Dr. Romero raises his hand. “I haven’t been. This is all news to me, though I guess I should have seen it coming.”
Dr. Light raises her hand too. “I also don’t do it, and you’re missing the point. This isn’t sustainable. Whether all of us are doing it or just one of us, it’s messing with everyone’s productivity and worker well-being. Which is
important,
because I don’t want to bring up anyone here’s severance package.” She glares around the room, and is satisfied to see everyone look away.
Just then the door opens. Dr. Light is about to yell at whoever it is to knock first, but immediately gets to her feet when Giovanni himself walks in the room.
“Sir! We weren’t expecting you…” Normally their boss will communicate with them through video casting, or just a voice call. Traveling without the ability to teleport is annoying for all dark folk, but for someone as busy as the Gym Leader, she legitimately doesn’t know how he manages to get so much done.
What’s he even doing here? Did someone leak the meeting to him?
“I apologize for dropping in so unexpectedly,” Giovanni says, voice steady and calming. “I’ll only be a few minutes. What’s this meeting concerning?”
“Ah.” Dr. Light feels a pit of dread in her stomach. She didn’t want to get Giovanni involved for her own sake, but she also didn’t want whoever was pulling this crap to get
fired.
The word takes on a different sort of meaning when you work for secret organizations doing highly illegal experiments.
Dr. Burnam gets Giovanni up to speed, either unaware of the implications or uncaring. She never managed to get a good read on him.
“Well, that does sound like a frustrating problem. What solutions have you proposed so far?”
Dr. Light clears her throat and sums up the ideas they had (except for hiring new people, since it goes without saying), without mentioning that each have at least one person who spoke out against them. She sees a few grateful looks flashed in her direction. She’s still a bit nervous, but has calmed down from the initial jolt to the heart that came from seeing the boss so unexpectedly.
“I see.” Giovanni stands with his hands clasped behind his back, gaze taking in the room. “Well, it seems you’re on the road to a solution. I won’t distract you all any further. Dr. Collins, I just came for you. Completely unrelated.”
Dr Light blinks as she looks at Perry. The head of the Celadon lab goes pale, sweat beading his forehead, and Dr. Light looks back at Giovanni just as he pulls a greatball from inside his jacket.
The room explodes into motion as everyone suddenly moves for the walls or gets behind other furniture, while Dr. Collins babbles “I… I don’t… Sir… Please, I can explain…”
Giovanni points the ball at him. There’s a ping. Dr. Light is still seated in her chair, staring in shock as Perry finally pushes himself up out of his seat and tries to run.
The ball hits him in the back, his wail of fear abruptly cut off as he’s sucked into it.
The room is quiet as the ball falls to the ground and rolls up against the table leg.
Giovanni steps toward the ball. “Would you mind, Dr. Light?”
“No, sir,” she says, lips numb as she leans down and takes the great ball with trembling fingers. Part of her wants to ask what Dr. Collins did. What terrible betrayal, what monumental incompetence. The rest of her doesn’t want to know.
Sorry, Perry.
She hands it to her boss without looking at him.
“Thank you. Do keep me posted on how all this resolves, won’t you?” He’s not looking at her, but at the rest of the room. Dr. Bosch looks like he’s going to be sick, and Dr. Romero’s face is turned toward the wall, shoulders shaking. “I’ll see you all for the normal meeting next week.”
Giovanni leaves. Dr. Light stays seated. Slowly, one by one, people make their way back to the table. Lift overturned chairs. Sit down.
“So,” she says after everyone’s back, some with their head in their hands, others staring blankly at her or the table. “Those in favor of a slightly scaling down operations, raise your hand.”
Every hand goes up.
Politics,
Dr. Light thinks in a mix of disgust and relief. She just wanted to be a researcher. Still, if she was a praying woman, she’d be thanking Arceus every day that she works in an organization where someone in charge can step in and enforce coordination, frightening as it sometimes is.
At least she doesn’t have to apply for grant money.
If there’s one thing Tahu always knew he was meant for, it was understanding what people wanted.
“I’m sorry,” the renegade says. “I just… I don’t know what came over me! Please, don’t, don’t kill me, I’m
sorry!
”
Desperation. Fear.
He types the words out with trembling fingers as he feels the sensed emotions in himself. Then he withdraws his mind from theirs, knowing what was coming next. No mystery here; the man is malleable, but weak. What he wants doesn’t matter compared to what Giovanni does.
“They
had
to die. Parasites, swollen on the blood of the people. The legal system’s in their pocket, they had to see what happens to them! It’s less than they deserved!”
Righteous anger. Complete conviction.
Some mystery on this one. Tahu tries to predict Giovanni’s response, whether he thinks the renegade could be tempered, made useful. In the end he predicts wrong, which only drives him to understand more.
“Go fuck yourself, ‘
Leader!'”
The woman practically spits the word out. “If you’re going to kill me then get it over with!”
Rage. Self-loathing.
No mystery. If death is what she wants, death she’ll have.
Month after month, whenever Giovanni has to execute a renegade, his personal assistant Tahu is nearby, listening to the conversations through an earpiece and typing what he finds to his Leader. He’s gotten better at predicting what Giovanni would choose, whether he would give them the shot that kills them, or the one he keeps in his jacket that would only make them appear dead. But his Leader still surprises him, and his explanations of why are always enlightening, to the point that Tahu has requested to be present and listen in on even dark and psychic renegades, just so he can try and predict Giovanni’s choice. He was granted that, for which he’s grateful. He has a lot to be grateful for, overall.
“This has all just been a terrible mistake. I wish I could do something, say something to convince you of that…”
Tahu sits with his back against the wall dividing him from the renegade, eyes closed as he feels for something, but… there’s barely anything there, and what he finds is hard to parse. He’s used to numbness when people are facing their final moments, but this is different. It’s not numb but nearly empty. Some traces of tension, some wariness, some anticipation. What he thinks of more than anything are numbers that go up or down, expectations and… calculation. That’s the word.
Tahu opens his eyes and types into his phone:
No regret. Seems to be calculating what the best thing to say is? Hard to read, feels neither sincere or insincere.
Tahu feels a brief stab of frustration and worry that he can’t be of more help, but a greater part of him is excited. How would Giovanni handle this?
There’s a pause, and then the Leader says, “Unfortunately, even if I believed you, it would not matter to your sentence. You know that. I’m curious if there’s anything you would have done differently, looking back on what’s happened?”
“I don’t know. Worked a different job, I suppose, so that I wouldn’t have become a suspect.”
Tahu hears Giovanni sigh. “Mr. Ueno, you’re about to be executed for a crime that, in most people’s eyes, deserves a punishment far greater than a quick and painless shot into oblivion. This conversation is not being recorded, one of the few rights I have managed to acquire for branded renegades in our region, so that their last moments would not be spent thinking of their legacy. So they could have some freedom, some space to be genuine, in their final experiences. If you truly wish this to be your last conversation, it is of course your choice. But I’ve seen your code… or I suppose I should say, the code that was used in the attacks. It’s impressive stuff. You can use your final moments how you wish, I just thought you might appreciate someone to talk to.”
That last was a good touch: a lie of sorts, Tahu knows Giovanni doesn’t actually understand much programming, but he sensed the flicker of pride when the Leader mentioned the code. Now the renegade is feeling something more familiar, cycling between a desire to share, to be
understood,
with honed instincts of keeping the truth to themself.
“Well, it was worth a shot,” Giovanni says. “Oh, pardon me, that was thoughtless.” The faint sound of a hypodermic needle being picked up from its table—
Resolution, like standing at the edge of a cliff.
“Wait.”
—and the sound of it being put down. “Yes?”
“I would have waited a day.”
Giovanni doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “What would have changed, if you waited?”
“Everything. I thought of a far more elegant solution just a day after I left the ball, but didn’t want to return and risk being seen on camera taking it back. It was well hidden, even more than the other cities.”
“The other cities.” Giovanni lets out a breath. “So you
were
behind the incident in Fuchsia? It seemed similar. Well planned out. Methodical.”
More pride, and some annoyance?
Tahu sends a quick text. “And others,” the Leader says after a moment. “I’ve missed some, haven’t I?”
“Not just you. My first experiments were in Carmine and Ivory Town, but no one noticed. They were chalked up to just random pokemon attacks, as if a parasect and kingler just happened to wander into the middle of town without anyone noticing.”
“So four successful tests in all. What were you trying for each time? Not just a delayed autorelease, surely.”
“Set, preconditioned behaviors. Imagine the applications.”
“Oh, I have, believe me. Security. Search and rescue. Transport, if people want to travel from fixed locations by pokemon without a handler. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?”
“Sure, if my thinking was stuck that small.”
Tahu’s breath stops. He’s been Giovanni’s personal psychic for over eight years, and he’s
never
heard someone so much as insinuate that the Leader was less than a genius, even outside of his presence. Not that the people he spends time with are likely to say so, but still…
“Oh, I can think bigger,” Giovanni says, and it’s only from long association that Tahu can hear the slight, dangerous smile on the Leader’s face. “But they’re all the sorts of reasons hacking pokeball tech is illegal in the first place. Is that what you were actually aiming to do, ultimately?”
“Yes.”
“And would you, if you were given a second chance? Warned away from it?”
“Probably. It’s too great a challenge to just
ignore.
What am I supposed to do, pretend there are more interesting things to work on? There aren’t. Not to me. That’s why you’re going to let me live.”
“Am I?”
“Of course. All this isn’t for my sake, and you’re not just building a profile of renegades. You want to know if I’m controllable. If I’ll be able to work for you secretly, if you get me out of this somehow and stick me in a facility somewhere. I’m not the first to think of this, there are conspiracy theories online. I was always skeptical of them, but now I’m starting to believe it.”
Tahu blinks. This is the first time he’s heard someone get so close to the truth, even if they’re motivated to believe it by egotism. The man is more confident than he claims: Tahu senses a sliver of hope, a shard of curiosity… but mostly what he feels from Ueno is that
of
course
he would be spared death. A man of his genius is too valuable to kill, his story too important to end here.
Tahu lets Giovanni know, though he doesn’t think it will change the Leader’s obvious next response: “And would you?”
“Yes. Absolutely.” Ueno’s hope grows, as does his egotism.
Vindication
is a singing chorus in Tahu’s mind, and he quickly withdraws his connection with the renegade, disliking the feel. It was like a drug.
It wasn’t the only thing he felt, however.
Sincerity,
Tahu types out… then hesitates.
If he sends this message, he predicts Giovanni will spare the renegade. He’d think someone this skilled would be a waste to kill, that his potential positive impact would be too great not to explore, in a safely restricted way.
But Tahu doesn’t quite agree. There’s something off about the man’s thoughts, his inner experiences. It would be one thing if he felt like a vibrating voltorb, but instead he’s more like… some ghost that might fade out of the corner of your eye as soon as you look away.
He could change the message. Lie about the renegade’s sincerity.
But Giovanni trusts him. It’s part of the puzzle of the man, the way he assigns trust to others when he has so many secrets to keep. Tahu has no doubt that if he betrays his Leader he would be snuffed out, but he’s okay with that. Because just as he’s trusted, he trusts his Leader in return.
It would be one thing to act without his knowledge for his benefit. But to deliberately deceive him… that would be a step too far.
Perhaps there’s another way.
Sincere
, he sends, the wait already having gone on for a few seconds longer than customary.
But there’s something about him that seems inherently hard to pin down. I would not trust him.
He rereads the message twice, then sends it too.
It’s the first time he’s ever added commentary to his readings.
If Giovanni is surprised, it’s not evident in his voice. “I suppose we’ll see.” There’s the scrape of the needle…
“Wait. Wasn’t that the poison one?”
“There’s no non-poison one. It’s just a matter of dosage. I advise you keep still.”
Well, I tried.
Tahu lets out a breath, then stands and stretches his legs and shoulders before he makes his way out of the room and around to the front of the building, where he takes a pull on his e-cig, holding it in his lungs for a while to relax his nerves.
No matter how many times, the moment of injection always brings him back to his own, even when it’s non-lethal. He hadn’t known that at the time. He thought he was going to die.
He was just a thug, back then. He gravitated toward the strongest kids in his neighborhood, did his best to understand what they needed, then give it to them. He was good at it. Even without people saying anything, he’d get feelings about what those around him needed or wanted.
So when he felt his whole gang’s anger at someone in an opposing one, how everyone seemed to feel it would be best if they just weren’t around anymore, the easiest thing to do was use a pokemon to kill them. Nothing fearsome, just a crappy bug that he caught and barely trained. Hopefully something that would be seen as an accident.
And it was. The first time. He wasn’t so lucky the third.
He may not have been spared if the Leader sent to execute him hadn’t noticed his untrained psychic powers. Apparently they made him so valuable that he was already “sold” by the time he woke up a few days after his supposed execution, body recovering from the comatose state slowly but surely. He barely had time to get used to the idea that he was actually still alive before he was told what would happen next in no uncertain terms.
He would be sent to another region. Minor plastic surgery, newly forged documents, and a falsified civil record would allow him to leave his past behind him. He would dedicate himself to the service of the Leader who had purchased him. His life would be full of work, but not cruel. He would be allowed a salary, some personal time. He could eventually retire, even.
But he could never speak of what had happened to him. And he couldn’t quit. Not unless he wanted to be hunted down a second time, and killed with even less of a trial.
Tahu agreed. It seemed, on balance, an excessively fair trade, even to his young and stupid self.
He had few opinions about his new lease on life, at first. He was just happy to be alive. When he was told that it was Leader Giovanni, of all people, who had purchased him, it felt like a dream. Even a gutter punk from another region like him knew about the youngest Champion in Kanto history. Apparently the Viridian Gym Leader was paying a premium for psychic and dark renegades, even without training.
Traveling to Kanto felt like something out of a kid’s movie. A month before, he had been a petty criminal. No prospects, barely any money to his name. Now he was on his way to a foreign region, where food and lodging would be provided indefinitely, as well as training for his latent psychic powers, all so he could help one of the most powerful trainers in the world.
And all I had to do to earn it was try to kill someone, and get branded a renegade,
he remembers thinking as he watched the island he would soon call home approach in the distance.
Life is strange, sometimes.
Leader Giovanni eventually calls for him, and Tahu presents himself to his boss’s office. Or at least the one in the Gym. It’s far more ostentatious than the ones in his less… public places. Trappings of the position are important: even Tahu, who’s been in here countless times now and is always acutely aware of Giovanni’s position in comparison to him on even a personal level, feels their difference in status more keenly when he walks in.
“Sit down,” the Leader says, typing something on his computer. “I’d like you to report more fully on the renegade we just interviewed.”
Tahu feels himself start to sweat, suddenly worried that he’s here to be punished for his comment. He instinctively reaches his mind out to sense what his Leader is thinking, and of course senses nothing at all. It’s surprising how that never stops getting ever-so-mildly frustrating. It’s the reason most psychics don’t spend a lot of time around dark minds, if they can help it.
“I feel as though I have a weak grasp on his psychology,” Tahu says after a minute, knowing his Leader would never begrudge him time to think. “I don’t know how to evaluate what he believes is true about himself and what he will justify tomorrow. I think it’s… risky, letting him live. More than most, I mean. Even given what he can accomplish, I wouldn’t have made the same decision.”
Giovanni nods, and continues to type into his computer. Tahu waits, knowing he isn’t being slighted and needing the time to think through what he just said over and over before he’s satisfied he didn’t leave anything out, or assert something he can’t stand behind.
Eventually Giovanni stops typing, clicks something, then gives Tahu his full attention. “Is this the first time you had an opinion on whether a fellow renegade was too dangerous to risk?”
Fellow renegade.
It’s been so long since he’s thought of himself in those terms. “No.”
“Why haven’t you shared them before?”
“I didn’t feel it was my place,” he says automatically. “I’m sorry if—”
“No,” Giovanni says, and Tahu falls silent. “Skip that part.”
After a moment the psychic nods. “Sir. I worried you would make a mistake. I hoped to help you avoid it, if possible.” His throat feels dry, but he doesn’t swallow, face schooled as he meets his Leader’s gaze.
“Good.” He looks at his screen, mouse moving to bring something up. “Do you know how many lives you’ve saved, since coming to work with me?”
Tahu blinks at the sudden shift. “I don’t.” He’s fought alongside the other Gym members, of course. He can remember a few of the people he’s saved, like a group of trapped trainers during the Viridian Forest fire a few months ago. When he was still new to all this, he kept track; it felt like something that might eventually balance out the ones he took, someday. Eventually he stopped counting. “Do you?” It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that Giovanni was somehow tracking something like that.
“No. Even counting just the renegades you’ve helped, there’s no way to tell which were the direct result of your intervention. But here’s what the record shows.” He turns the screen, and Tahu sees a graph that stretches back decades. “Notice anything?”
It’s faint at first, but there. A steady upward trend, starting eight years ago. By the beginning of this year, the percentage of renegades that Giovanni has managed to spare from execution has more than doubled from the point it was before Tahu joined.
“I long ago honed the art of speaking with and discerning which renegades were safe to spare and which weren’t to what I thought was as good as I could do. It was only with your help that I was able to break those limits.”
A swell of pride in Tahu’s chest makes him feel oddly embarrassed. Praise by the Leader isn’t unheard of, but this is more than that. It’s… something very close to validation, and Tahu is alarmed to feel something like tears prickling at the back of his eyes. “I’m… gratified that I can be of such help, Leader. But wouldn’t any psychic serve as well to pass along simple impressions?”
“Would they? I’m told that there’s a depth and nuance that comes with skill for these things, as well as the ability to keep your perspective while merging it with someone else’s emotions.”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to dodge the compliment, I only meant that any psychic of sufficient skill could do what I do.”
“To a certain degree, yes. Sabrina, if she had no other duties, or Hitoshi, perhaps. But you weren’t selected for your abilities alone. You were selected because of your background, and because of your loyalty. Loyalty I fostered in you, so I could extend trust. Do you understand?”
“I… believe so. You’re saying you trust me to share my thoughts with you.”
“Yes.” Giovanni’s lips quirk in a smile. “I often find that confidence is not just a matter of our own assessment of our competence, but also our assessment of how those around us recognize or value our competence. For whatever reason, it seems I’ve signaled enough positive signs of trusting your judgement to warrant you to feel confident enough to share some of it. This is me reinforcing that confidence more explicitly.”
Tahu bows his torso, taking on the cultural practice of the region to show the depth of his feeling. “I’m honored, Leader. More than I can say.”
“I did end up sparing Mr. Ueno.”
Tahu blinks, still bowing. He sits up. “Ah.”
“I don’t want that to discourage you,” Giovanni says. “There are factors beyond those you’re aware of. Some who request renegades are less, ah, lenient than others, with those they employ. Taking your advisement into consideration, I believe Mr. Ueno will do well with someone who will keep a closer eye on him than most, while still ensuring his particular skills and genius can benefit others.”
“I understand.” It’s hard not to think of what sorts of living conditions might be required to keep a renegade of Ueno’s genius under such close control. Not that it matters: in the end it’s surely better than death, and perhaps the programmer would relish an environment that lets him dedicate himself entirely to his work.
“Now that you’ve extended not just your trust of me, but of mine toward you, I want your perspective on something that I’ve shown few others. Perhaps you can advise me on it, the same way you do with the renegades.”
Tahu feels pride swell up in him again, and smiles. “Of course. I’m at your service, Leader. Always.”
Giovanni sends a message, then stands. “Good. Because we’re going now.”
When Giovanni tells him where, Tahu feels his heart leap, and hurries to follow. Today began as fairly normal. He wouldn’t have guessed that his decision would change so much.
He knows what’s been going on at Cinnabar Island, of course, but only second hand. He’s never been in the same room as the creature, and no video footage exists. It’s one of the greatest mysteries around, and it’s hard to contain his excitement at finally having a closer look at it, if still indirectly. Sabrina talks about it with him, now and then, but not in much detail. He gets the feeling she doesn’t like him, though it’s hard to know for sure with how good she is at mental defense.
Eventually Tahu stands with Giovanni before a door, waiting for the system to boot up.
“It takes a few minutes for the room to clear out, normally,” Giovanni says. “I often spend the time reviewing my goals for the meetings, playing through what it might say, how I will respond to certain questions.”
“And are you not now?”
“No. For this, I’ve developed a script.”
“Ah.” He’s not sure he understands, but he has a more pressing question. “Wouldn’t it help if I could merge thoughts with it first, at least once? Get a sense of how it thinks and feels?”
“I’m sure it would, but for matters such as that, I must defer to Sabrina. I know your shield is sufficient, or you would not be here, but if she gives you clearance then we can discuss it for one of the upcoming visits.”
His jaw sets. “As you say, Leader.”
“Until then, I’m curious about your impression without such. What I want you to focus on are the same sorts of things you would with a renegade interview. Understood?”
“Yes.”
When they get the notification that things are ready, Giovanni taps the screen beside the door, then walks in. Tahu gets only a glimpse of what’s inside, then it closes, and he’s left to watch on the monitor.
The experimental life form hangs suspended in his pod, various media systems around it to play him music or display videos or digital books. The computer terminals and chairs are all empty, the guard and their pokemon absent. He spots the new addition of the mobile life support suit, which hangs nearby in its own chamber where it can be serviced and deployed as needed. It’s apparently used more and more often these days, as Mewtwo leaves his chamber to interact with the rest of the facility, and spend time outside. Giovanni stopped requiring his own presence for those; according to Sabrina, the Leader’s creation seems content to simply stand and stare, or walk around the manor grounds.
Tahu knows that at first Giovanni only pretended to be absent, watching from a distance through binoculars until Mewtwo returned downstairs. Lacking the ability to teleport is one of the Leader’s greatest frustrations, and so after a dozen such incidents, when it seemed truly content to simply bask in the sunlight, Giovanni allowed the trips more often, and put his time to better use elsewhere.
As he said, trust is hard to develop.
“Greetings, Giovanni. How are you today?”
Mewtwo’s synthetic voice fills the chamber, and Tahu watches as the Leader reaches the chair in front of the tube and sits, one leg crossed over his knee as he gazes up at his creation. “Greetings, Mewtwo. Well enough, and you?”
Scripted,
he said. Tahu tries to determine what the point of this script is. What he’s meant to witness and advise on, with everything so set in stone.
“Yes. Shall we play a game?”
“Not today.”
No immediate response. Is that part off-script? Tahu watches both of them, but his gaze moves more often to the creature’s face, fascinated. He knows it’s half human, but he sees nothing familiar in its pinched, bone-white features. No lips, no eyebrows, a snout instead of a nose… he can’t make out the eyes from this distance, but he imagines them as similarly alien.
“Is something wrong?” Mewtwo finally asks.
“Yes. Something is wrong, and has been for a long time, now.”
“What is it? Perhaps I can help.”
Giovanni gathers himself with a breath, then expels it and stares down at his clasped hands. “You cannot help with this. It was my error, you see. My mistake. I didn’t trust you.”
The room is quiet. There’s the background noises of the creature’s life pod, and the monitoring equipment. It all sounds so real, even through the speakers. The one for Mewtwo’s heart rate stays constant, steady, despite the surprise it would surely be feeling. Little things like that keep distracting Tahu, and he makes an effort to refocus, in case he misses what he’s supposed to see.
“It’s quite simple. I didn’t trust you, Mewtwo, when we created you. I hoped for intelligence, and intelligence you have, in abundance. I hoped for power, and that too you have, far outstripping our expectations in some ways, even if others are not yet met. But I did not dare hope for obedience, for trust. Hope for such things would be foolish. Dangerous. I needed to be cautious. Safe. And as a result, I fear I have ruined things permanently.”
Mewtwo is silent again. Tahu can’t imagine what responses it might have prepared for something like this, except to ask the obvious…
“Ruined things how? What have you done?”
“I manufactured your illness.” Tahu’s eyes widen. “It was meant as a control mechanism, when you were created. Many of your non-dark researchers truly do not understand it, to help sell the illusion. The others enhance it, keep it evolving, to keep them befuddled. When they reach a breakthrough or suspect the truth, we have them inflict Amnesia on themselves if psychic, or transfer them to another facility if not.”
Silence, for almost a minute. Tahu uses the time to guess what Giovanni is thinking, what the consequences he’s expecting from this will be, until a single word is spoken:
“Why?”
“We had no way of knowing how smart you would be. How… human. Or how powerful. If you were to somehow escape, despite all our other precautions, we needed something immensely deadly and pernicious, beyond even the ability of a powerful psychic’s ability to regenerate.” Giovanni pauses, seeming to let out a heavy breath. Surely part of the script as well. “We succeeded.”
Silence in the room, but for the occasional fluid transfer, the steady
beep. Beep. Beep.
Tahu watches Giovanni’s fingers smooth the material of his pant leg. It’s the first time he’s seen the Leader show any sign of nervousness. Pent up energy, yes. Tension, of course. But this can only be described as nervousness. Tahu can see the moment when he calms himself, and raises his gaze to meet his creation’s again. To focus on the importance of the moment.
“I cannot be cured?” the synthetic voice asks at last, so deep and powerful. A fitting voice, somehow.
“On the contrary, you can. The problem is that I do not trust that you trust us. I have come to realize my error in stages, over the years. I did not like those realizations, but I endeavored to consider them, focused on discerning how justified they were. I listened to counsel from those who know you best. I now believe my errors were severe.
“Had I simply trusted you more, given you more freedom sooner, perhaps you would be a perfect partner, now. A few years in, there was still much testing to do. Much to learn. And always, more excuses to be made, more reasons for caution. Your threats were, of course, the greatest justification to stay the course, but I do not blame you for them. I blame myself, for making them necessary. Perhaps if I had been less cautious, trusted the human in you more than the pokemon, there would exist a strong bond, if not like that of a parent and child, at least not one of master and slave. I do not…” Giovanni stops, and it’s hard to tell if it’s part of his script or not. “I am imperfect in many ways. I have learned much over the past decade. I hope you understand that. I hope I have not ruined things irrevocably. That by coming clean, I can salvage some seed of trust. That is all I need, in truth. To really, truly feel that, even if you cannot forgive me, it would be safe to grant you your freedom, and perhaps start anew.”
Tahu is holding his breath despite himself. He forces himself to breathe out, then back in. He’d gotten caught up in the moment, when he should be trying to think through what he’s seeing, the implications, and what Giovanni’s imagined responses to this script, this
confession,
are.
He knows enough to already presume that the Leader would have used prediction algorithms that studied every word Mewtwo has ever spoken, running millions of simulations (imperfect, all imperfect, for of course they can’t put the real Mewtwo in a ball and risk damage to his mind), coming up with all sorts of answers, until he could find the right words to say to get the right response:
“Of course we can. I understand your choices, whatever pain they have caused me. Once I am cured and free, we can begin building true trust between us.”
Giovanni closes his eyes, breath coming out in a near silent rush. He’s focused on something, though what it is Tahu can’t begin to guess
(so frustrating!)
, and he’s glad he was told to engage his shield so he isn’t tempted to reach out, only to feel that void again.
No, he has to try. Tahu puts himself in Giovanni’s mind as best he can. Not just what he might feel, hearing those words, but how he
wants
to feel.
Is it even remotely like what he feels when a renegade says they would toe the line, if spared?
Giovanni’s eyes open. He watches his creation a moment longer, as if contemplating feelings that just… won’t… change.
And then he presses the button beside the pod that would terminate Mewtwo’s life.
Instead of poisons flooding the pod, Mewtwo simply disappears from inside it. The rest of the room flickers on the monitor, fading back into the bare whiteness of the holochamber. Giovanni sits still as the simulation ends yet again, finger finally leaving the empty air where the button was.
Tahu watches as Giovanni sits for another minute in that white, empty room, then stands and leaves the chamber.
The Viridian Gym leader takes a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wipes sweat from his forehead as he rejoins Tahu. The psychic barely notices, still thinking of what he saw.
“Do you understand?” Giovanni eventually asks.
“I think so,” Tahu says, each word measured, careful. “It is not enough to hear the right words. Difficult choices don’t come when you hear the wrong ones. What matters here is not what the creature says, but how you feel about what it says.”
“Yes. I’ve rarely found it so difficult to understand my own feelings on a matter, but in this case it seems impossible for me to separate my caution from my perception of reality. I’ve lost perspective.”
Tahu feels uncomfortable, if touched, for being so confided in. “Does that mean that it’s best to simply start anew?”
Before Giovanni can answer, his earpiece rings. “Yes?” Tahu sees the Leader’s eyes widen, then narrow, before he begins to stride down the hall. “I’m on my way. Have everyone assembled in ten minutes. Let the League know I’ll be going.”
Tahu takes his phone out to check messages. “Trouble?”
“Just the world’s well timed seasonal reminder of what my indecision costs.”
Lieutenant David Matis checked his coordinates, then leaned to the side to look around his cockpit console. Most of the flight was through a dark and cloudless night, but the sun was just starting to rise, and he could vaguely make out the shape of the landscape they’re flying over, and the vague shape of the other helicopter below and ahead of him. “Yep, right behind you Smat.”
“
About time. Thought we were going to have to start this party without you.”
“
Had to loop around a patrol that Dropper spotted for us. All quiet so far for you?”
“
Not a peep. Saw our own patrol early on, but they didn’t spot us.”
“
Mm. Or they sent word ahead and are laying a trap.”
The radio was quiet for a moment, and then Helo spoke up. “Well shit, Surge, now you’re going to have him as paranoid as you.”
David smiled. “Old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots. Just keep your calm close.”
“
I’m calm, man, I’m calm. I’m so calm I’m sleepy. I’m so calm I-“
“
Shut up, Smat,” Major Key said from the seat beside David. “We’re practically breathing your fumes. Just keep them busy for a few seconds when you get there.”
“
Yeah, will do. What’s the key, Major?”
The major sighs, but says, “The key is to stay high and trust your maneuverability and speed.”
“
Thanks.”
Major Key, actual name Keaty, put his com down and looks at David with a long suffering expression. “Do I actually say it that often?”
David smiled as he kept his attention on the instruments and terrain. “No comment, sir.”
“
What if I order you to comment?”
“
Then I’d comment that callsigns are often given out unfairly, sir.”
“
Of course you’d say that, Lieutenant Simple Unrefined Genius.”
The helicopters continue to travel over the untamed wilds around Unova, making their way into the enemy’s territory through as circuitous a route as possible. The border between the warring regions is a no-fly zone, as in anything flying across it is liable to get shot down with at least ten kinds of ordnance. These new helicopters have been designed and built specifically for war. Resistant to heat, cold, blunt trauma, able to fly through storm-force winds, and silent as modern engineering can make them. Best of all, they’re powered by just a pair of voltorb that can be easily swapped out for fresh ones, and designed to absorb any electricity that hits them for more power. They’re likely the most expensive pieces of military hardware on the planet.
Which doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to make it through, of course. If something sufficiently heavy hits their blades they’re in trouble, and of course a well aimed hyper beam or similarly powerful attack would blow them out of the sky. Still, they’re the coolest thing Surge has flown so far, and by far the smoothest, more responsive than even his braviary. It was an honor to be picked as one of the pilots for this mission.
Signing up for the military was the easiest choice David has made in his sixteen years of life. He still remembers exactly where he was when it happened: the news coverage was absolute, showing the smoking buildings, the fleeing people. He assumed it was just another Tier 3 event, maybe one that was particularly bad, to be getting so much attention. Then he saw what the cameras were showing.
Trainers, giving orders to the pokemon that were rampaging through the town. Demolishing buildings, killing the pokemon that came to stop them. They didn’t order them to attack humans directly, but humans died anyway, from area of effect attacks or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The recruitment videos practically made themselves. With a “renegade region” nearby, no Unova town or city was safe as long as they were willing to stoop so low.
The politics of the situation all went over his head. He was too busy working his way through the gyms to pay attention to arguments about Unova’s expansion efforts into the wild and its effects on the ecology bordering the Inuvik region. It didn’t ultimately matter. Whatever their grievances, some lines just weren’t crossed. Not without expecting retaliation.
And retaliation was swift. Within a day Unovans with registered teleportation locations in both regions made quick strikes that did little overall damage, but sent the Inuvik population into high alert and practically froze their economy and civic business. Their League denounced the strikes as acts of “terrorism.” Unova’s champion and Elite Four responded by teleporting over all at once, attacking five different locations.
One quick acting defender managed to kill Valera, the Unova League’s Water Type master. Hostilities paused after that, the loss of such a skilled trainer a heavy blow for any region’s stability and safety. But tentative peace talks broke down when Inuvik refused to release Elite Valera’s pokemon back to the League, and Unova insisted it wouldn’t stop efforts to expand into the wild. Soon the war was back on.
Now retaliation was coming on metal, spinning wings. One of the major actors justifying the war was the Inuvik League’s most charismatic figure, Elite Sioux. All the known teleportation points were being closely monitored, but Unova got intel putting the Elite at a small town that functions as a defensive coordination point along their borders, near a major Ranger outpost.
Each copter had six soldiers in addition to their pilots, two of which had a gothitelle on their belts, the psychic pokemon specially selected for their unusually strong ability to block teleportation.
Two of the other six in each were Hunters, with confiscated renegade pokemon on their belts.
There was a lot of disquiet in David’s company when the Hunters were introduced to it. All of them were quiet and reserved, seeming unused to the company of others. Most were on the older side, and no one recognized them from basic, though the Major assured them that they enlisted and went through their own training.
It wasn’t really the Hunters that made the others uncomfortable, though. It was what they implied for the mission. Not a destruction of supply factories or power plants, nor a disruption of their economy or coordination ability. The only reason to bring Hunters was if this was an assassination. Their “actual” mission didn’t say that, of course, it said to secure the Elite’s pokemon for Unova, which is why they weren’t just going in to bring the building down on the Elite’s head, but no one doubted what securing his pokemon would entail, with the Hunters in their unit.
David wasn’t particularly bothered by that. Pokemon kill trainers when going all out all the time, and the idea of beating all your opponent’s pokemon so that they surrender is unrealistic in the heat of a large scale battle. What worried him was the potential for escalation. How would Inuvik respond if Hunters are being conscripted as soldiers?
David pushed down his speculation and doubts and focused on the mission. He didn’t have to like working with Hunters, but they were brothers in arms, fighting for a common cause: protecting Unova from the Inuviks. His job was just to get them in close enough to drop in, do the deed, and teleport out.
“
Lights up ahead,” Smat says. “We’re almost there folks. Blockers out.”
The major unstrapped himself and went back to the troops to relay the message and give them some final instructions. At the sound of the two pokeballs opening, Surge glanced behind him and saw the two creepy humanoid pokemon adjusting to their environment.
“
Confirmed, blockers are out,” he said into the radio.
“
Confirmed,” Helo echoed.
“
Staying dark unt-CONTACT!”
David’s adrenaline surged as he saw the line of energy lance out into the night. He can’t tell if the lead copter was hit, it looked like an Ice Beam—
Electricity arced up a moment later, and then another beam shot out. “Smat, you alright?”
“
Going in low! Sunsabitches have a whole—”
David was close enough to see the next attack coming, now, and shouted, “Brace for evasion!” over his shoulder as he prepared himself. Most attacks won’t reach them this high, but the defenders are aware of that: an assortment of flying pokemon are rising up in the distance. Most are turned toward Smat’s copter, but not all. “Incoming interceptors! Going down.”
“
Belay that,” Major Key said as he returned to the cockpit and strapped himself in. “Keep us high until we’re at the drop off zone.”
David’s lip thinned, but he nodded and fought his urge to start evasive maneuvers. The target was still some distance away, but they were passing near the Ranger Outpost now. Neither side would want to risk damaging it, as that might lead to backlash from CoRRNet, which has remained stubbornly neutral so far, even after a few rangers in Unova stepped down in protest and joined the army.
Sure enough, the defenders spotted them and started forming an aerial net. David flew in similar formations a hundred times, designed to “wall” enemies that might try to fly past by ensuring multiple pokemon would be in range to attack if they try. As the distance between his copter and the enemies shrank, he quickly scanned their forms and judged their lethality. They should be okay from most of them, but if those Steel or Dragon types get in striking distance… “Don’t think we’ll make it through this net, Major. I gotta bring us down.”
“
Shit, Surge, they’re waiting for us down there!” But he braced himself against the seat as David tipped the copter into a dive, eyes scanning for incoming projectiles.
Sure enough, arcs of lightning and beams of various energy lanced up at them. David swerved to throw their aim off, blinded briefly as they were struck by two bolts of electricity. He watched the copter’s energy levels spike, and grinned as he poured some of that juice into higher throttle. The longer they went without realizing how useless that was, the better.
Then another flash of light blinded him, and when it faded half the cockpit was iced over, making it hard to see and causing the copter to drag slightly as he maneuvered.
Thankfully he could still make out the pokemon forming the aerial net as they dove to stay in front of him. He could even vaguely see the shapes of their riders. “Hang on,” he yelled, and yanked the collective lever up, sending the copter into a steep climb. Far steeper than most pokemon could rise, causing only the top layer of the web to get close enough to attack as he buzzed past. The whole copter rocked as a powerful gust hit it, and rapid
clunks
sounded as something sharp and numerous peppered the vehicle’s side and rear.
Then they were past the net, racing toward the building Smat and Helo were heading toward. “Everyone okay back there?” he shouted, hoping nothing pierced the copter’s armor to strike the trainers.
They gave the affirmative, and he asked the same of the other pilots.
“
Helo and I are dropping payload now,” Smat said and David saw them in the distance, a pair of specks hovering over a wide compound. As he got closer he spotted the ropes, then the trainers at the ends of them as they bungee’d down.
“
Bring us down on the far side, Surge,” the Major said. “We’ll go in through the wall while they’re distracted by the roof.” David reached the clearing around the building and brought his copter down while Major Key checked the rear camera. “LZ’s hot, prepare for deployment!” The Major unbuckled himself and put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Take off as soon as we’re out, Lieutenant.”
“
Sir!” A battle erupted above him as the trainers made it to the roof and brought their pokemon out just ahead of their pursuers’ arrival. David hit the button to open the rear hatch, then touched his vehicle down and turned to watch everyone run down the ramp, pokeballs opening ahead of them as the two gothitelle followed their trainers.
As soon as the last boot hit dirt he lifted off, engines loud through the closing hatch as he made some vertical space, then jerked to the side to avoid some pokemon streaking right toward him. The rest went after his squadmates, but he had no time to worry about them, too busy trying to avoid the burst of fire that suddenly engulfed his copter.
The air inside the cockpit became searing, ice melting off the glass as sweat broke out all over his body. The hatch was still open, and he spared a quick glance back to make sure nothing critical was on fire. Just the seatbelts and cargo netting, as it turned out.
“
This is fine,” David muttered as he shoved the lever down to momentarily stall and avoid a metallic pokemon that flashed by above him, narrowly dodging its sharp wings before he shot away from the compound, a flash of electricity hitting him and making the console short out briefly. “This is all fine. Everything’s fine.” He switched on his com. “Dropper, we’re done here. What’s your position?”
“
Passing over the Outpost now. You guys drew them all off, I’ll be good. How much longer can you give me?”
“
I’ve got three on me like remoraid on a mantine!” Smat yells. “You make it out Helo?”
“
Yep, three more on me,” the other pilot drawled.
David glanced at the rear camera screens. “Got four on the hook that I can see.” One was almost directly above him, and he stomped on right pedal and twisted the throttle, accelerating toward the rising sun and hoping it would blind them as he began his run for the border… but not at max speed. Their second objective wasn’t to escape, but to draw attention and keep it on them so the assault team wouldn’t be overwhelmed. David could pop the hatch, bring his elgyem out and teleport if he wanted to abandon the aircraft, but then the Major and the others would have to deal with the trainers pursuing him.
“
They’re not using anything flashy in case they hit the buildings below,” Smat grunts, voice strained as he likely pulls off some maneuver. “Gonna stay here.”
“
They’ll box you in man, you need to race them.” David turned the copter hard to the left as a flash of light alerted him to an electric attack. It connected anyway, but as long as it looked like he was trying to dodge… they fired another one at him, and David smiled as he blinked the spots away. “Alright guys, let’s see who tires first…” He lowers the throttle, letting the pursuers get within attack range, then ramps it up again, jetting ahead.
The trainer riding the hydreigon was saving its own burst of speed, however, and kept growing in his rear view. “Shit, this thing’s fast.”
“
Dropping payload now,” Dropper reports. “Still got no one on me, anything I can do to lighten your load?”
“
No, we’re too far now. Just get out of there.”
“
Negative Lieutenant, not until our boys are safe.”
David scowled as he started climbing again, but knew she was making the same decision he was. “I might be leaving some behind, make tracks south-southeast and maybe you’ll catch them heading back.”
“
Roger.”
“
Surge, your tail is getting closer!”
David looked back to see Smat was right, then looks around quickly. “Where you coming from Smat?”
“
Your two o’clock, they’re trying to cut me off.”
“
I told y-“
“
Yeah I heard you the first time!” David saw him now, coming in at an angle and moving at full throttle. He must have been burning through his battery at that speed, but maybe he got hit with more bolts than David did. “Gonna pass in front of you and let them all eat our exhaust together.”
Alarm rang through David, but he failed to put his misgivings into words before Smat crossed into his line of sight, and a moment later he had to up his throttle to stay ahead of the pokemon cutting across to pursue him. His battery started to drain notably faster, bringing him down to 50% as the copter spent four times the output the voltorbs were supplying to stay ahead of the pursuers.
“
We can’t keep this speed up, Smat.”
“
Just a bit longer, we need them to peel off a bit.”
He was right, and slowly but surely David watched the pursuers fade as they tried and failed to keep up, a few wheeling away entirely as their pokemon tired. By the time his battery dipped below 30%, even the trainer on the hydreigon was starting to shrink.
And then they passed the edge of the the town, nothing below but dense forest, and their pursuer sent a ball of orange, glowing death above his copter. “Draco Meteor!” David shouted, and cut his throttle. The ball exploded into dozens of small orbs that descended in streaks of bright light, all of which sailed through the space he was just about to fly through…
…and where Smat’s copter still flew, trying to evade the streaks as they fell all around him until one hit his tail, bursting the metal apart in a flash of light. David watched in horror as the copter started to spin out of control from the torque of its rotor.
“
Jack, port out!” he yelled, but couldn’t spare attention as his pursuer used the slowdown to reach him. David went into a steep climb to avoid the wash of plasma that spread out under his copter. The hydreigon would down him soon, but if he bailed now without knowing if Smat made it out…
David cursed, then engaged autopilot and opened the rear hatch as he unstrapped from his seat. Thankfully the fires had blown out by the sudden rush of wind, and he could move into the holding area as he clasped his pokebelt on and unclips a ball.
“
Go, Braviary!”
His pokemon materialized on the ramp, just barely able to fit. He brought its whistle up to his lips and blew the command to attack any nearby pokemon indiscriminately, then watched as his friend launched herself out of the copter at the enemy hydreigon just as it prepares for another attack. Two of its three heads swerved to follow his pokemon, and the Dragonbreath that blasted out from the remaining side head only managed to melt the tip of the ramp rather than the whole underside of the copter.
David was already summoning his eelektross without waiting to see if his braviary was okay. His pokemon floats and curls around itself mid-air until it orients toward the dragon outside. “Thunderwave,” he yelled over the roar of the wind and propellers, not even sure if Zeus would hear him. Then the air crackled and popped with electric discharge as a bolt lanced out between his pokemon and other trainer’s.
The dragon barely reacted to the electric surge, but its movements slowed, and the trainer on its back visibly struggled to shake off the paralysis. She was directing her pokemon with her hands, and when her arm spasmed, the hydreigon took the taps as some command and started trying to bite at his braviary, who raked at it with one talon, the other leg missing.
David stood paralyzed for a moment as he watched his opponent fall farther and farther behind. Her head looked up at him, but he was too far to make out her expression. He had to fight down the urge to blow on his whistle and call his pokemon back, to leave her alone.
I can’t let her go, I have to turn around, Jack may be dying down there… “
Thunderbolt,” David yelled, and this time he heard the other trainer scream as the electricity hit her and her pokemon.
She fell limp against its back as it continued fighting his braviary. David considered hitting it again, making sure it wasn’t a trick or just a temporary stun… then withdrew his eelektross and pulled himself back to the driver’s seat, feeling numb, feeling a pit of something sick in his stomach as he strapped himself in and started his descent and turn, looping back around toward where Smat’s helicopter went down. He checked constantly to see if he was being pursued, but didn’t spot anyone, let alone the hydreigon trainer. He knew he should probably have gone back toward the objective, seen if he could distract any of his previous pursuers…
“
Smat, can you hear me?” He asked once he thought he was in range, torn between leaving and continuing his search. “Jack, answer me if you’re there.”
“
Surge!” Dropper’s voice. “What happened to Smat?”
“
He went down. Gonna check if he’s okay. What’s up with you?”
“
The Major said mission’s a success. They’re on their way out. You need help?”
He saw an irregularity in the forest below, and his heart leapt as moments later he spotted the copter wreckage wedged between some splintered trees. “No, I found him. Get out before you’re shot down too.” He searched for a clearing big enough to set down in.
“
Fuck that, I’m heading toward you.”
“
You might bring them, Dropper. Get out, now.”
“
Shit. Alright. Be careful, Dave.”
David found a clearing just a few minutes’ jog away, and set down. He quickly powered down so the voltorbs could rest, then grabbed the mediball and ran down the half-melted ramp and through the woods toward the downed copter, spraying repel on himself as he went and hoping the crash and his rotors would have scared any nearby pokemon away.
His heart was pounding with more than just exertion by the time he reached the wreckage. The blades had shorn off as they cut into the trees and cracked the smaller ones in two as it tipped onto its side. His feet sped up to bring him around to the cockpit, fear making it hard to breathe.
“
Shit,” he groaned as he saw Smat’s body hanging in his seat by his safety harness, blood pooling beneath him. “Smat! You alive?” David approached the glass, then hesitated and went to check if the ramp was down.
It was. He crawled in and clambered over the seats, one hand extending to release the mediball’s container box. “Smat, wake up,” he said as he stood “under” his squadmate and checked his pulse. A weight fell off his chest as he felt a weak pulse, and he grabbed a potion and started spraying the visible wounds as he assessed them. Panic threatened to distract him from figuring out what to do next, and he looked Smat over more carefully and tried to diagnose him for any critical wounds.
Broken ribs by the sound of his breathing, broken arm and shoulder, or maybe just dislocated…
David looked around and saw the pokeball in the corner. Probably his elgyem’s. It wouldn’t respond to David’s commands…
“
Nngh…” David’s head snapped around as Smat stirred, then his eyes opened and he gazed blearily around. “Wha…”
“
Jack!” David sagged against the side of the passenger seat. “Swords of Justice, am I glad you woke up. Carrying you would
not
be pleasant for either of us.
”
“
Surge?” Bloodshot eyes travel from David’s face to the smashed glass and sideways tilt of the cockpit around him. “The fuck did you do to my helicopter… This is why you had to fly with Major…”
David grinned as he went to retrieve the pokeball, feeling slightly dizzy with relief. “Yeah, yeah. Small man, always talking. Say something useful for once and get your elgyem out so you can get back in one piece.”
Smat grabbed his arm as he lifted it to aim the pokeball at the cabin, fingers tightening around as he met his gaze. “You’re… okay? Copter?”
“
Landed nearby. I’m fine.” For some reason he thought of the trainer on the hydreigon, of his braviary… “For now at least. Get out of here before you get me caught, huh?”
Smat nodded, and Surge held the ball out while he raised his voice and hoarsely summoned the elgyem in it. The small blue pokemon appeared, its large head and strange eyes tilted this way and that as it took in its surroundings. “Here,” Smat muttered, and the pokemon floated over and settled on his outstretched hand.
“Get back quick, Dave.”
“
Yeah.” David straightened and unbuckled Smat’s harness. “See you soon.”
“
See ya. And thanks.” Smat smiled up at him, the expression half a grimace, then said “Teleport,” and vanished.
David wasted no time packing as many things of value as he could find, then headed back to his copter. He’s halfway there when he hears the twin explosions from behind him. Giving the voltorb the self-destruct command had felt wasteful, but he knew it was necessary to minimize how much of the copter tech fell into Inuvik’s hands.
He took off and flew over the forest back toward Unova, allowing himself to relax after a few minutes passed and no pursuit started up. He flew on until afternoon, where a hero’s welcome was waiting for him. Smat was on the mend, and told everyone that Surge had saved him. Spirits were overall mixed; the mission had been a success, though a costly one. A third of the strike force hadn’t made it out, and Helo’s copter also went down, the pilot presumed dead. Major Key commended David publicly for helping keep the casualty count lower than it could have been… and then told him in private that many on the strike team had died on the way out, from flying trainers who were returning from their chases.
He didn’t ask if David did all he could to keep them occupied once Smat went down. David didn’t ask if a hydreigon was among the pokemon that returned to kill his squad mates.
David went to bed feeling a mix of guilt and stubborn pride, and woke twice in the middle of the night from dreams of the hydreigon trainer plummeting down with her pokemon. The second time he rushed to the bathroom and threw up until nothing but bile came out.
A week later, a Unovan town was reduced to rubble, the earth shaking for hours of sustained and concentrated pokemon assault until its streets cracked and its building toppled.
When Surge took leadership of Vermilion Gym, his very first order while his pokemon were still being healed was to start renovations. The previous gym was a standard building full of training rooms and arenas. What he wanted was a true training facility that would allow him to centralize facilities for all the various skills he felt a trainer should have, and eventually, that’s what he got.
While that was still going on, he expelled every single gym member, causing a region-wide scandal that brought him League attention and a visit from a very concerned Champion. Surge explained his reasoning, and then started testing each one for continued membership. Not one at a time in official matches, but first by observing them in groups, seeing how well they demonstrated not just their trainer competence but also their teamwork, ability to teach each other, and ability to follow and relay orders. The scandal quickly died down when many of the old members still managed to pass, and spoke in favor of the system, but murmurs of a foreign Leader without respect for tradition still sounded around the city, especially when so many trainers came with him from Unova and quickly rose among the ranks of the gym.
Surge only waited a year before he started pushing his ideas for city planning at his meetings with the city’s mayor and legislators. They responded with bafflement at first, then anger. A gym leader, presuming to believe they should have a say in issues of construction and zoning laws, let alone asking for certain buildings to be put in certain places? Who did he think he was?
But once Surge grew more popular from a few defenses of the city and made his case to the public, outlined the defensive benefits of his choices, they eventually put pressure on the politicians and businesses themselves, and over the past five years he’s been slowly but surely altering the city’s layout to be more defensible.
Everyone thinks the changes are to help against pokemon attacks. They’re not wrong in every case. The rest, however, are to prepare the city for war.
It’s coming, of that he has no doubt. The destructive power of pokemon was a threat to human survival for centuries. Now, thanks to their ingenuity and technology, they’ve come close to being the most powerful creatures on the planet. Not entirely, of course, but the days when towns or cities would be wholly lost, let alone entire regions, is fading from living memory. Only the legendary pokemon are real societal threats anymore.
Or they would be the only ones, if not for pokeballs.
Ironic, that the same technology that protects them from one threat creates another. No wild pokemon is as dangerous to humanity as one in human hands, wielded by human intelligence. The war that forged him was the first in history to use pokeballs, but it won’t be the last… and the technology has only gotten better.
Sooner or later, another would start. And if anyone ever manages to catch a legendary pokemon… they could easily conquer entire regions, like the warlords of old.
Surge would be ready. And so would his city.
“Challenger, Blue Oak, from Pallet Town. Third Badge.”
Surge hears his gym raise their voice for the Professor’s grandson. His Second told him about the kid: sharp in combat and out, highly capable, charismatic enough to draw other trainers to him. He’s mildly interested in this fight, and watches as the young trainer walks into the arena like he owns it… wearing…
Surge frowns as the camera zooms in on the kid’s shirt, which is decorated with Objections like military commendations, each one with something written on them. A dull pulse of anger goes through him at the arrogance of it. This is someone who clearly missed the point of the system, if he’s wearing his peers’ tokens of submission like trophies.
There had been a lot of one on one requests relayed to Surge from the boy, he remembers, but he doesn’t respond to those unless something exceptional happens, and having “Oak” for a last name or selling abra to his gym for cheap didn’t qualify. He feels justified in that decision, now, but part of him does wish he made the time to talk with Oak before now. It’s always better to dress someone down in private first, if possible, rather than in public. He’s surprised that none of the others have already curbed this sort of attitude from his classes or preliminary matches.
“Leader Surge, of Castelia City, Lieutenant First Class in Unovan Military.”
Surge takes some Third Badge balls from the wall and attaches them to his belt. He’s tempted to swap one out for a Fourth Badge, as punishment for the kid’s attitude, but restrains himself. If Oak can beat him, he should, regardless of his other failures. He wouldn’t necessarily grant him a badge just because he wins, if his behavior in the stadium doesn’t demonstrate worthiness.
The noise of the crowd washes over him as he enters the arena and walks to his platform as he hastily rewords his usually planned opening speech. His main challenge arena is outdoors, by necessity: it’s not unusual for his pokemon to call lightning in his 7 and 8 badge challenges, and he knows that those facing him will be using ground types quite often. He doesn’t know how Brock and Giovanni justify the expense of artificial earth floors in their arenas, but he’s satisfied with using the real ground.
By the time he ascends the stairs he has his anger mostly under control, and the face that he presents to his opponent is the stern but calm one he expects all his subordinates to mirror when they need to take someone down a peg.
Surge toggles the private channel on while he waits for the arena to move into position. “You made a mistake wearing those like prizes, son,” he says. “I’m going to be harsh with you, but if you show humility and win the battle in good form, you’ll still get your badge.” He switches to the public channel and starts speaking before his opponent has the chance to respond, though he can distantly see Blue’s expression shift. “Welcome, trainer. Before we start, I must address the breach in decorum you’ve brought to my arena.”
The crowd goes instantly quiet, and Surge lets it hold for a moment before he speaks again. “The tokens on your shirt were given to you as signs of respect from your peers. You will not wear them as trophies during our battle. Remove them before stating your Challenge.”
The cameras have shifted to a close-up of the trainer’s shirt, their blown up images on the monitors above the stands showing each wooden token, and the names written on them. Anger pulses in him again at that, but he manages to control it, expecting the kid to start sheepishly pulling them off…
…except Oak does nothing of the sort. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Leader,” the trainer says, speaking calmly and confidently to the arena. Surge’s anger flares, and he feels his teeth grit against each other. He gave the kid a chance, and he— “These tokens represent all the trainers who helped me get where I am. They’re not worn as trophies, but to show that I’m not here by just my own merits.” Oak touches one of the Objections. “Each of these represent not just someone who gave me their respect, as you said, but also taught me something, trained with me, and in some cases fought beside me against wilds. I wish I could bring them with me in truth, to Challenge for our badges together, as a unit, which is what your gym taught us… but since challenges are only allowed as single battles, I honor them with these. They are not signs of their respect for me, but of mine for them.”
Surge stares at the challenger as the audience murmurs around the stadium, feeling like he’s been punched in the gut. This kid didn’t just turn around his intended browbeating, that’s just the sign of an adept showman. On its own it would be worth a grudging respect.
What Surge struggles to respond to is his offhand criticism of the gym. It was barely there, almost only in tone rather than content, but…
Blue Oak spoke loud and clear to the Gym Leader.
Your gym teaches us how to work together. Why are we still challenging for badges as individuals?
It’s not that he’s never thought of it before. His tenure as a Gym Leader has been one of throwing out convention when it got in the way of what had to be done. But changing the nature of the Challenge battles, even if it’s just for Mastery, would be a logistical nightmare. Difficulty would be almost impossible to scale properly, even if he restricts all the challenges to be with those of equal Badge count, as team synergy matters far more for multi-battles. It would also encourage people to only seek out and train with those who they immediately identify as good battle trainers, losing a lot of the cross-transfer of skills and the more natural formation of bonds that would persist beyond their time at the gym.
The crowd’s murmurs have grown. He’s been silent for too long, fighting his urge to address the youth’s criticism, to respond with excuses. And they
would
be excuses. He agrees that it would be a more meaningful test of Mastery, at the very least. Perhaps Membership, and yes, even Leadership. It would just…
…be a lot of work. And it might fail horribly.
Surge smiles. Not much of a reason not to try.
“Very well,” Surge says at last. “Your challenge?”
“I challenge for Mastery.”
Surge knows that people often wonder how much of the pre-Challenge dialogue is scripted. It always seems too dramatic, too well paced. Even he’s thought it on occasion, when watching a Challenge at another gym.
But most Challenges are pretty straightforward, and Surge tries to keep his own parts free of flowery language. It’s only when a natural showman like the young Oak arrives that Surge notices himself naturally leaning into dramatic beats, the knowledge of what
feels right
seeming to align with what will be the most meaningful and correct statements.
“Vermilion Gym declines.”
Surge gives his words a moment to sink in and watches on the monitor as the young Oak’s expression shifts to shock, a surprised hum of conversation breaking out in the stands a few seconds later. Anger follows, briefly, before the youth smooths his expression out, and that’s when Surge continues. “I’ve always thought that single battles don’t fully mark one’s Mastery of my gym, but the duties of a Leader have kept me from designing a better way to fairly judge groups of trainers. One thing I do pride myself on is running a gym that’s open to new procedures and ideas. If you want your Vermilion Badge to matter, then I charge you with designing a better process for attaining one. You will Challenge for Membership.”
The crowd is loud, now, shocked conversations coming from every direction of the bleachers. Declining a Challenge is rare, and always embarrassing for a trainer (or, even more rarely, a gym leader, if it’s a Challenge for Leadership). But as far as Surge is aware, it’s unprecedented for a Gym Leader to dictate what the Challenger will fight for. He’s not even sure it’s allowed: if his opponent decides to get the League involved, Surge could end up pretty embarrassed. He has no actual reason to decline Oak’s Challenge, except for maybe the decorum argument for wearing the Objections.
But it feels right. And whatever the kid’s other plans were, he’s caught in the drama that he himself began. The chatter among the audience is finally fading as people wait with bated breath for the trainer’s response. Blue Oak looks like a man fighting with himself, and it’s not hard to guess why. He’s been on a warpath to get his badges quickly, and staying at a Gym is often an investment made in months, at the very least. He also probably has journeymates that have their own plans.
David Matis feels a little bad for forcing the youth to make such a decision on the spot and in public, but Gym Leader Surge
wants
the young Oak for his gym, now. He wants to see what that creative intelligence comes up with, to see if it’s something he can make workable.
That is the challenge that Gym Leader Surge set for Blue Oak. And what young trainer with visions of glory in their head could turn down such a thing?
Eventually Oak smiles, the expression captured on every monitor. “I accept.”
“Excellent. Then I will use only one of the pokemon I brought out. You may use two against it in a simple elimination. Prepare for battle!” He unclips the strongest pokemon he has on him. “Ready… set… go, Eelektross!”
The pokemon appears in the middle of the arena, one of the many children Zeus has had since arriving with Surge to Kanto. The floating eel undulates through the air, one of the few electric pokemon that can stay safe from ground attacks. He fully expects the young Oak to win this match if he came ready to challenge for Mastery, but there’s no reason not to try his best to win anyway.
“Go, Zephyr!”
Surge’s brow rises as he sees the pidgeotto appear, the surprise and confusion of the crowd mimicking his own sense of curiosity. He trusts a 3rd badge challenger not to bring a Flying pokemon into his arena without good reason, but… “Strike!”
Oak blows into his whistle, and his pokemon flies far to the side, out of range… then begins to beat its wings, sending clouds of dirt up into the arena as Surge’s pokemon starts to pursue to attack, its body glowing with the built-up charge. Surge holds a hand up as some of the dust blows over him, and grins. It’s not quite a sandstorm, but it’s enough to blind his pokemon.
“Your pokemon could be considered out of bounds, Trainer,” Surge says into the public channel. “It is too far to protect you if this were a real battle.”
“Normally you’d be correct, Leader. But your pokemon is just as blind to my location, and if it gets lucky, Zephyr knows Brave Bird.”
Surge shakes his head. “I won’t ask you to demonstrate that yet, but unless you have another strategy to show soon…”
The whistle blows again in response, and the pidgeotto returns to Oak, only to be withdrawn. A moment later Oak yells out, “Go, Rive!” Surge sees the flash from the other side of the settling dust cloud, and he uses the monitors to see what Blue just summoned: a rhyhorn.
That’s more like it.
“Atah!” Oak yells.
As the pokemon lumbers toward his blinded pokemon, Surge keeps his face calm… and only calls out “Sap!” when the rhyhorn is within striking range.
It throws its head up to jab his pokemon with its horn, but Eelektross knows where it is now and just takes the hit and latches onto its opponent’s grey hide with its wide mouth, green light shining as it begins its Giga Drain. The rhyhorn tries to shake it off, and only manages to by rolling its body along the ground. Surge yells “Sap!” again, but the pokemon is withdrawn a moment later.
“Nice,” Oak says in Surge’s earpiece as he swaps balls. “I figured you wouldn’t use an Electric pokemon without some Grass or Water moves. But I’ve won the match.” He summons his pidgeotto again, and whistles for it to start another huge sand attack from a distance.
“A bold claim, Trainer. But whatever damage that wound did to my pokemon will have been healed by its drain. Just blinding it won’t be enough to win, and your pidgeotto will tire eventually.”
“Eventually, yeah, but not before your pokemon drops. My friends yelled at me last time I kept this secret, so I’ll just let you know that my pokemon’s horn is poisonous. You’re going to notice your eelektross tiring very soon.”
Surge’s eyes widen, and then he laughs briefly, stopping himself before too much floating dirt can get into his mouth. “Full points for your honesty. Ceding a tactical advantage to ensure safety is appreciated at any gym. But you could be bluffing, and so I’ll have to try my best to win before my pokemon starts to show its effects.”
“Understood.”
Surge leans against the railing and takes a deep breath, then yells “Wild Charge!” His pokemon shoots out in a more-or-less random direction, escaping most of the cloud but not approaching the pidgeotto. Once it looks around and recorrects, Oak is already re-positioning his pokemon with a few quick blows on his whistle. Surge prepares another command to try and cut it off—
“David, stop the fight,” his Second says in his earpiece, and Surge immediately transitions to calling out “Stop!” instead. His pokemon freezes in place, and a moment later Oak blows his whistle, causing his pokemon to loop back around toward him.
Surge switches to his Second’s channel. “What is it?” Surge murmurs as the arena and his opponent watch in confusion.
“Zapdos is coming up the coast. Multiple confirmations. ETA is no more than an hour.”
The words are like a bucket of ice water on Surge’s head, cold spreading down his whole body as his mind stutters in shock, then tries to regain its bearings.
“Eelektross, return!” he shouts. “The match is over. The Challenger’s pokemon poisoned mine with its strike. Blue Oak has demonstrated sufficient skill to join Vermilion Gym.” Surge’s mouth is on autopilot as his mind races to all the things he has to do, the preparations that need to be made, even as fear and predicted grief continue to spread through him.
There’s scattered applause throughout the arena, everyone taken a bit by surprise from the abrupt end to the match. “I’ve also just received word that Vermilion is entering a Tier 3 state of emergency,” Surge says before the reaction can swell in the wrong direction. “Zapdos is coming. I repeat, Zapdos is arriving at Vermilion City within the hour. Everyone, please find your shelter or evacuate as soon as possible. If you plan to fight, assemble in the courtyard for briefing.”
Surge looks to Oak, switching to the private channel to ask what he would do. Though he’s a new member of the gym, Surge wouldn’t hold it against him if he doesn’t stay and fight; it would be too much to expect of someone who was pseudo-forced into it. But he stops as soon as he sees the expressions flow over the young man’s face.
Shock that shifts toward rage, and a determination so absolute that Surge doesn’t even need to ask.
Young and foolish, as many were in adolescence. Surge hopes he survives it.
The crowd fills the gym grounds, hundreds of trainers from the city and outlying areas who rushed here as soon as the call went out. Above them, the sky is still mostly clear… for now. The light is fading, however, and when Surge mounts the podium and looks to the southeast, he sees the storm coming, a blot of darkness that breaks up the horizon.
By the time he switches frequencies on his earpiece to the speakers his people are still deploying around the field and attaches the extended microphone, the crowd has fallen deathly quiet. Thousands of eyes watch their Leader. Tense eyes. Trusting eyes. Even a few excited eyes, from those who don’t understand what’s coming yet, or the adrenaline junkies who live for the dance with death.
But most of the eyes are fearful. Those who live here, particularly, and have family in the city, some in the crowd with them, some heading to shelters. He sees a number of younger men or women standing beside their parents or aunts or uncles, ready to face the storm together.
“Thank you all for coming,” Surge says, hearing his voice reverberate through the crowd. “Time is short, so I’m going to keep the motivational part of this brief. Not all of you are here because you want to be. Most aren’t even here out of a sense of duty. You’re here because some scary shit is coming, and when scary shit is coming, our instinct is to either run and hide, everyone for themselves, or gather together and draw comfort from our fellows. Draw comfort from a sense that someone is in charge and knows what they’re doing.” He wants to pace, to start using up the frenetic energy that’s filling him. Instead he stands still, hand clasping his wrist behind his back, feet parted and back straight. “I am not that person. Those of you here listening to me because you think one person, or even a group of people, can plan for what’s coming, you’re in for a rude awakening. It’s alright. We’ve all been there.”
The crowd is still and silent. Surge releases his arm and points over their heads, to the southeast. “The moment that storm hits this city, any plan is going to get shot to hell. We know it’s Zapdos coming, obviously, so we know to expect constant and powerful lightning strikes, and every building in this city has rods to draw them away, so that’s the one thing we have on our side. But everything past that is a variable.” He lowers his arm and clasps it behind his back again. “We don’t know if it will be a dry storm or a heavy deluge. It’s coming up the edge of the coast, so any last minute changes in trajectory will alter that. We don’t know how long we’ll have cell reception or other electronic coordination. We don’t know what pokemon are rampaging at the stormfront. We don’t know if Zapdos will descend and wreak havoc personally, or stay above the clouds. We don’t know how many trainers in total will be available to help in the city. We don’t know how many of those trainers will still be alive after the first hour. Or the second, if there is one. Or the third.”
The eyes are wider, now. More of them filled with fear, doubt, uncertainty. He nods, though only those at the very front will see it. “Whatever you’re feeling now, it’s what you should be feeling. Even if it’s terror. If you would run, start running now. If you would hide, find a place to hide now. Because this is the truth, and the truth is terrifying. When the Pressure hits, and you feel
more
than just what’s true, when your doubts and fears are amplified beyond anything you’ve felt before, there’s a chance you’ll crack like an egg, and become another liability.” He’s careful to keep his voice calm and level. “So go, if you must go. There’s no shame in it. If you think you’ll break, then the best thing you can do for the city and those around you is to do your best to keep yourself safe. And to convince you I mean every word, I’m going to waste a precious minute right now to have everyone mill around aimlessly, to give cover to those who need to leave.” He sees the surprise on those closest. “You heard me. Sixty seconds, starting now; move, and if you’re going, go. Good luck to you.”
He starts walking in circles, having no one to mill with, just to show that he’s not paying attention to anyone and to get everyone moving as he counts under his breath. He hears the crowd around him start to move, quietly and without too much bumping into each other. A minute isn’t enough time for those close to the front to make it all the way out through the shifting press of bodies, but those that arrived first are the least likely to change their minds, and it’s better than nothing.
“Just got word from the League,” his Second suddenly says in his earpiece. “Leaders Sabrina, Erika, Koga, and Giovanni are confirmed to be on their way. CoRRNet says they’ve got two hundred rangers in the city or arriving in the next thirty minutes, with another hundred moving into the outlying areas.”
Some tension in Surge loosens. Having half of the Kanto League here would help immensely, and two hundred rangers are more than he expected. “Good. And from the Plateau? Lorelei’s up, right?”
“Yes, her and Karen.”
Elite Karen. Supposed to be some Dark pokemon prodigy, and currently the youngest of the whole Indigo League. Wouldn’t have been Surge’s first preference, or even his fourth, not least because she wouldn’t be able to teleport straight in. Lorelei will be a welcome addition, at least. “Got it,” Surge says. “What’s the ETA for Karen and Giovanni?”
“She was in Celadon apparently, so she’ll be here soon. Giovanni will take an hour.”
Better than he thought. “Thanks, Smat. With Lorelei we’ll have a chance at hitting Zapdos hard if he comes down, at least.”
Fifty-four… fifty-five…
He reaches sixty, then stops moving and switches back to the public channel. “Company halt,” he says, and the crowd quickly comes to a stop. They look around themselves, some smiling from the silliness of walking around aimlessly, checking out who they ended up beside, or looking for missing faces. There are notable gaps, now, but not many. A few people are still moving away at the edges of the field, and Surge waits until they step through the doors before he smiles. “Good, not everyone left. That’s always a relief.”
A chuckle moves through the crowd, nervous but still breaking the tension a bit. He lets it run its course, then waits another few seconds as he collects his thoughts. “I know that wasn’t the sort of encouraging talk people expect. I
do
want you all to know that I’m profoundly grateful and proud that so many of you are here and ready to do what the survival of our species have always needed us to do: risk everything we have, to save everyone we can. Earlier I said that any plan we try to form is going to be shot to hell. It’s the truth, but there are still basic objectives that will hold in the form of priorities. Priority 0 is
always in effect.
Communication
will
break down at some point, and when it happens you will know best what to do in any given situation you find yourselves in, to keep yourself and those around you safe. But Priority 1 will be to keep the shelters secure. Gym members are waiting outside to direct you to each and make sure we’re spread out enough. If there are friends or family or journeymates you want to stick with, find them there before heading out.”
Surge watches as people start to move again. “Not yet,” he says, and everyone stops. “Priority 2 takes precedence. The hospitals and pokemon centers are going to be staffed throughout the storm. Over the years the mayor and I have tried to ensure that they all are nearly as durable as the shelters, but many are still vulnerable. Those with five badges and up or experience in a previous Stormbringer attack, get assigned to one of those first. These places will need lots of volunteers afterward to cut down on the number of tragedies coming.”
Someone is raising a hand, like this is a class. If Surge calls on him more would raise their hands, and the momentum would shift, but the first person to raise their hand in such a situation is either brave or stupid, and it’s worth checking in case it’s the first. “Yes?”
“How do we know who to listen to if communications break down?”
Surge shakes his head. “I don’t know what your situation will be
when
that happens. If you’re at a priority site, listen to the rangers or gym members there. New priorities will likely come up, and the chain of command will be scattered across the city. If you’re not sure, always default to Priority 0.”
A few other hands pop up, but they’re out of time. Surge looks at the oncoming storm that now fills a quarter of the horizon. “One final note. Not everyone is going to make it to the shelters. Some people are going to try to ride things out in their homes, others just won’t get to one on time. It happens every Tier 3, no matter how much warning we get.”
Surge looks around the crowd. Everyone is absolutely silent, watching him. Many know what’s coming next. “
They’re on their own.
We
cannot
afford to spread trainers out too thin. They will have to reach a priority site before we can help keep them safe.” He lets out a breath as he asks the trainers to do something he would have had trouble doing, earlier in his life. That he
did
have trouble doing. “If you know of friends or family or even strangers that are in danger, and want to go help them… well, I won’t tell you to ignore your conscience. But just remember that you’re making a choice, and good intentions can often cost more lives than they save.
“Good luck to you all,” Surge says as he looks out at the crowd, feeling pride, and pity, and hope, and dread. “A god is coming to raze this city, if it can. May yours be with you, as you stand in its path.”
Disorientation hits Red as he appears on the roof of the Trainer House, legs adjusting to the sudden stillness of the building below him, nose flaring as the heavy scent of the ocean is replaced with the scents of the city. He takes a moment to brace himself against the wind, which is gusting hard enough to flap his jacket and tug at his cap.
He and Leaf had changed into their traveling clothes and left a note in their room so the crew would know they’d left before going out onto the deck of the ship and teleporting back together. Red’s fear for Blue and Aiko, for himself, and most of all for Leaf were overwhelming as he summoned his abra and prepared for the unknown…
…but now that he’s here, his fear takes the backseat to a sense of awe as he gazes over the city.
Half the sky is twilight, the last gleam of light not enough to hide the stars on the deep, cloudless blue. The other half of the horizon is the dark of a starless night, storm clouds gathered in a sweeping curtain, rising up like the rough wall of a sheer mountain cliff. It’s like the storm has sucked all the clouds out of the sky into one half of it, and was now marching across to blanket it all.
“Swords of Justice,” Leaf whispers from beside him. “One pokemon did that?”
As if to punctuate her point, lightning flashes across the cloudwall, illuminating its many peaks and valleys. The thunder hits them a few seconds later, and it breaks the spell, Red’s fear resurfacing as he quickly withdraws his abra, then puts his headphones in and calls Blue. As he watches, lightning lights up a different part of the cloudwall, then another flash arcs down to the ground below it, then another far to the left. The thunder from each one hits with a few seconds between them, and Red realizes that he’s hearing what will be a constant refrain throughout the storm.
Blue answers after the fourth ring. “Red, how-”
“I’m here.” Red looks at Leaf, who’s at the railing and, looking down at the city below. “
We’re
here. We teleported back as soon as we saw on the news.”
“You’re… You actually…” Blue laughs. “Red, you brave, beautiful idiot! I shouldn’t have doubted you for a second!”
A particularly loud crack of thunder echoes across the city, and Red hears it both in the air around him, then a half-second later through his headset. He turns to the west. “Where are you guys?”
“Pokemon center by the harbor. We’re all here, Glen, Aiko, and I plan on helping out inside if we need to.” His voice loses its excitement, turning serious. “Come quick, Red, most of the trainers are already stationed somewhere.”
Red fights down his feeling of dread as he feels the wind gust around him again. The idea of getting caught out in that storm is viscerally terrifying, even though he knows objectively that it’s not the storm itself he should be worried about. He checks his map and puts in the destination. Seventeen minutes by bike. It might be faster than that estimate without traffic, but the storm is moving so quickly… “I don’t think we can make it to you, Blue.”
“Shit! Are you sure?”
“Even if everything goes right—”
“—I know, I know, it probably won’t. The other defense points are pokemon centers, city shelters, and hospitals, but I want you guys
here.
Together we’ll be unstoppable.”
Red grins. “Right. We’ll try.”
“Hurry, and watch yourselves!”
“You too.”
Red closes the call and turns to Leaf, who’s still staring down at the street below. He swallows, still worried about how they left things despite all that’s happening. “Leaf! We gotta go!”
She rushes over, and they head inside, taking the elevator down as he relays what Blue said.
“People are still moving through the streets,” she says, voice tense. “Most don’t seem to have pokemon with them, and… Red, a lot of them are moving on foot.”
Red stares at her, reading the same quiet horror in her expression that he feels. Most of those people wouldn’t make it to a shelter in time, why did they even leave their homes? Could they do something to help them move faster or… No, he could maybe take one person on his bike with him if they’re about his size, but there’s nothing they can do for all these people. He feels his confidence spiral again. They’re not ready for this… things are happening too quickly, he’s forgetting stuff he should be doing…
They reach the lobby and hurry over to the PCs against the wall.
“Which pokemon are you bringing?” Red asks as he deposits his metapod, then brings out his spinarak, then swaps Vermilion the abra with his pineco. Bill is in his bag rather than his belt: he has no intention of facing this situation without a way to escape.
“All of them,” Leaf says, and he sees her fill ball after ball with her pokemon, putting them on the ground after. He’s about to ask if her bag really has room for them, then sees her take a container ball out and summon its box. She pulls her spare pokebelt off it, then straps it loosely over her main one before tightening it and adding the balls. “I haven’t practiced with it much, but every pokemon might matter, here.”
Red nods, considering those he was leaving out. Metapod is the only truly “useless” pokemon he has, good for little more than a sacrificial distraction unless it evolves in the field. He chose bellsprout over oddish because they were the same types and he’d trained it more, but there’s nothing wrong with having both. And he has barely trained with his whismur, but it still has useful area of effect attacks…
Despite not having practiced at all with a second belt, Red realizes that limiting himself to six pokemon isn’t worth the risk. He doesn’t need to get used to battling with a team of six for the League, and the added physical awkwardness is less likely to kill him than the lack of options, at this stage in his journey. Even Metapod might save a life; if they need bait or a distraction, there’s no other pokemon he has that can survive hits as well, after it hardens its shell a couple times.
Red quickly takes his spare belt out too, and follows Leaf’s example by belting it over his first and taking out all his pokemon to attach them. It feels cumbersome, but not incredibly so.
His feeling of being unprepared suddenly returns with a vengeance. He’s had no time to really think or prepare for this, what else is he missing that’s as obvious as “bring all pokemon?” He grabs his notebook and starts writing as Leaf finishes attaching her biking gear, remembering his lesson from Vermilion Gym on the modes that Rangers try to ensure they’re prepared for:
1) Scout
2) Fight
3) Contain
4) Escape
What can he do to prepare for achieving these goals? He limits himself to one thing on each:
1) Scout – psychic radar
2) Fight – coordinate
3) Contain –
4) Escape – teleport
His mind races to find ways to help meaningfully “contain” a Tier 3 incident from getting worse, but can’t think of anything. Leaf is watching what he writes, clearly curious despite the nervous energy shifting her from foot to foot, and he starts summoning and putting on his own pads.
“Any quick notes on coordination that we should pre-agree to?” Red asks.
“My pokemon are better for defense and subduing,” she immediately says. “And I have better aim than you. You focus on taking them down and I’ll focus on keeping others busy or going for the capture.”
She’s right, Charmeleon, Pikachu, and Nidoran are his strongest fighters, and each is more lethal than any of hers besides maybe Beedrill. “Okay.”
“What’s psychic radar?”
“Using my ability to sense minds in quick glimpses to just get a rough idea of where they are around me.”
“You should call it psydar.” Seeing Red’s raised brow, she shrugs and smiles, nervous energy shifting her from foot to foot. “Radar stands for Radio Detection And Ranging. Lidar is Light Detection and—”
“I get it,” he says, grinning as he finishes clasping his helmet on, then writes (
psydar)
on the page and tucks his notebook away. “For escaping danger, our best bet is to teleport… I’ve got a sling to carry my metapod in, you could tie a shirt into one. If we carry our abra against our side, it can save us precious seconds needed to teleport out of danger.”
“Red, that’s going to make it really hard to maneuver.”
She’s right, they won’t be able to move nearly as nimbly, and any kind of roll would hurt their abra and probably interrupt the movement. He wants to argue that having an instant escape from danger makes up for it, but he’s already thought of the counter; they’d only be able to use it once, as it would effectively take them out of action and abandon anyone else who’s with them.
“Ok, just remember them as an option, then.” He puts his notebook away and stands, and they make their way to the heavy glass doors, which slide open as they approach.
“They didn’t even turn off the automatic doors?” Leaf murmurs.
“Must have been in a rush.” Red can imagine the panic because he feels it still stirring inside him, the irrational urge to just go to his room and cower in it until the storm passes… a rather outdated instinct for his hindbrain to push on him, since teleportation is a much safer option.
They step out into the dark street together and look up at the same time. The stormfront is moving visibly toward them, and they rush to summon their bikes and ride for the harbor, pushing themselves to get there before the storm envelops them.
There are people in the street making their way either home or to a shelter, and Red suddenly realizes that it was purely wishful thinking to say they would make it to Blue. He wants to be with Blue and Aiko, some part of him is sure that if he’s not there with them, something terrible will happen.
That’s nonsense and you know it, you’re not the best trainer around, they’re both better than you, just get safe…
Red shakes his head at the inner voice, distrusting it for its cowardice.
Not safe as in hiding, safe as in being with other trainers when the storm hits!
Some others are riding pokemon or bikes, or speeding down the roads in cars, last minute escapees heading northwest. But they also pass a lot of people on foot, and while he hopes they’re close to their homes, the glimpses of desperation he sees on some faces tears at his heart.
“Red!” Leaf calls out. “They…”
“I know!” he yells, but pedals harder. Blue said they had to make it to a defense point, and he understands why, there would be no way to save all these people in the street.
A minute of pedaling later, Red’s phone starts blaring at him. He checks it as he bikes, slowing down slightly, and sees an emergency broadcast message from the Ranger outpost at the eastern edge of Vermilion:
MASSIVE FLOCK FLYING OVER CITY SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY
Ice water floods his veins, and he finally listens to his inner nervous voice, recognizing its premortem wisdom. “Leaf! Change of plans!” He struggles to renavigate them to the nearest defense point, and finds a hospital just nine minutes away. “We’re not going to make it to the others, but there’s a hospital not far!”
“Okay!” She slows slightly so he can take the lead, and they make a hard turn at the next intersection, biking more west than south now.
We’re going away from the storm now, we have more time, we can make it…
The wind grows more intense, along with the frequency and volume of the thunder. A stroke of lightning splits the darkening sky ahead of the stormfront, striking a tall building far in front of the stormfront. Another emergency message appears, and Red checks the map again before he reads it. Five minutes away…
FIRST WAVE PAST CITY LIMITS SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY
Four minutes between the flock and the first wave, they’ll be fine, they’re almost there…
Two minutes later some noise is growing over the near-constant boom of thunder, a windy rush that sounds almost like static, and Red turns toward the storm, unable to help himself. He feels his jaw drop.
The twilight sky ahead of the clouds is dark with birds, racing just ahead of the cloudbank in a loose and frenzied swarm of bodies that flap desperately to keep ahead of it. Some collide and fall, tearing into each other, while others pull further and further ahead, the strongest and fastest managing to stay safe, the gusts of air from their wings displacing those behind them.
As they get closer the roar of noise resolves into that of thousands of flapping wings. Leaf shouts a warning, and he looks around for a building they can duck into—
—and then the wind is pressing down on them as the flock passes overhead. Red’s bike is immediately blown over, sending him skidding over the pavement as the wind forces his eyes closed. His bag keeps him from rolling more than once, and Red hears not just cries and flaps of bird pokemon, but also the buzz of bugs and the crashing of glass. He opens his eyes a slit and watches the pokemon pass overhead, many of them flying too low in places and colliding with windows or billboards. Most don’t stop for anything short of an attack by another pokemon, which is itself rare despite the natural prey and predators that fly together.
All of them fleeing an indisputable master of the skies.
The wind pressure lessens as the bulk of them pass overhead, and Red sits up and looks around. Garbage cans and street signs are knocked over, and glass litters the street as windows designed to withstand hurricane-force winds were shattered by the beaks and bodies of heedless pokemon. Many of them are on the ground as well, dead or badly injured.
Red looks around for Leaf and spots her staring around in horror. Her eyes lock on something, and she struggles to her feet. He follows her gaze to see a spearow at the end of the street with a bleeding gash across its body sprinkling blood on the ground. It tries to take off, only to tumble back to the ground, one of its wings broken.
“Leaf!” he shouts, forcing himself to his feet as well. His arms and legs ache with what promise to be bruises, but his gear protected him from any serious injury. “We gotta go!”
She hesitates, turning back to him, then looks up. Her eyes widen, and she looks back at the spearow, struggling to take flight again… then rushes for her bike.
Red turns to see what scared her, then scrambles for his own. The stormcloud looks like it’s right on top of them, lightning illuminating the whole mass as it shifts in a slow, lazy circle. The thunder is near constant now, one rumble barely fading before the next one starts, and as they start to bike away again, Leaf in the lead now, Red feels his panic growing.
Three minutes away… we can make it… but we never should have come here, what can we even do against this, it’s a stupid risk, I should teleport away, we can’t make it, we’re going to die…
The thoughts grow stronger, his panic rising as the winds pick up and the sky continues to darken with the onset of true night and the onrushing storm.
His legs are aching as he pedals harder, faster, trying to avoid an overturned trash bin and nearly spilling onto the street again. He can’t think, he just needs to
get away, get away, GET AWAY!
Red skids to a stop and starts scrambling for Bill’s pokeball, mouth opening to shout to Leaf as he manually summons his abra…
…then remembers that Leaf doesn’t have a teleport spot outside of Vermilion.
She’s trapped here.
He has to leave her behind.
The thought comes as he watches her race away ahead of him, unaware that he’s stopped, and Red’s mind locks up as that thought hits a brick wall. He has to leave,
has
to, he’ll
die
if he stays, but she
can’t
leave…
She’s going to die.
“Le-!”
Thunder claps just as he yells, drowning him out. Leaf reaches the turn in the street ahead and disappears.
She’s going to die!
Red withdraws Bill and starts cycling again as the fear fills him, bending his thoughts toward nothing but running, hiding, escaping,
surviving
. He ignores the impulse and forces himself to cling to the thought of Leaf being left here, alone, dying without him, and races after her, bent over the handlebars. “
Leaf!”
Shit, his phone! He can call her…
“Dial Leaf!” he yells, then turns the corner and sees her. She’s turned off the main road, bike leaning against her legs as she aims a pokeball at a bleeding pidgeotto, a huge shard of glass through its torso.
As Red pedals toward her and cancels the call, she throws the ball and captures it, then bikes over and picks it up.
“Leaf!” he yells as he gets closer. “What are you doing?”
She turns to him, and he feels an emotional punch hit his gut. She’s crying, face streaked with tears. “They’re hurting!” she sobs, arm wiping at her face. “There’s so many of them… you have to help me, Red! How can you just ride past them!?” She turns away and starts heading toward another downed pokemon.
Red stares at her, at a loss for words. The storm is almost on top of them, and she’s… He curses and follows after her as the panic rises up again. “Leaf, we have to go! We have to get out of the city!”
Leaf looks at him in shock. “I can’t
leave
them, Red, they’re going to
die
without me!”
Red feels like pulling his hair out. How can she be so
blind
, doesn’t she realize they’re
all going to die anyway…
Wait…
Confusion. Something was wrong with that thought, and with how she’s acting…
A flash of light illuminates the street as lightning hits the building beside them. The thunder is oppressively loud and immediate, and behind it Red can suddenly hear something odd: the neigh of a rapidash.
It appears at the end of the street and runs through it in a blur of light. Red vibrates with a sudden preparation to bike away, but the rapidash doesn’t even glance at him or Leaf, who has paused to stare after it in awe. It just gallops past them, embers of light trailing its ignited mane and legs.
There’s another neigh behind him, and they turn to see
another
rapidash running toward them, followed by a dodrio. This time Red has the presence of mind to think of catching them, but they’re moving so fast he barely has time to think it before they’re upon them, then past, one after the other… and now he can dimly hear even more pokemon coming.
The first wave is here. He forgot to check the time after the flock went past. He forgot because…
Leaf smacks her cheeks with both hands, then rubs them hard. “Red, the Pressure is already here!”
Red blinks, staring at her. The Pressure can’t be here, they would
feel
it…
Oh.
Even recognizing that he’s under the effects of it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to RUN or HIDE or LEAVE, but the confusion from before is satisfied, just in time for him to realize that the correct choice is in fact to follow the instinct that the Pressure is promoting.
“
Hide!”
he yells as another pair of dodrio run by, his mind registering the growing rumbling that’s not thunder, and starts biking again until he spots a two story clothing store with lights on. He turns to head straight toward it, making sure Leaf is following, and they skid to a stop in front of the door just as a crowd of pokemon turn onto their street, running wild and trampling anything in their way.
The doors slide open automatically, and as Red and Leaf rush in, biking between the clothing aisles, Red can make out the small crowd of people in the back, cowering against the walls or behind countertops.
Then the stampede arrives outside, a cacophony of different steps and cries filling the street as first a handful of pokemon run by, then a steady stream. Red turns to see nidorino, tauros, raticate, arcanine, ninetales, and others all rush by.
Red and Leaf move together off their bikes to summon Charmeleon and Raff, standing between the doors and the people in the store. Their pokemon appear, then both twitch and shiver, adjusting to the new environment… and the Pressure that’s bearing down on them.
Red feels like he’s holding his breath, and forces himself to exhale as the pokemon run by outside, muscles tense and jumping with fear and preparation… they’re all running by… they might be okay…
And then a nidorino runs into the side of a tauros and is headbutted away, sending it careening directly toward the storefront and through the automatic doors before it has a chance to fully open. Glass shatters and plastic crunches, and a quick set of commands from Red and Leaf send vines and fire whipping out to drive it back.
Instead it barrels through the pain, still spilling glass around it as it bellows and tears through racks of clothes to smash into a small pillar, cracking it.
We have to hide!
“Smokescreen,” Red yells, and Charmeleon starts pouring smoke out of his tail
No, wait, it’s acting randomly anyway, we need to be able to see it!
“Stop!” He grits his teeth, trying to drown out the fear with anger. He has to kill this nidorino quickly before it hurts anyone, before it hurts Leaf…
“Sleep Powder!” Red turns in shock as Raff sends blue spores at the rampaging pokemon. The blue powder saturates the air, but the nidorino avoids it, not nearly injured enough to walk into the growing cloud.
What’s she doing?
But he knows: just as his Pressure is driving him to fear, it’s drowning her in sadness, or maybe guilt. She’s going for the least painful attacks she can, even if they’re ineffective.
Then the Nidorino turns to him and charges, and panic makes Red yell “Ember!” as he dives aside.
The nidorino cries out in pain as it tries to get away from the fire that’s sticking to its side. It stomps through the store, throwing its horned snout around and tearing through racks of clothing… and spreading the fire to each. It gets close to one of the people hiding in the room, who screams and runs away, the movement catching the nidorino’s attention and causing it to rush toward him.
“Tackle!” Leaf yells, and Raff intercepts. The nidorino, flank still burning, is sent crashing into a row of clothing racks, and the shirts on them quickly catch fire. It shies away from it and tries to find another way out, but stops as it finds fire on every side of it, now.
Leaf lets out a dismayed cry, and runs toward it.
“Stop, Leaf!” Red says, and his pokemon stops attacking, taking the command as if directed at him. He rushes forward to grab her shirt, then freezes as the heat is felt, suddenly scared of being burned, watching in horror as she rushes straight for the flames…
…then drops to grab the bottom of one of the shirt racks, lifting the fire atop it toward the ceiling.
Water starts pouring from the sprinkler, though no fire alarm goes off. Leaf drops the rack and pulls out a pokeball, then runs through the dying flames to ping a lock and capture the nidorino. She quickly leaps back and away from the fires, even as they start dying too.
Red steps back from the powerful downpour of water, then turns back toward the front door. The stampede outside seems to be finally thinning, and soon Leaf has rejoined him with Raff, her clothes and hair soaked as they watch together for any more pokemon coming in.
They continue to run by outside, but fewer and fewer every passing second. Eventually a bibarel turns toward the broken doors for no discernible reason, only to slam into the edge of them and stumble away rather than coming inside. A young voice screams in fear anyway, which draws Red’s attention to the back of the store even as it sets his flight response into high gear again.
“It’s okay, hon, we’re safe,” the woman beside the small boy who’d screamed says, rocking his head against her stomach. She looks at Red and Leaf, eyes wide. “Th-thank you, both of you.”
It’s a little hard to hear her with the water rushing down, the constant thunder, and the cries of pokemon outside. Red shakes his head, still not relaxing. They had barely won that, they’d made so many mistakes… And he still feels an urge to just hide and stay safe, distracting him from thinking about what to do next.
It’s just fear, I can handle fear.
He almost left when the Pressure first hit, but his desire to keep Leaf safe stopped him. He can do it again, he just has to focus on
something to protect.
The sprinkler finally stops pouring water down, and Red takes a deep breath, then lets it out, trying to let go of all else but that thought. He shifts his mind to many-mirrors-and-a-dim-room before inverting it to shining-mirror-in-a-dim-house…
Red opens his eyes and looks around, able to think clearly at last… but finding it hard to decide what to think about. It’s strange, trying to decide what to think about, it requires thinking about other things first, trying to decide on a priority list… but what priority did he have? He enters this state to clear his head. His head is clear. Done. No more priorities.
No, wait, he had a priority before that one, which led to it… the priority was to stay alive. He’s alive now, so that’s done. Why does it matter that he even completes priorities, again? It does give him something to direct his thoughts at, which is more pleasant than when they wander aimlessly.
No, that wasn’t it either. Protecting others.
That’s
what he needs to focus on. What can they do next to stay safe?
Red looks around. Leaf is using a burn heal on her arm. The man that was chased by the nidorino is leaning against the wall and shaking. There’s a crashing sound outside that makes him twitch and turn, fear naked on his face, and after a moment Red turns in the same direction toward the door. It was something outside.
They’re not safe here, that much is clear. Which means they need to go elsewhere, and if they can’t go outside… “Stairs,” he says, then withdraws Charmeleon and starts walking around looking for them. He finds them in the corner, and climbs until he reaches the top to see another room full of clothes, though less wet and burned and smashed up. The five strangers follow him, with Leaf bringing up the rear. Her face and arm are slightly burned.
Red feels a strain inside, a note of something that he would normally call grief if he… wait no, it is grief, and it’s…
He lets the mental state go, and immediately shivers as the Pressure brings the fear back. He’s used his powers a lot already today on the cruise, he can’t rely on them that much.
I can deal with it. They are.
He looks to the others. A young mother is holding her son, who looks about 4, tight against her leg. The man who tried to run from the nidorino is leaning against a counter with his hands in his hair, and the other two are an elderly couple, their clasped hands held tight between them.
None of them have pokebelts. What the hell were they even doing out there when the storm hit?
“Red.” Leaf approaches him, cheeks still wet with tears. Wait, no, that’s the water from the sprinklers. “I’m sorry for, before…”
“It’s alright, I went a little nuts too.” Red shakes his head. “I was a hair’s breadth from just… leaving. If you weren’t here, I would have.” He still wants to, but he seems to be getting used to the feeling, at least a little, though his nerves still feel jittery, his heart pounding too fast in his ears.
He needs to calm himself. He summons Pikachu, and sits on the floor as he pulls his pokemon into his lap and strokes him. Not just for his own comfort, but also because the electric mouse seems particularly agitated. Red merges minds with his pokemon briefly, and—
—
—then breaks the connection with a small cry of shock.
“You okay, Red?” Leaf asks from where she’s kneeling beside Raff.
“Yeah,” he says, staring at his pokemon with wide eyes as he rubs his forehead and focuses on his body to remind himself he just has one.
How
are their pokemon still following orders, while feeling the terror and desperate aggression that the Pressure is forcing on them?
He should have realized he’d end up feeling the stormgod’s aura twice over, would have if the damn thing didn’t keep pushing at him to
run
and
hide
… But there was something more interesting underneath that. Some overwhelming sensory input he couldn’t process at all, but was still aware of through Pikachu. Did he just begin adapting to a new sense his pokemon has? Or maybe it’s something he sensed through Pikachu before, but in such small amounts that he never noticed…
Something crashes downstairs, and everyone turns toward the stairway as the young boy screams and cowers against his mother. “Oh, what now?” Leaf moans, mirroring Red’s thoughts as they all listen to the pokemon downstairs knock over and smash things, probably confused as it tries to get back out. There’s a cry of pain from some pokemon Red doesn’t recognize, and he glances at Leaf, but she’s holding herself together, arms tight around her middle, biting her lower lip hard.
Red turns back to the stairs, swallowing against his own fear.
Whatever you are, don’t be able to go up stairs… stay down there, get out…
Something else falls over with the crash of glass, and the boy screams again. The man turns to the woman, eyes wide. “Shut that kid up,” he hisses.
She glares at him, looking like she wants to shout something back, but fear contorts her features and she starts shushing the boy, rocking him against her.
A loud banging sounds below them, somewhere near the wall, and then there’s a crash, and the sounds of battle. Something hits the first floor’s ceiling hard enough to crack the floor nearby them, and everyone scrambles toward the walls away from it.
Red gets up and rushes to the stairs. He hears a pokeball discharge and looks back to see Leaf stand by the crack with Raff, as if preparing for something to burst through.
When he reaches the bottom of the stairs he sees the huge hole in the wall, some of which is still stuck to the spikes on the carapace of the kingler smashing at a male and female nidoran that dart around it. Each one leaps forward to strike the huge crustacean as soon as it focuses on the other, biting and stinging and kicking at it until it spews a foamy stream at both, sending them scrambling for traction. The ceiling is cracked above a linoone’s limp and bloody body, which looks like it was smashed against it. Red tries to imagine how that happened before he realizes he has more important concerns.
Everything’s wet from the sprinklers going off, and Red’s hand goes to Pikachu’s ball, fumbling for a moment with the one above it. A sudden jolt of fear keeps him from pulling it off, however, imagining the pokemon not getting taken down by his first attack and all turning on him together…
This is a normal fear, it’s a justified fear, but the Pressure is amplifying it, just set it aside.
He breathes deep, then lets it out as he watches the kingler scurry to the male nidoran and crash its massive claw onto it in a blow that crushes it. Red barely notes the gore, watching the female nidoran switch from trying to scramble toward the kingler to running away, out through the broken front door.
Now.
Red’s arm doesn’t move, and the kingler turns itself around to search for threats… then spots him in the stairwell.
NOW!
He leaps backward as another stream of foamy water shoots out, tripping over the stairs behind him and scrambling back as the attack hits his legs in a painful spray… and covering his shoes in slippery foam that would make running impossible.
Red pulls Pikachu’s ball off and aims it at the stairs above him, out of the water soaking the stairs and floor below him. “Go, Pikachu!” His pokemon appears and flinches, quivering in place until Red lifts his legs to the side and yells, “Shoot!”
Pikachu leaps forward over Red, and electricity arcs out. It bends toward a metal clothing rack to the side, but its feet are in the water, and the charging kingler falls over twitching as it slides. Pikachu lands and immediately leaps onto its back, shocking it directly this time before scrambling to avoid its flailing limbs.
Red struggles to pull a great ball out and get to his feet, shoes slipping and sliding, and nearly misses it when Pikachu, sending another jolt through the kingler, gets knocked across the room by a swing of its claw.
“Pikachu!” Red pulls the greatball out, fury and fear pumping through him. There’s a trail of blood on the ground in the direction his pokemon was flung, mixing with the water,
he’s okay, he’s okay—
The kingler gets to its feet before Red does, and he’s about to unclip Oddish’s ball when he hears running footsteps behind him. Red turns to see Leaf appear, and immediately tosses her the ball. “Careful of—!” he starts, but she’s already caught it and leaping over him, feet skidding on the slippery stairs and spilling her onto her side. She rolls with it, however, a few pokeballs coming loose from her second belt, and stops herself within range to aim at the kingler as it skitters toward her.
She throws, and it bats the ball away with its small claw while raising the massive one overhead, but the contact was enough; the greatball sucks the pokemon inside as it sails away and rolls behind a service counter.
Red lets out his breath, then yells, “Pikachu, here!” as he struggles to get up again. “Leaf, are you okay?” She’s still wearing her biking gear, but he watches with concern as she pushes herself to her feet, then struggles to keep them under her.
“Fine…” She holds onto a mannequin that managed to stay up, then looks around and gasps as she takes in the bloody bodies of the linoone and nidoran. He sees her visibly shudder, then try to step forward, forgetting about what she’d stepped in. She flails for balance, nearly takes the mannequin down before righting herself, then angrily pulls the shirt off it and lifts one foot at a time to wipe off the slippery residue from the bubblebeam.
Red’s mind fills with images of his pokemon bleeding out in a corner somewhere, or with its skull caved in, and feels tears gather in his eyes. He reaches back for a side pocket on his bag where he keeps some tissues to start wiping at his own shoe soles, but they’re not nearly enough, and frustration boils up in him, an anger and feeling of unfairness similar to when he watched his spearow die.
Red yanks his shoes off and carefully gets to his feet, stepping around the bubblebeam residue and rushing toward where Pikachu flew, digging a potion and revive capsule out of his bag, ignoring the feeling of his socks getting soaked around his feet.
His heart leaps as he sees the flash of yellow against the wall, under the hanging clothes hooked against it. He crouches and carefully picks his pokemon up, remembering too late that he can use his powers to check if he’s alive.
He uses them now, and feels relief as he senses Pikachu’s mind. He quickly empties a potion bottle into the long gash that goes over his back and side.
His pokemon twitches and starts to move again as it’s healed, but Red quickly realizes something is wrong. Pikachu’s hind legs and tail are utterly still.
Red hugs his pokemon to his chest, feeling like he going to cry. He doesn’t hear Leaf approach until she puts her hand on his shoulder, and he turns to her as a tear leaks down his cheek.
“Is he?” Leaf whispers, face horrified, but then she sees Pikachu moving, and lets out a breath of relief.
“His lower spine got severed,” Red says. They could fix it at a pokemon center… maybe. Depending on how bad the injury is.
“Oh, no, poor thing.” She crouches beside him and strokes Pikachu’s head between its ears. “Withdraw him, Red, you can’t do any more for him now.”
Red nods and puts his pokemon down, whispering words of encouragement before stepping back and withdrawing him. He puts his ball carefully at the back of his lower belt, swapping its position with his spinarak, heart heavy.
Leaf wraps her arms around him, shocking Red into stillness for a moment before he awkwardly hugs her back, then squeezes. “He’ll be okay,” Leaf says, and Red nods against her shoulder, not trusting himself to speak.
Over the wind and thunder he hears another pokemon’s cry outside, either in challenge, pain, or fear. Both of them flinch, then pull apart and stare at the doorway. Nothing comes in out of the darkness.
“Here.” Leaf hands Red the kingler’s greatball.
“Thanks.” He clips it to his second belt’s remaining spot, barely feeling any joy at having caught such a powerful pokemon. His heart is still pounding, and he realizes that it’s probably not going to stop on its own, not when more crazed pokemon might rush in at any moment… “We need to…” He clears his throat. “Talk about our next step?”
“I don’t know. We should talk to the people upstairs.”
Red nods, and leads the way up, grabbing his shoes and long-stepping around the slippery spots around the stairs along the way.
Upon reaching the second floor they hear a huge crashing sound outside, a grinding rumble that goes on and on, different from thunder, and they rush to the nearest window together as Red mutters, “Oh, what
now
,” causing Leaf to snort in exasperated amusement.
Though night has fallen and storm clouds blot out the moon and stars, from the second floor they can make out the occasional street lights and lit windows in the distance… and the shapes of pokemon as they continue to stampede. There’s no sign of what the massive noise was, but…
“That was a building, wasn’t it?” Red murmurs, and Leaf nods, face tight.
Something powerful enough to knock down buildings is out there….
“We may not be safe here,” Leaf whispers as lightning illuminates her face through the window.
“That means they won’t be either,” Red asks after the thundercrack, leaving the implication obvious.
She closes her eyes, and he doesn’t need his powers to know that she’s thinking of all those pokemon out there, hurt and dying. “We should get them to the hospital. It wasn’t far, right?”
Red checks his phone. A three minute bike ride becomes… “About a ten minute walk. But only—”
“—assuming nothing goes wrong,” they say together, and smile slightly. Hers looks as strained as Red’s feels, but he’s still glad to see it. He takes his hat off and runs a hand through his hair, trying to still his nerves, then turns back to the group of people who have regathered near the middle of the room and approaches them. He plops down onto the floor and pulls his socks off, then starts cleaning the slippery foam from his shoes with them as best he can.
“I’m Red Verres,” he says, and waits for the others to introduce themselves.
“Pam,” the mother says. “And this is Jordan.”
“Sara,” the older woman says. “This is my husband, Kaito.”
“Tony,” the lone man says, scratching at his arm.
“Where were you all going?” Red asks. “Why didn’t you stay in your homes?”
“We weren’t home when the sirens started,” Kaito says. He sounds like he’s barely holding together, clutching his wife’s hand hard as his other adjusts his glasses. “We were eating out… took a walk after, the transport services got filled or stopped, we couldn’t get one…”
“I work here,” Pam says, voice quiet. “I was doing some accounting, and my son was scared from the sirens, I had to find him, he was hiding in a bathroom and locked it…”
Red frowns at the boy, who’s pressing his face into his mom’s leg as she strokes his back, then turns to Tony, who looks defensive and upset.
“I was… napping, alright?” He shakes his head. “I’m from out of town, and my phone’s broken. Didn’t know where the nearest shelter was.”
Napping?
Whatever, the whole line of questioning wasn’t important, now that he thinks about it. “Didn’t mean to sound judgemental, sorry. My friend and I were just talking about what to do next. We don’t know how safe this place will stay, and were thinking of going to the nearby hospital, at best ten minutes away, to help defend it. You guys could stay out the storm there.”
“Go back outside?” Kaito asks, a quiver in his voice as it rises. “You can’t be serious!”
“You don’t have to come with us,” Leaf says, stepping up beside Red and handing him a towel that she clearly just used to dry herself a bit. He takes it with thanks and tosses his socks aside. Pam glances at them but says nothing, and Red reminds himself to pick them back up later. “But there are others who may need our help too.”
“Would you two protect us?” Sara asks, quiet voice almost drowned out by nearby thunder.
“Of course.”
Pam hesitates. “My son, I don’t think he’d… he might get scared and panic. He doesn’t like storms, and… new things upset him.”
Shit.
Red thinks of projecting calm to the boy, then realizes that if he’s having trouble even getting himself to feel that way here in the building, there’s little chance he’ll be able to while out in the storm or in a combat situation. And that’s not even taking into account his own psychic exhaustion.
He looks to Leaf, who seems as conflicted as he is. “Staying here… would it be so bad?” she murmurs.
Red closes his eyes, letting out a breath. He… really doesn’t want to go back out there.
He knows that’s the cowardice from the Pressure that he’s feeling, but there are objective reasons not to leave the relative safety of the building. That said, he didn’t leave the Cruise Convention just to hide out in a clothing store.
We saved these people, Pikachu might be crippled, that’s enough, let that be enough…
Is that the Pressure talking, or just common sense? Because if they go back out there, he knows there will be more, and worse, to come.
“Pam, are there any rooms in the middle of the floor, separate from everything else that has locks on the door?” he asks, opening his eyes. Leaf is looking at him in surprise, then turns to the woman expectantly.
“No… I mean, yes, the offices, but—”
“You can open them?” She nods. “Then take everyone there.”
“I don’t… customers aren’t allowed to…”
Red isn’t sure what his expression is, but it makes Pam look nervous and Leaf cut in, voice calm but forceful. “Pam, your son isn’t safe out here, and neither are the others. Take everyone there, lock yourselves in until the thunder stops.”
“Screw that,” Tony says. “I’m not staying in an
office
while the place fills with pokemon. I’ll come with you two and get to a real shelter.”
Red had been about to snap at the man and tell him he doesn’t have much choice, until his final comment. What’s he going to do, say no, Tony can’t come with them? It would be easier than defending everyone at the same time, but if it’s just Leaf and Red they could use their bikes. “You don’t have a bike in there, do you?” Red asks, looking at the container ball on his belt.
The man stares at him like he asked an unreasonable question, then says, “No.”
How do non-trainers live so unprepared?
He knows it’s an unfair thought, but he’s too busy thinking about ways to convince the man to stay to spare thought for being charitable. Going slow to protect 5 people makes sense, doing it for one just feels suboptimal. That might just be because he doesn’t like the man.
“We’ll stay here?” Kaito half asks his wife, who nods. “If you’ll let us,” he says to Pam. “We’ll keep out of anything.”
Pam hesitates a moment more, then her gaze flick to Tony. “Alright,” Pam agrees, seeming relieved that he won’t be with them.
Dammit.
Red is glad the older folks wouldn’t be more people for them to watch over, but now convincing Tony to stay might cause trouble with Pam.
“Take us there now,” Red says as he takes his container ball out and grabs some new socks, then pulls his shoes on. “I have an idea to keep you guys a bit safer.”
They reach the administration wing, the whole thing set against a wall of the building with multiple rooms inside. “Stay in one of the middle ones, not too close to the building’s wall or these inner walls,” Leaf says.
Red brings his pineco out, near where the administration wall meets the building wall, then lifts it up and says, “Set!” The pineco shivers, then starts dropping sharp shards of its hard shell, the patter of the razor thin chitin faint on the carpet as Red starts walking backwards, repeating the command as needed.
Leaf does the same with her own pineco from the other side, and soon they reach the door. “Ok, get in. We’ll spread this in front afterward. Watch your step when you end up leaving, you’ll have to jump over it. Oh and be careful on the stairs.”
“Thank you, both of you,” Pam says, then leads her son inside. The elderly couple echo her, and then Red looks at Tony.
“Last chance to stay,” he says. “I’m pretty positive this will be safer for you than coming outside with us.”
Tony hesitates, then shakes his head. Red suppresses a sigh and finishes spreading more spikes, then withdraws his pokemon, whose bottom half now looks somewhat bare.
Leaf walks behind him and Tony to spread more spikes along the stairs as they go down. The first floor is still empty, but they’re still cautious as they make their way to the door.
Red reaches it and holds a hand up so Tony and Leaf stop. He pokes his head out and looks around. “Nothing I can see.”
“More waves are probably coming,” Leaf says, and checks her phone. “The slower pokemon.” She grimaces and tucks it away. “No signal.”
Red has none either. “Guess we’re on our own.”
Shit, I forgot to tell Blue we wouldn’t be coming…
He looks up at the black sky as lightning flashes nearly constantly. No rain, yet, but he can’t risk bringing Charmeleon out when it could come pouring down at any time.
Instead he summons Nidoran, then Bellsprout. Red watches his pokemon to see how they’re reacting to the Pressure. Both are tense, Nidoran’s ears twitching madly in every direction. Probably hearing pokemon that Red can’t.
Thunder cracks at the same time as a blinding flash of lightning, making Red jerk in fear, adrenaline pumping through him and setting his nerves on edge. He lets out an angry sigh as he tries to calm himself down again.
It’s been barely an hour since the flock went over us, and I already feel like taking a nap… somewhere far away or deeply protected.
He pushes back the instinct to run back upstairs and hide with the others, sucking in a deep breath, then letting it out slowly. It takes some time, but little by little he regains some sense of calm, and sends his psychic sense outward in a quick burst.
Other than the minds of Tony, Leaf, their pokemon, and the four upstairs, he senses nothing. He sends another pulse out just to be sure, then asks, “You guys ready?”
“Yes, dammit,” Tony mutters, breaths coming too fast.
“Ready,” Leaf says, voice steady, but with a tense edge.
“Okay. Follow me,” Red says, and leads them out into the storm, hoping he’s not about to get them all killed.
They’re not five steps away from the building when rain begins to fall.
There’s the storm itself, first and foremost. The world strobes between dark and light as constant, varying, often overlapping booms and rumbles of thunder pound at her ears. Powerful gusts of winds whip at her hair and clothes. Basic communication is difficult, and even keeping track of where they are quickly becomes an issue as the street signs are hard to make out, assuming they’re still even standing. The rain is still fairly light, but it reduces visibility even further, and gives cold teeth to the wind.
But the storm alone would be bearable. What’s made Vermilion into a waking nightmare are the pokemon.
“Tony,” Red shouts soon after they leave the building. “I’m using psychic senses to see if there are pokemon around so we can avoid them! I need you and Leaf to keep an eye out for any Dark pokemon, okay?”
“Me?” the man yells, like there’s anyone else around. “But I can barely see anything!”
“Neither can I!” Leaf shouts out, irritated at him and knowing she shouldn’t be. “But we still need your help! Watch the sides, and I’ll keep looking behind us!”
“Sides! Okay!” He turns his head rapidly left and right as they walk as Leaf brings up the rear and constantly looks behind her to make sure they aren’t being followed. Her hair is mostly restrained by her bike helmet, but wet strands of it keep getting blown loose to poke at her eyes. She considers putting her goggles on, but the rain would quickly make them useless.
Raff and Scamp walk beside her, their bodies occasionally twitching and shivering in ways that have nothing to do with the rain and wind. She feels guilty for subjecting them to this, but if they can help her save other pokemon… and people… She doesn’t need them for that though, does she? She saved her new nidorino by putting herself at risk, and Red’s pikachu…
No, that’s the Pressure, I got lucky to save Nidorino with only light burns, if it had turned toward me…
She knows better than that, he wouldn’t have died if it got burned a little before she captured it, it’s sad to think of it getting more hurt but it could have been healed if that happened. She knew the stormbringer’s aura would make it hard to fight, would be distracting, but this is more than that. It’s not just that guilt is adjusting the priority of her values, it’s so overpowering it makes her
stupid
in the pursuit of them
,
she can’t
actually
save more pokemon if she gets herself killed trying, and she needs to keep that in mind, even when the feeling is hard to think through.
Especially
then.
So resolved, she walks about another minute before she sees the first one.
It’s a ponyta, lying dead in the street not a block away from the clothing store. There’s no question it’s dead: something has cut it so deep in front of its forelegs that it looks nearly chopped in half. Its mane no longer glows, orange hair lying limp and darkened by the rain that spreads and dilutes the pool of blood it’s laying in. The whole tableau is at the edge of one of the few remaining street lights, visible even between the lightning strikes.
The sight of it cracks something in Leaf’s heart. She steps toward it before she can help herself, hand fumbling for a potion and revive capsule, it
looks
dead but it
might
not
be, she has to capture it at least and check, she has to do
something
to save it,
save it, I have to save it…
“Leaf!”
She turns to see Red and Tony, staring back at her from the end of the sidewalk. She’s surprised for a moment that he even noticed she’d stopped, but of course his powers would tell him.
Leaf looks back at the ponyta. His powers would be able to tell if it was alive. Red wouldn’t have just ignored it if it were alive.
Would he?
No. No, Red’s a good person, he has trauma about pokemon but he wouldn’t just let it die. Even if that’s not true, at the very least he’d capture it for his own sake. If he’s ignoring it it’s because it’s dead.
Leaf closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Forces her feet to keep moving.
Red calls out a warning for some pokemon that seem to be fighting up ahead, and they take a detour… where they encounter a doduo lying in the middle of the street, both necks bent at unnatural angles to twist to either side of its round feathery body. There’s another after that, the burnt body of something small, maybe a nidoran or a rattata. And when they turn back toward the hospital, she spots a pidgey that flew into a building and broke its neck.
She can’t tell when she starts to cry, the rain disguising her tears even from herself.
Keep going, just keep going, there’s nothing you can do for them, just keep moving…
But even while she follows her own advice, part of her hates herself for not even checking to make sure the pokemon are really dead. For not doing enough to save them. Isn’t that why she became a trainer? To help people
and
pokemon? Isn’t that how she justifies capturing them in the first place?
No, she can’t blame herself for this. The real blame lies in the stormgod. Zapdos.
The hate that fills her is alien, burning her chest as she wipes at her face. She’d never hated anything so much in her life, let alone a pokemon. How many times had she sagely repeated, “
No sense getting mad at a minccino for being a minccino”
to herself, a reminder that all creatures follow their nature, and can’t be blamed for being what they are?
But this… the sheer destruction, the madness and pain and death that sweeps all it touches and drives them into madness and pain and death, it’s as close to real “evil” as anything a pokemon does that she can think of. Maybe it makes as much sense as calling a regular storm evil…
But you can’t kill a storm.
She drives the thought away, horrified by it, but also resigned. Can’t kill a god, either.
Not yet.
She turns to Red every so often to see how he’s managing. She knows that before the voyage using his powers like this would quickly be overwhelming, and from what she felt of them earlier he’s pretty close to his limit already. But… he seems mostly fine. Maybe his “psydar” really is just that much less costly to use. What impresses her more is that he even manages to concentrate on it through not just the distractions of the storm, but whatever the Pressure is making him feel, which she’s pretty sure is fear.
Until they see their first humans.
Leaf nearly walks into Tony, who has stopped because he nearly walked into Red. They all stare when they see what he’s looking at. It’s a pair, one adult and one child. They’re lying on the pavement trampled and torn up and just as clearly dead as the ponyta had been, but Red still stares and doesn’t move as the rain pours down and the wind blows his hair beneath his helmet.
Leaf swallows down the sob that’s rising in her at the sight. It’s her turn. She walks over to Red and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Red…” She doesn’t know what to say, other than the obvious. “We have to go!”
He looks at her, face twisting in grief and fear, but then he takes her hand. His skin is warm, and she realizes that hers are just freezing from the wind and rain. “There are people,” he says. “In the buildings we’re passing.”
She understands. Shouldn’t they be checking on them? What if they end up like these two? “No pokemon with them?” He shakes his head. “Then they’re probably safer inside,” she says, hoping it’s true.
Red closes his eyes, breathes deep, nods, and keeps moving. Leaf watches him for a moment, waiting for Tony to move past her. She remembers what it felt like, inside, and feels a surge of care for him. He’s trying so hard to do what’s right, even when he doesn’t know.
He always tries so hard…
She feels a sudden warmth toward him, and on its tail comes the flash of feeling she’d sensed when their thoughts were joined. The regard he has for her.
She didn’t know how to respond to that, at the time, and doesn’t now. But she wishes she’d reacted to it at all, instead of ignoring it and just hammering him about his views on pokemon until he left. She’d felt bad about that, been tempted to chase him, but she was still struggling too much against what she had felt in his thoughts, was worried she would make things worse.
Now her guilt over that seems to grow and grow. They could die here, either or both of them, and she’d been so unfair to him on the cruise… he tried so hard to understand her and let her understand him… she’s a horrible friend, she’s not used to having them for so long, of course she’d screw it up eventually…
It’s the shift that makes her notice it. The way her attention stops automatically drifting toward the guilt of not helping pokemon enough, to guilt over how she’s not a good enough friend. The severe switch, from constantly checking their pokemon to ensure they’re holding up okay to constantly checking Red to make sure he is, is enough to make her frown at herself. It feels wrong, and—
—and it’s distracting her from looking for Dark pokemon! She looks around, wildly at first, then lets out a breath, her guilt at being a bad friend surging up again before she shifts her attention away. That’s what she has to do, the Pressure somehow changed what it was affecting, but the solution is the same, just keep her thoughts on what’s important…
They walk through the storm and see more bodies, pokemon and human. At one point there’s another huge ongoing rumble that wasn’t thunder, and Leaf feels the ground tremble. She wonders if another building fell, or if there’s some pokemon beneath them causing quakes. How far down does the Pressure go? The idea of a rampaging onix beneath the city is terrifying, not just for its potential surfacing, but for the infrastructure damage it might cause.
Vermilion is a coastal city though, the water table must be near the surface… And rising with the rain.
A chill that has nothing to do with the storm suddenly goes through her. If the water table rises enough to force the underground pokemon up, or those in the sewers…
“Pokemon in one of the buildings to our left,” Red shouts over the wind and thunder, snapping her out of her dark thoughts. They’re passing by a building with its door smashed in. “Keep an eye on it! Don’t sense any humans inside!”
“Is the pokemon hurt?” Leaf shouts back.
“Can’t tell! Just getting instant impressions!”
Worry goes through her as she remembers the bird pokemon bleeding from the broken glass inside them. “Red, we have to check!”
“What? Why?!” Tony yells.
“Leaf, it’s rampaging in there,” Red says, ignoring the man to look at her. “I can sense it moving around, fast! It’s not worth the risk!”
“If there was a human in there, you’d risk facing it to save them!” She stares into his eyes, willing him to understand. “Because you’re a good person! I have to be willing to risk facing it to save it too! It’s just as much a victim of Zapdos as the people here!”
Red stares back at her, then curses. “Do you have a plan?”
She nods and heads for the building, hand going to her pocket to pull out ear plugs. Joy’s voice would be mostly useless in the pouring rain, howling wind, and constant thunder, but hopefully inside… “You stay out here! Watch for the next wave!” She turns to her pokemon and points to the ground. “Guard!”
“Wait!” Tony shouts. “We might as well get out of the rain!”
“Too dangerous! I’m going to be using an area of effect attack!”
“A what?”
Leaf shakes her head and goes inside before he can argue. The man is turning out to be more of a hassle than she’d imagined, and she wishes he’d just stayed behind.
Leaf steps carefully through the broken door of the restaurant and summons Joy, the sound of the storm twice as muffled now that she’s mostly inside. It’s nice to be out of the cold, and she takes a moment to rest from the wind and rain as she looks around. A line of chaos extends from the doorway past the tables, upending them and the chairs, and her eyes jump to the claw marks on the floor, the gnaw marks on the chair legs. She takes a moment to study them, knowing she needs to hurry but not wanting to rush into anything.
Raticate.
Got to be. The sound of something crashing around inside the house makes Leaf start moving faster, worried the pokemon will hurt itself, if it hasn’t already.
She finds a door with its bottom half chewed open, and turns the handle to open the kitchen. It’s been torn apart, food scattered everywhere. The raticate is still there, digging through a cabinet. It turns a food stained mouth toward them as Leaf closes the door, then races straight for Joy, huge teeth open.
“Sing!” Leaf yells from behind her pokemon, and the wigglytuff’s voice fills the room, muffled and warped through her earplugs. The raticate stumbles, then falls limp and rolls to a stop. Leaf’s heart is in her throat as she watches it a moment while she pulls a pokeball free, then aims, locks, throws.
The ball absorbs it, then falls and rolls to a stop. She steps quickly over to pick it up, then withdraws Joy and takes her earplugs out as she makes her way back toward the front and out the building, wincing as the storm hits her again.
Red and Tony are watching both ends of the street, but Red turns to her with clear relief when she comes out. Tony just looks stressed and scared and impatient.
“Okay?” Red asks, voice raised over the rain.
“Yes! Thank you!”
They set off again, and Leaf feels better about things for a while, knowing that she took time to save a pokemon that might have gotten hurt or hurt someone else. She watches for Dark pokemon as best she can as they move from one block to another, trying not to focus on the bodies they see, human and pokemon alike, as Red continues to help them avoid pokemon wandering around the city.
But little by little she feels the Pressure erode at her thoughts again, start to bend them. It’s been a while since Red called out anything. Are there pokemon around them that he’s ignoring, now, to make better time?
No, she shouldn’t think that way… gods, why is she so
suspicious
of him, she’s such a terrible friend…
…but he wouldn’t be lying or anything, he’d just be… staying quiet. And she’s been in his head. She knows how easy it would be, to make that calculation, to not put him (or her, especially her) at risk just to save a pokemon.
And now Leaf worries they’re passing a dozen pokemon who are bleeding and broken just out of sight, and she’s just
walking by them
and not
doing anything
because she doesn’t want to
make things awkward
…
“Stop!” she yells.
Tony lets out a small scream and looks wildly around, hunkering down, but Red just scans their surroundings for whatever Dark pokemon she might have seen, then turns curiously to her, hand going up to shield his face from the rain as it shifts to blow into his face.
Leaf walks up to him, turning him away from the wind. “Red…” How is she going to put this? She needs to get rid of these thoughts, to make it clear to herself that they’re not worth worrying about. “I want you to know, I trust you!”
Red stares at her, rain trailing down his face. “I… I trust you too, Leaf!”
“I know you care about me!” she continues, cheeks burning against the cold. “And I know how hard you try to do what’s right! I trust you to tell me if there are pokemon around us who I could save! So I’m not going to let the Pressure distract me with those thoughts! I need you to know that, that I’m sorry for what I said before, and that I trust you! Completely!”
Red keeps staring at her, and thunder crashes overhead, making them all flinch. “Are you two
seriously
doing this
now?
” Tony asks. “
Here?”
“Shut up!” Leaf snaps at him, then turns back to Red, willing him to understand, to
get
it…
His face is a stew of emotions that are hard to read in the inconsistent light, and she’s aware of how close they are. She wonders if she should step back, but then his hands are on hers.
“Leaf… I
swear
to you, I’ll let you know if there’s a pokemon still alive around us! I… care about you, and I trust you too!”
Relief, overwhelming and cleansing. She doesn’t know if he understood, she can’t know if he really will or not, but he still said what she needed to hear.
Leaf realizes suddenly how easy it is to trust someone, when you know everything about them. When you
know
that they’re going to act a certain way, you trust them to act that way. But that’s not the
deepest form
of trust. Real trust requires uncertainty. It requires situations where the person might make choices that you’ll never know, might even make choices that appear to be wrong, but which you’ll accept anyway because you
trust that they had a good reason.
She has to trust him as a
choice,
rather than wait for certainty. Or the Pressure would eat her up inside.
Leaf smiles briefly, and lets him go. His hands leave hers a moment later. “Okay! Let’s go!”
Red nods, gaze lingering on her face, and then he turns and starts to walk again. Leaf takes up the rear again, watching their surroundings, her thoughts still bending toward worry of being a bad trainer, or bad friend, before she forcibly remembers what Red told her, his words to remember her trust in him, and his for her.
A block later he stops to let her know there’s a pokemon a street down that’s staying still, and they detour to find a doduo sprawled on the ground with a broken leg. Next to it is a rattata that was clearly pecked to death, and is still being pecked, one head and then the other diving down into its body. Leaf feels her gorge rise and has to turn away, eyes closed and mouth open to let the rain wash the bile from her mouth, and when she turns back Red has already captured it, and she gratefully follows him back to their original route so they can move on.
When Red next stops them, it’s because he senses pokemon in one of the nearby apartment buildings. They walk around it until they find the side with broken glass all over the street, and Leaf has to fight down sudden nausea. The apartment building is twelve stories high, tall enough that it got hit by the wave of flying pokemon, and the ground is littered with dead birds and bugs who crashed into windows. She assumes they’re all dead, anyway, because Red is ignoring them as he triangulates by moving from side to side.
“This is one!” he says, pointing up to a broken window on the fourth floor. Leaf averts her gaze from the ground and counts windows until she knows which apartment the pokemon is in.
“One?”
“Yeah! Two more!” He quickly points them out, on the seventh and ninth floors. There are other broken windows too, but Red says no pokemon are in those. Maybe they flew away after. Or maybe they died from their injuries.
Leaf pushes the thought away as they make their way to the lobby, finally getting out of the wind and rain. Leaf lets her pokemon shake themselves dry, and withdraws them to reduce their Pressure exposure.
Red does the same, then wipes his wet hair from his face. “I’m going to check on the people here, see if they’re okay or want to come with us. Maybe one will be okay with Tony staying with them.”
“Hey,” Tony says. “This is no shelter. What if more pokemon get in?”
Red regards the man with some expression Leaf can’t read. “You can keep traveling with us, but I thought you were getting irritated at our detours? We’re rolling the dice each time we stop, and we’re going to keep doing that.”
Tony shifts his weight. “Right. Well, this place does seem solid enough.”
“Good.” He turns to Leaf. “Will you be okay on your own?”
She nods. “Go make sure the people are okay. I’ve got this.”
Leaf goes to the third floor, counting doors until she reaches the one the first pokemon was in. She presses her ear against the wood, but doesn’t hear anything but the storm outside. When she tests the handle, she finds it locked, and feels a sudden hesitation. It feels wrong to break the person’s door… but there are only two outcomes here. Either the pokemon dies in there from whatever injury it sustained going through the window (unacceptable) or it survives and attacks the homeowner when they return after the storm. She has to do it.
Part of her knows there are other possibilities, that it might survive but be too injured to attack whoever lives here, or that it might leave through the window when the storm ends. But she has no way to calculate those risks, and she’s
here
and has to do
something.
Leaf summons Joy into the hallway, but not for singing. It’s possible the sound of the storm through the window will interfere too much with her singing for it to be effective. Instead she summons Raff too, then points to the door handle and tells her wigglytuff, “Pound.”
The round pokemon inhales, muscles shifting beneath its soft pelt. Its forelimbs, normally the vague shape and consistency of marshmallow flippers, stretch and thicken, and it slams one into the doorknob like a coiled spring of flesh, hard enough to shatter the wood around it before the limb compresses back to its shorter form.
Leaf quickly shoves the door open and steps behind Joy in case something comes out, but there’s only an empty front hall. The sound of the storm is louder, and she raises her voice to say, “Raff, Scout, Subdue!”
Her ivysaur moves into the dark apartment, muscles tense, and within moments a shape leaps out of the shadows at him, the hallway light revealing it to be a noctowl. Raff immediately sends sleep powder out from between his fronds in response.
The noctowl bats a wing forward, blowing the powder back down the entry hall and slamming Raff against the wall with a sudden burst of wind. Leaf ducks behind Joy and holds her breath, and watches as her pokemon tilts back from the gust of wind, then rocks forward and falls onto its face, body relaxing back into softness as Joy bounces gently, fast asleep.
Instead of following up on the attack, the noctowl hits the ground on its side and scrambles to get back up. One of its wings is broken and bleeding. Leaf rushes forward, ball in hand, gets the ping, and throws. The noctowl prepares to flap again, but is sucked into the ball before it can.
Leaf lets out her pent up breath as she half-collapses against a couch. That was close. She’d almost fallen prey to her own sleep powder, all because she was in such a rush to save the pokemon she didn’t put her air mask on despite being about to use spores. Though it’s not as distracting as before, the Pressure is clearly still affecting her decisions.
She checks Raff to make sure he’s okay, then withdraws him and wakes Joy before pulling her back into her ball too. Then she puts her new Noctowl into her bag, since both her belts are full, now, and after a moment’s thought puts the raticate she caught in her bag too so there’s a spot empty on her belts.
It’s getting kind of full. She’ll have to start tossing things soon if she catches more pokemon.
Leaf puts her air mask on now, then goes to check the next apartment she’d marked, going up another three flights of stairs, then counts the doors to find the right apartment. This one has its lights on, and Leaf watches with tensed muscles as Raff cautiously walks into a living room that looks like it’s been thoroughly trashed, a trail of blood on the carpet. After walking past the corner of the hallway, he ejects sleep powder at something out of sight.
Leaf twitches, a command on her lips, but nothing happens. Raff is focused on whatever he sprayed, alert and ready, but… not like he’s expecting combat.
Leaf hurries past Joy and enters the living room to see a bloody fearow, covered in deep stab wounds and lying still in a small crimson pool. Raff’s thin coating of sleep spores covers it… and the large kitchen knife in its chest.
Leaf almost raises a pokeball to capture it anyway, just in case, but just stares in grief and self-recrimination… and confusion. Her mind is interpreting what she’s seeing in a certain way that doesn’t make sense, and she
knows
it doesn’t make sense. There’s no way it flew into the kitchen and impaled itself on multiple knives, only one of which stuck in it. And if the other wounds are all from glass… then where’s the glass? She hears the outside storm, but not through any broken windows here: from behind her.
She turns to see the erratic trail of blood and claw marks and feathers leading to one of the bedrooms. Her heart is pounding for some reason, feet moving automatically to follow it… turns into a brightly painted room… sees…
…
…her knees give out, eyes shut, but still seeing…
…
…the crib, bloody…
…the woman, covered in deep gouges and scratches…
…the storm roaring outside the broken window, drowning out her groan of grief and defeat.
For the second time tonight, Leaf’s stomach heaves out its contents, her hand scrambling at her facemask to push it up in time, which only brings the smell to her. This time she empties herself before she’s able to crawl back, push herself up, get out and away. She doesn’t stop until she’s out in the hallway again, shaking and crying as she slides back to the floor, head in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she tells them, voice hoarse as tears start to fall. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
The storm rages outside, the smell of blood and worse contending with it. Leaf usually loves the smell of rain, the faint scent of ozone before, the clean minerally smell during, and the wet earthy smells that comes after.
But this storm’s ozone is sharp enough to burn her nostrils, and its rain carries with it the smell of dirty asphalt and oppressive dampness. The engine of destruction that Zapdos weaves around itself is one of nothing but pain and misery and death.
Raff eventually walks over to her and nuzzles his head against her side. She wraps her arms around his neck, carefully pressing her cheek to his leathery forehead as one hand brushes his frond.
What finally gets her up is the thought that Red didn’t sense people in this apartment. They’d already been dead when they arrived… but the fearow had been alive. It had finished bleeding out while she was making her way upstairs or catching the noctowl. Leaf would have only been too late by a few minutes at most, and there’s one more pokemon still in the building. It might be dying as she just sits here and wallows.
Leaf pats Raff and pushes herself up, then withdraws her pokemon and makes her way out of the apartment, feeling numb. As she does so she wonders if anyone else lives here, would come home to find… this. Her stomach clenches, making her put a hand on the wall, but there’s nothing left to come up, and after a moment she starts walking again.
By the time she reaches the stairs she’s moving quickly again, intent on saving the last pokemon if she can. When she reaches the apartment on the seventh floor, she stops herself. She has to think, to make sure she’s not rushing or forgetting something because of the Pressure and what just happened…
She turns from that memory, and busies herself summoning Raff and Joy again before she puts her face mask on and reviews her strategy. Joy smashes the lock, she opens the door, Raff goes in to subdue… Still seems like her best plan. She wishes she had pokemon more effective against Flying types… but no, they’d all hurt them far too much… Raff is safest, even if he’s at risk…
She bites her lower lip, remembering the way the noctowl blew his spores away. If it hadn’t been injured, he may have gotten seriously hurt. Why is she putting him at so much risk just for wild pokemon?
What, so I’m going to value his life over the pokemon’s just because he’s mine? I’m just like everyone else if I do that.
Shame burns in her chest, and she orders Joy to smash the lock, then leans around her and opens the door. “Raff, Scout, Subdue,” she calls out over the heightened sound of the storm.
The ivysaur goes in once again, and like last time reaches the living room before spraying sleep powder at something. Leaf hurries inside and sees a pidgey lying on the ground. Leaf’s heart sinks, thinking she may have been too late again: it didn’t try to fight back at all, and it looks pretty battered, like it bounced around the walls and ceiling in here after crashing through the glass.
She quickly captures it anyway, then goes to turn on a light so she can find the ball more easily when it rolls away. As soon as she flips the switch up, the buzzing of wings behind Leaf makes her turn to see something red and blue and yellow streaking toward her.
It hits her backpack, the shock of the blow absorbed enough that it only sends her sprawling into the wall. She just barely manages to avoid braining herself against the wall by slapping her arms against it, and quickly turns to see Raff and Joy attacking the ledian that hit her. It dodges Joy’s leap and Raff’s sharp leaves, and the buzz of its wings suddenly grows overbearingly loud. Leaf flinches back, hands clapping over her ears as it feels like her ear canals are being invaded by sharp stabbing worms.
The contending noise of the storm combined with her earplugs manages to keep it from being too harmful, but it also keeps Leaf from being able to shout out commands to her pokemon, who are struggling against the attack. The ledian is too fast for her to get a lock on it, and Crimson’s mobility would be more hampered by the small room,but there’s one pokemon she has that may be able to catch it.
A sudden burst of guilt stays her hand as she grabs her beedrill’s pokeball. It might
kill
the ledian, she can’t…
The red bug rockets into Joy’s face, and her pokemon cries out in pain as blood starts to spread over her downy fur.
“
Joy!”
Leaf stares in horror as she sees one of the wigglytuff’s big, beautiful eyes is ruined, and then she’s withdrawing her pokemon before its keening noises of pain can rend at her heart any more. The ledian dives at Leaf again, but dodges out of the way as Raff’s vines swing at it.
“Go, Beedrill!” Leaf yells, fury and pain pulsing through her as her pokemon materializes. “Twin Needle!”
The ledian zips around the small room, but Beedrill cuts the corner as a burst of wind cuts one of Beedrill’s wings and spins it around. As it falls, however, one long, sharp claw stabs at the ledian and pins it to the wall, dragging it down as Leaf’s pokemon falls to the carpet.
Oh shit oh shit it’s going to die
“Back!” Leaf calls out, but her pokemon doesn’t listen, still stabbing at the Ledian, and Leaf stares in useless horror for the space of a panicked breath before she remembers Raff and yells “Sleep Powder!”
The blue spores spread over the two bugs, and their frenzied movements slow, then stop. Leaf is already moving forward to pull Beedrill’s arm out of the ledian’s chest, pokeball ready in the other hand to capture it. It pings, and she tosses it in a careful underhand to make sure her shaking hand doesn’t miss.
Once it’s caught, she collapses back into the couch behind her, breathing hard and fogging her face mask. She feels wrung out, emotions still rising up and crashing against each other, bursting all over her insides like splashes of paint.
Joy.
How bad was her wound? Too serious for a potion, probably, but… maybe the pokemon centers could heal it… it was hard to see how badly damaged the eye was, there was so much blood…
Leaf feels light headed for a moment, and abruptly sits up, worried she breathed in some sleep powder accidentally. But no, she’s not sleepy.
Oh good. Just shock.
Her hands are still trembling as she returns her sleeping beedrill, then Raff. She stands, then abruptly sits back down, knees weak. Maybe she’ll just… sit here a moment. And heal her pokemon. Yeah.
The storm blows the occasional mist of rain through the window and onto her face as she brings Beedrill back out and sprays his wing, then uses an awakening potion on him. Once he’s buzzing back to consciousness, she withdraws him, then brings Raff out and checks him over for injuries. Seeing none, she sprays potion into his ears for the ledian’s attack, which makes him shake his head and raise a forepaw to rub at them. She smiles and pets his head, then looks out into the blackness of the storm as lightning flashes and thunder roars.
She wonders how the others are doing, out there. She wishes she never came to this place, and feels ashamed of her cowardice before she dismisses that as just another Pressure induced feeling. Whether it’s true or not, it’s easier to act brave if she thinks it is. She can make time for regret later, if she needs to.
Leaf collects the ledian and pidgey’s balls, then goes back to the lobby. She expects Red or Tony to be there, but it’s empty. She goes to the bathroom to wash her mouth out, shuddering as the memory returns. When she enters the lobby again, Red and Tony still aren’t around.
She hears something outside.
Leaf turns toward the front door, wary.
What now…
It comes again, the cry of some pokemon. Leaf feels apprehension trickle down her spine, and quickly goes back to the stairs, gaze staying on the front doors as best she can.
She rushes up the stairs, pokes her head out into the hall of apartments and yells, “Red!” She doesn’t see him, and goes to the next floor, doing the same thing, then the next. She’s about to run up to the fifth when she notices a door that’s slightly open.
It’s the door to the apartment where she caught the noctowl.
She’s sure she closed it. Maybe the wind blew it open… she did break the lock, after all… but no, the door handle was intact.
Leaf walks to the apartment, frowning. When she pushes the door open to look inside, she sees Tony standing in the trashed living room and quickly covering a container box, which he then withdraws into its ball.
“What are you doing, Tony?” Leaf asks, voice barely audible over the storm. She has a brief but powerful flash back to Mt. Moon, and rage quickly joins her incredulity.
“Nothing.” Tony doesn’t look at her, and starts walking toward the door. She moves automatically to stand in his way.
“Are you fucking kidding me?
Nothing?
That’s all you have to say?” Leaf glares up at him, anger burning through her chest as she thinks of the woman and child lying dead upstairs. “After we’ve been trying to keep you safe, you
parasite,
you utter p-”
Pain explodes through her face, and she’s knocked to the ground in a sprawl, her bag holding her up. She lies in a daze for a moment, listening to his feet pounding down the hallway as she tries to reorient herself. He’d just… Swords of Justice that
hurt…
Her hand grabs for a potion, but then she stops and forces herself to her feet, still reeling from the blow as she chases the man downstairs just in time to hear Red shouting at him to stop.
Her friend is in the lobby, staring at the exit as Leaf tries to run past him, stopping as he grabs her arm. “Red, he’s a thief! We have to stop him, he was stealing from the apartments!” Every word sends new pain throbbing through her face, but she barely notices as she tugs at his hand.
Red gapes at her. “Are you… Leaf, your face! He
hit
you?”
“
Yes!
Now let me go! We have to stop him!”
He unclips a potion from his bag and sprays the pulsing ache in her jaw. The pain quickly fades under the cool layer of liquid, but he still doesn’t let her go. “What are you going to do if you catch him?”
The question brings her up short. What
would
she do? Use her pokemon to incapacitate him? She’s not a police officer, he’s not an immediate threat and none would respond to a call like this…
Shit, I should have taken his picture with my phone…
Out in the storm it would be almost impossible. “I can’t just let him get away with stealing their things!” Especially since
she’s
the one who broke open their doors…
But no, that was worth it. Property damage and theft aren’t as important as saving lives. She feels shame welling up inside her again. Why is she even pushing this when there are still pokemon out there that need help?
“I know it sucks, Leaf, but you can’t go outside, there are pokemon moving around out there!”
Her frustration and shame are pushed aside by the infectious fear in his voice, and she looks at the darkness on the other side of the glass doors. “How many?”
“Not a lot, yet, but enough that I don’t think we should leave. I think another wave is arriving!”
Another wave. Dread fills her as she imagines all the pokemon out there who are going to wind up dead or are already dying as they stampede across the city together.
The urge fills her to stamp and scream, to curl up and cry. There are too many, she’s just one person, she can’t save them all, but she has to
try—
Think through this, think! You can’t save them if you’re dead!
She could have died already even while being careful, that ledian… “Red, before we came in, your power didn’t see any rooms with two pokemon in it, right?”
“No, none!”
“Then I think your psydar can’t see bug pokemon. I found a ledian in the highest apartment along with a pidgey it had beaten unconscious.”
Red’s eyes widen, and he unclips a ball. “Go, Spinarak!” His pokemon appears a moment later, and he closes his eyes. “…Shit, you’re right. Even expecting it, there’s barely any trace of a mind to be picked up. I have to concentrate to… Oh,
shit!
Leaf, there are bugs in this wave! Some are climbing the building!”
“
What?
” Leaf thinks of the apartments whose doors she left open. “Are they breaking windows to get in, or just getting into the ones already open?”
“There are just two, and none are inside yet, but…!” Red rubs at his eyes, tears leaving tracks on his cheeks. “I can’t… Leaf
we have to get out of here!
” he suddenly screams, voice ragged. “We’re
surrounded!
”
Leaf feels fear claw up her throat as he scrambles for his abra’s pokeball, imagination painting an image of pokemon converging on the building and crawling through all the windows in a living flood to slaughter the inhabitants like… like…
“Go, Bill!”
Red’s abra appears, and Leaf snaps out of the mental image of the dead woman and baby upstairs. Red’s going to teleport… he’s going to just
leave
, all those pokemon are hurting and he—
No, wait, he can’t, they’re inside still and there are no open windows, Red should know he can’t teleport in here, why is he…
Leaf notices her confusion a moment later, and grabs Red’s hand as he reaches for his abra. His eyes are too wide, his body shaking…
Pressure.
He struggles against her, and without pausing to think she draws him into a hug, her arms keeping his against his body. He suddenly goes still. “It’s okay,” she whispers, eyes closed as she feels his heart beating madly against her chest. She has to help him, the way he helped her. “I’m with you. Breathe, Red.”
It’s like hugging a mannequin at first, but Red slowly thaws against her. She feels his muscles relax beneath his damp shirt, and his breath comes in a deep, staggered inhale before he lets it out in a rush. He does it again, and when she feels his hands grip the back of her shirt, she relaxes a little.
“Thanks,” he says, voice low. “I think… it’s getting worse.”
“I know.” She’s been feeling it more often and intensely too, despite her earlier protections. “Zapdos is getting closer.”
“Or the constant exposure and other stressors… Leaf, the people living here didn’t want to leave. Some were too terrified to even open the door! I tried to get them to go out into the halls, away from windows, maybe group together… most didn’t want to. I only convinced a few when I felt the pokemon arriving outside. If the bugs start getting in or roaming the halls…”
“It’s okay, Red, you made some of them easier to defend.” She tries to think of the best way to keep so many people in so many different places safe. “How many apartments have people still in them?”
“Um. Let me… seven,” he says, voice choked even as his breathing becomes more steady.
“Okay. And what’s the highest one?”
“The… the eighth floor.”
“How high did you get?”
“Sixth.”
“Okay. So we need to go make sure they’re all safe, right? Let’s go to the fifth floor so you can sense the ones above, and I’ll try to convince them while you monitor for invaders.”
He nods, and she takes a moment to draw strength from him too before she lets him go. His face is red as he pulls away and withdraws his abra, and she pretends not to notice, since hers is probably flushed too.
They rush up to the fifth floor as Leaf tries to plan for what they may be facing. Most bugs that could fly would have been in the initial wave, but those nearby that are most plentiful that crawl include things like wurmple and spinarak. Pretty weak overall, though if an ariados shows up it could be trouble.
“We really should have caught some Rock pokemon!” Red yells as he runs up the stairs ahead of her.
Leaf grins briefly, glad he’s on the same page. “Can’t use Charmeleon or Crimson indoors either!” Which doesn’t leave them with many pokemon that have advantages against bugs. Her ledyba and venonat should be okay…
When they reach the fifth floor hallway, a group of five people are there, sitting on the floor or leaning against walls. “You’re back,” one says, an older woman in a wheelchair. “Is everything alright?”
Red shakes his head. “Pokemon are all around the building. Some may try to get in. Can some of you go to your neighbors and let them know? They wouldn’t come out before, but now maybe they will.”
Everyone stares at him, and Leaf steps forward. “Please, their lives are in danger. One of your neighbors just a couple floors up… she was killed along with her baby by a fearow that flew in.” She swallows, and sees shock and horror on a couple of the faces in front of her, stunned disbelief or blank fear on the others.
Red is staring at her in horror too, but she sees him put it aside to try again. He points to a young man. “You, there’s a couple in 205. Please go and let them know.” He points to an older woman. “There’s a man in, uh, 317 I think? He wouldn’t open the door, just yell through it and come back up if he doesn’t answer. You have to go now, I need to psychically check to see if any pokemon are getting in!”
The tenants he singled out look at him a moment longer, then start to move to the stairs together. Red looks relieved, and quickly sends the others to more apartments until it’s just Leaf, Red and the woman in the wheelchair.
“Elevator’s still in service, if you need me to get somewhere,” she says.
“Maybe later,” Red says. He leans against the wall and closes his eyes, then quickly opens them and looks at Leaf. He looks embarrassed, but also scared. “Could you… it’s getting really bad.”
Leaf understands immediately. He’s been using his powers too much today, and now he can’t even rely on the psydar anymore. She takes his hand and squeezes it. “I’m right here.”
Red nods, and squeezes her hand back, then closes his eyes. Within a minute the strain of constant fear on his face shifts to one of grief. “Five pokemon around the building,” he eventually says, voice tight. “None inside yet…”
Another minute passes, and Red’s lips clamp down on a sob. Leaf’s heart aches as she sees him screw his face up against the grief, wishing she could do more to help him. The door to the stairs opens, and one of the tenants returns with an older couple. Leaf is just turning back to Red when he gasps, eyes flying open.
“Fourth floor… that way!” he points through the floor, and Leaf checks the door above it. 508. So probably 408? “Something just got in, and there’s a person there! Hurry!”
Leaf is already running for the stairs, taking them two at a time as her breath whistles in her ears. When she arrives at the floor, there’s a door open and a young woman running toward her, face twisted in fear. Behind her, an ariados is racing in pursuit, forehead stinger extended.
The sight of a person in danger helps Leaf fight down her worry about hurting the ariados, and she grabs her pidgeotto’s ball. “Go, Crimson!” Her pokemon appears mid-air near the ceiling, and Leaf points. “Gust!”
The ariados grips the floor, hunkering down against the powerful blast of wind to keep from being blown away, and Leaf quickly runs forward with an empty ball and catches it.
It takes a minute to calm the woman down and get her upstairs, and by then Red is already racing away toward the staircase on the other side. “Stay with them!” he yells, and Leaf has to fret nervously in place for a few minutes until he comes back with one of the tenants he sent in tow, along with another one, a young woman with a pokebelt around her waist, three balls clipped to it.
“It was a weepinbell,” Red tells Leaf. “It used its vines to climb up. Leaf, this is Audrey. She’s a Coordinator.”
“Hi,” Audrey says, hands twisted together in front of her. “I didn’t realize… so many people were…”
“It’s fine,” Red says. “You’re here now, you can help protect your neighbors, right?”
Audrey closes her eyes, then nods jerkily. “I can stay here and… yeah.”
“Good. Thank you.” He turns back to Leaf. “There are pokemon approaching 611 and
three
pokemon all grouped up and approaching 704, and there are people in both. The three aren’t bugs, but I think they’re flying types, because they’re not always sticking to the wall, and their movements are weird. We have to go warn them in case one or all of them try to go in. Let’s start with—”
“No, I’ve got better AoE, I’ll take 704,” Leaf says. “In the time it takes for us to get to one it may be too late for the other.”
Red hesitates, but he knows she’s right, and soon they’re heading for the stairs as she considers the unlikelihood of these coincidences. Two for two with occupied apartments so far, and possibly four for four… they must be attracted to the windows with their lights on. And she’s pretty sure she left the lights on in the apartments with the fearow and ledian…
“Be careful, Leaf,” Red says as he opens the door to the sixth floor, and she nods as she keeps going up one more flight. She’s jogging down the hall when she hears a scream, and adrenaline surges through her as she unclips her ledyba’s ball.
Three pokemon, probably flying types, but slower than most to be this far into the storm and moving oddly… might be some hoppip or…?
She summons Ledyba and Raff, throwing their balls ahead and catching them as she reaches 704 and tries to open it. No luck. She steps back and points. “Tackle!” she tells both her pokemon, and they smash into it together, above and below, breaking it off its hinges and revealing…
…six pronged limbs that rotate and spin three grey orbs around in mid-air, each with a staring eye that locks on to her and her two pokemon.
Leaf stares in shock for a moment, then dives back and out of the way as the magneton starts to glow. “Dodge!” she yells to her pokemon as she hits the ground, but a moment later a blinding flash of electricity snaps through the air around them, blackening the walls and ceiling. Raff jerks and twitches, then sags, smoke rising from burns along his body, and Ledyba falls out of the air, her carapace cracked and blackened, innards exposed.
Leaf screams, vision tunneling, and then she’s scrambling up as she reaches for their pokeballs, withdrawing them as the magneton floats out of the doorway. She runs, terror like burnt iron in her nose and mouth as tears blur her vision.
There’s nothing on her belts that can stop a magneton, and she’s pretty positive she just lost one pokemon, maybe even… no, she can’t think that right now. She just has to run.
But the person in the apartment, and the ones upstairs…
She expects to be fried by another flash of electricity at any second, but hits the lever of the stairs’ door and keeps moving, leaping down the first flight and landing on hands and feet before pushing back up so she can race down to the floor below. “
Red!”
Magneton are Electric/Steel, but they have no Fighting or Ground types between them… “
RED! MAGNETON!”
Her voice must echo down the stairs even if her words don’t, because when she opens the door he’s already walking toward her. There’s an elderly man behind him. “Leaf, what’s—”
“Magneton! Upstairs! We need Charmeleon!”
Red groans in frustration, covering his eyes briefly. “Of course… but the building, it might catch fire!”
“I think it’s going to anyway, it killed…” Her chest heaves, words dying in her throat, and she rubs at her face. “It attacked the tenant, and my pokemon, it may have set the hall on fire, I didn’t check… Red the people on the floor above—”
He’s already moving, yelling “Go downstairs!” to the tenant behind him as he runs past her and up the stairs, and she follows, thighs aching from going up and down so much. “We need a plan, Charmeleon can’t take a hit from a magneton!”
He’s right, but… they have nothing that really
can
…
No, that’s not true. She could heal Raff, he’s surely still alive (of course he is, he has to be) she could heal him and then make him take another hit (like the monstrous trainer that she is), or Joy could take one (sure, losing an eye wasn’t bad enough), but she’s just guessing, she has no idea how powerful that mageton is, poor Ledyba was too weak to act as a measuring stick.
Just the thought of her sacrifice being treated that way makes Leaf feel sick with shame, but she
has
to think about this carefully or she might lose more of them.
I can’t choose between them… I can’t!
“Raff or Joy…” Leaf stops herself. She doesn’t
have
to choose… she can just summon Scamp, who probably can’t take a hit, and have him act as a distraction… Just a rattata, Scamp’s just a rattata would she rather lose him or Raff or Joy…
Self-disgust makes Leaf stumble and sag against the wall. Red notices and turns around. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she moans, crying again, dammit all how often is she going to
cry
tonight, “I’m a horrible person, Red, I… I…”
“Stop that! You’re not a horrible person, whatever trade you thought about making
makes sense
and it’s just the Pressure making you hate yourself for it!” He grips her shoulders and squeezes, eyes on hers. “Leaf, I’m going to use my oddish to tank a hit. It can probably take one. You don’t need to use one of your pokemon, just be ready to catch it.”
Leaf stares at Red, gratitude and guilt warring. “I can’t let you—”
“Not your decision, I’m just telling you how it is. You care about your pokemon way more than I do mine, and I know you care about
my
pokemon more than I do mine too, but we don’t have time to let your guilt overwhelm you while we do this, and we need to do this
now,
because the guy in that apartment is still alive, but he’s fading fast. Are you ready?”
She knows she should say no, that she should insist that she use her own pokemon to distract the magneton from Charmeleon. But his words make sense, and she’s almost dizzy with gratitude for them.
No.
If they’re going to do this, she won’t force him to make decisions she doesn’t find palatable.
“I’m going to bring Scamp out,” she says. He’s fast, not faster than electricity but maybe fast enough to get behind the magneton if with a Quick Attack…
Red hesitates, then nods. They summon their pokemon at the door to the apartment hallway, and Red looks through the window. “It’s there, floating in the hallway. It’s… electrocuting things. Randomly I think, but half the lights in the hall are out, and small fires are spreading.”
“Shit.” Leaf wipes sweat from her forehead, then rubs it on her pants to dry her palm and grips an empty pokeball. What else can they do, there has to be something else, some edge…
“Ready?”
“Y-yeah…”
“Okay, going in three… tw—”
“Wait!” She takes a deep breath, then lets it out. Their argument on the boat… she doesn’t think she was wrong, but she regrets so much of how it went, now, how she approached it with him, and she knows part of making that up to him is saying this, now. She can’t hold anything back out of worry for
potential
risk while much greater risk of harm is imminent. “Red, use your
sakki
on Charmeleon.”
He stares at her, a mix of apprehension and calculation on his face, and then nods. “Three, two, one!”
He opens the door and goes right, while she goes left. The magneton hasn’t spotted them yet, its tongs charging for another bolt that lights up the hallway and sets an apartment door on fire, and then Charmeleon flings a blob of fire at the magneton, hitting it on the back of one orb.
It immediately discharges electricity in a burst around it, spinning wildly through the air, it’s in
pain,
what are they
doing—
“Scamp, Quick Attack!” her traitorous voice yells, heart breaking as she sends her pokemon to its doom.
“Oddish, Absorb!” Red’s voice is distant, gaze unfocused as Charmeleon flings more fire at the magneton, trying to hit its weaving form… and succeeding, until the point of contact, where electric current seems to shimmer over the magneton’s body and the flaming oil soon falls off.
It turns to them at last, eyes drawn to the two pokemon approaching it, and Leaf closes her eyes as electricity flashes out again, then again. When she opens them, both Scamp and Red’s oddish are down.
“It has a Light Screen!” Leaf yells, and summons Pineco, not letting herself have time to analyse or justify the choice. It’s just the next pokemon that might actually help in the battle which she’d mind losing the least. “Tackle!”
Her pokemon bunches itself up, then launches forward. Electricity hits it mid-air, but it completes its arc and knocks the magneton into a mid-air spin.
The heat from the smoldering fires finally set off the building’s alarm, and water starts pouring down in the hallway, making the fight immediately more dangerous. Luckily Charmeleon is out of the splash zone for now, but what is he
doing
, Red isn’t giving any new commands…
She turns and sees his pokemon isn’t preparing another fling of its tail, but holding its mouth wide open. It looks like a ball of fire is forming in it, but it glows an odd color, like it’s shimmering with light just barely on the visible spectrum.
“Be ready,” Red says over the sound of the alarm, voice harsh with something like a barely contained rage, and then the glowing orb shoots out in a stream of plasma, hitting the magneton and slamming it against the wall. One of its prongs and a patch of metal along half of one orb is melted, and it strikes the ground with a
clunk
before it starts to hover in fits and jerks to get back up, spinning wildly.
Leaf is waiting for it, ultra ball pointed until she hears the
ping.
The feeling that comes over her as she captures it is a bitter one, almost alien to her.
Not worth it.
It was something she had to do, part of her duty to do, but tonight it’s a bitter duty.
Even more so if Pineco and Scamp are dead. She quickly withdraws them to check later, as they have no time to rest or recover from the fight. Absurdly some part of Leaf takes a moment to bemoan that she’s going to get soaked
again
for the
second time
tonight while
indoors
, then moves toward the room the magneton came from, where the fires have been thankfully already quenched.
Red stops her with a hand on her shoulder. “He’s dead!” Red yells over the alarm, voice choked with the rage that’s twisting his features. “We have to get the others out, these sprinklers may not stop the fire!”
Leaf sees that he’s right: it’s spreading along the walls and ceiling faster than the sprinklers can catch it. Red withdraws his pokemon, and they run for the stairs. “I’ll get the people upstairs!” Red says, and dashes up before she can respond. He knows where they are, at least.
She goes to the crowd at the fifth floor, who look like they’re on the verge of panicking. “Everyone! We have to be ready to leave the building! Red and I will take you to the nearby hospital shelter if the fire spreads!”
“But our homes,” one woman says, barely audible as she clutches at the man beside her. “We can’t just—”
“Get your ass in gear, Emi,” the old lady in the wheelchair snaps as she rolls toward the stairs. “Someone help me down the stairs, the elevators won’t be working with the alarm on!”
That seems to get people moving, and Leaf goes with them as the crowd hurries to the lobby. Audrey pushes her way to her as they go down the stairs, and she looks utterly terrified.
“Leaf… I can’t go to the shelter, I… I’m afraid of crowds! It’s why I didn’t join the city’s defense!”
Leaf doesn’t laugh, because people are dead and dying and it’s no one’s fault what they’re afraid of and she
knows
that the Pressure is amplifying the woman’s fears beyond what’s reasonable, so she doesn’t laugh, either in incredulity or scorn, but she does feel a tiny little ember of resentment that after everything Red and her have done tonight, the one other trainer they’ve met so far would
of course
be so… difficult.
She takes a deep breath as they reach the lobby, trying to organize her thoughts. Some people stop at floors instead of continuing down, probably going to their apartments to grab something. She doesn’t try to stop them; they need to wait for Red anyway, and she can barely keep herself from running up after him as she waits with everyone by the front door.
Only then does she turn to the older trainer, looking up to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry, Audrey, I wish we had more time to get to know each other, so I could understand your… your journey, your life, what you’re like when all this
shit
isn’t going on. I wish I had some idea of what the right thing to say is to help you. Since I don’t know what that is, all I can say is that I think there’s a version of you that you wish you were more like, and you have to be that version of you tonight. And it’s going to be hard, and you’ll screw up and maybe even people will die, but more will if you don’t do this,
you
might if you don’t do this, and when you look back on tonight you’ll know that you were able to do it, and that will make it easier next time. Does that make sense?”
Audrey nods, breathing hard like she’s trying not to cry. She’s edged away from her neighbors, being closest to the door. “I think so.”
“Okay. Great. You can freak out and cry and scream yourself hoarse tomorrow, maybe you don’t even leave your home for a month after this is all over,”
woops her apartment is probably going to be on fire soon, please ignore that,
“but for tonight you’re borrowing all the courage you’ll have in that time and using it here and now. Do you understand?”
She nods again. “Yeah. Borrowing courage. Yeah, okay.”
“Okay.” Leaf rubs her face as they all wait, worry growing with every passing minute, but soon Red comes downstairs with the last tenants in the building, who look shocked at the dozen or so others all standing around in worried clumps. As they all wait together to see if they’ll need to leave and for the others to come back, Leaf brings Raff out, unable to take the worry that he might be dead anymore. The flash noise of his summoning draws startled gasps from people, but she doesn’t even look at them, quickly spraying her pokemon with different medicines until he can stand and blink around him. Something eases in her chest, and she tears up as she rubs his head between the ears. From his sluggish response he’ll need more extensive healing than she can give right now.
She withdraws him, and almost summons Joy but stops herself, knowing she won’t be able to diagnose her injury and not wanting to put the pokemon in any unnecessary pain or use a potion in a way that might harm more than help. Eventually she turns to Red to take her mind off her worry. His face is drawn and haggard, and she approaches him. “Hey. You okay?”
Red shakes his head. “Fine.” He doesn’t seem to notice the contradictory signals there. “More pokemon in the building,” he tells her after a moment’s hesitation. “I promised I’d tell you, but… Leaf, you can’t go get them now, with the fire spreading.”
Leaf stares at him, stomach churning. “How fast? Some people went back to their apartments…” One of them comes down the stairs at that moment, coughing hard.
“Fast. Sprinklers are keeping it from spreading everywhere at once, but it’s on three floors now, and one of the stairwells is filled with smoke. If the other is too…”
She nods, gaze down. The pokemon are going to die, then, and there’s nothing she’ll do about it. She has to make her peace with what kind of trainer she is, especially after what she did with Scamp and Pineco.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No.” She takes his hand and squeezes it. “I’m glad you did.”
“Hey!” someone yells out. “We going or what? Tom said the fire’s spreading, so what the hell are we waiting for?!”
“We’re missing someone!” another voice yells. “I don’t see the guy in the green shirt…”
“Well that’s his choice, but we don’t want to be here when the roof comes down!”
Red closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. His face twitches, but a moment later he opens his eyes. “No pokemon outside the building now, not that I could see.”
Leaf frowns. “And the person inside?”
“In their apartment.” Red sounds so tired, voice flat and dull. “I don’t know why, but the floor above us was on fire by the time we came down. The sprinklers will help but that guy was right, if it spreads into the apartments, some of the roof might start to come down. Fire spreads
fast.
We have no water pokemon and can’t vent the stairs… there’s nothing we can do for them.”
She nods, feeling sick but knowing that Red feels even worse, and turns to the crowd. They can’t save everyone, have already failed to save everyone, and certainly can’t save people from themselves. She just wishes she’d known, she would have tried to stop them… How many more lives are her mistakes going to cost, tonight? A single moment of apathy and distraction, and she’d just let someone walk away to their death.
Some part of her knows that’s not fair, that others could have stopped the man. But blaming any of them would feel like admitting she’s not in control
at all
and she’s already feeling perilously close to empty on willpower.
She clears her throat, wiping at her face, then calls out in a slightly wavering voice, “Everyone! We’re heading out! Stay between Red, Audrey and me! Watch around us for pokemon! Don’t panic, but remember, if you have to run, we’re going to the nearby hospital! Get ready, the wind and rain are going to be strong!”
Red leaves first with his nidoran and bellsprout beside him, and the building tenants start walking out too. Leaf follows them with Ruby and Alice on one side, the venonat and buneary visibly unhappy with the soaking they receive once outside. Audrey summons a poliwhirl and takes the other side of the rear, her pokemon very lively as it waddles energetically beside her.
Leaf sees the coordinator’s pokemon, and rush of self-loathing fills her. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth against the cry of frustrated anger that wants to spill forth. She hadn’t checked what Audrey’s pokemon were. Neither had Red. They’d had a water pokemon available the whole time, and now…
She turns and sees multiple windows of the apartment building glow with fire as the crowd starts walking onto the street. Leaf quickly turns away, feeling like she’s leaving a part of herself behind in the growing blaze.
Leaf keeps her eyes moving for Dark and Bug pokemon and just follows the crowd, misery increasing as she remembers how unpleasant being outside in an intense storm like this is like. The constant thunder quickly starts to give her a headache, and she realizes she’s
tired,
so tired she could just curl up in a corner and cover her face and sleep.
Surely the storm must be over soon… surely…
They’re just a block away from the hospital when there’s a roar that drowns out even the rain and wind for a moment, and everyone freezes in place. Leaf is worried at first that they’re all scared, but then realizes Red must have stopped.
“Watch behind us!” she yells at the people close to her, then pushes through to Red. “What was that, Red?”
“Sounded like a nidoqueen or king!” There’s a crashing sound, and they start moving again, quicker. Leaf stays up front for now, eyes searching the streets for a sign and finally spotting one. Hope thrums in her chest. Soon they see the spotlights surrounding the hospital campus, and then the lights from the buildings themselves become visible in the downpour.
And then Red’s head whips around, and he stops moving. Leaf turns to look, and down the street to the right of their intersection, she vaguely sees the shape of something large moving in the rain and the dark.
Lightning flashes overhead, and she realizes what she’s seeing.
It’s a nidoqueen, and this time Leaf is close enough to feel the tremor in the ground as it stomps its foot, the rumbling that isn’t thunder and the crack that isn’t lightning accompanying the collapse of the building’s corner.
She’s also close enough to hear the screams.
“Oh gods,” Leaf whispers, and turns to see Red frozen in place, whole body twitching like he’s going to run away, or like he senses something painful. “Red, what is it?
Red!
Are they—”
“Get them to the hospital!” Red yells, and starts running toward the nidoqueen. His pokemon follow as fast as they can.
Leaf stares after him, heart in her throat, then turns to the shocked crowd. “Audrey! Up front, now!” Leaf is already bouncing from foot to foot with impatience, wanting to throttle Red for doing this to her while hoping desperately that he’s okay. Audrey shows up what feels like a minute later but is surely only a few seconds. “Listen, Audrey, the hospital is
right there,
don’t you
dare
let anyone die on the way! You need to be a hero tonight, this is your chance, now
go!
” She looks at everyone. “Go,
now!
”
Audrey seems to snap out of her shock and nods, then breaks into a jog, and the crowd starts moving after her.
Leaf doesn’t wait to see if they keep pace or not; she just turns to the nidoqueen and runs after Red, trusting him to have good reason for whatever the hell he’s doing and determined not to let him die alone.
Laura’s in the back of a taxi when the alert comes, on her way to Lavender Town to talk to a ghost.
The info on the flash drive her masked informant gave her made it clear that Silph is paying for someone’s living expenses in Lavender, and that this person was in contact with Silph R&D. But Laura has never encountered someone with such little information available on them. There’s no name or date of birth (the house is listed as owned and maintained by Silph Corporation for occasional trainings and corporate meetings), no contacts, no mention of profession or past. He’s not even on the company’s payroll.
It’s just treated as completely unremarkable that there’s a nameless man living in one of Silph’s unoccupied houses whose bills they’re paying, in exchange for his collaboration on certain projects.
She knows she shouldn’t get her hopes up that the man is somehow connected to the disappearance of the scientists and engineers that Sam told her about. His description, according to her investigator, doesn’t match any of the “missing” scientists or engineers she read about, few of which were actually reported by official sources as actually missing. But it’s been years since many of their most recent photos were available, and if this man hasn’t been using regenerative medicine he could have changed a lot since before he was in Lavender. Or he could have used plastic surgery, or been forced to.
The man’s habits are pretty simple, according to her investigator’s ability to spy through the windows. Wake up, shower, eat, staring at his computer or phone screen (reading seems most likely: one hand is often on mouse with minimal movement, while his expression stays mostly static and focused), work on his garden.
But occasionally he’d be hard at work on something, both on computer and talking on the phone. He never leaves the house except to buy things or sit in the park, according to the investigator. No social visits or trips out of town. No apparent employment. He must be still working for Silph.
Her investigator was good, but not good enough to figure out more about what the man is working on without breaking the law. He’d hinted in the past that as long as no one got hurt he would be willing to “bend over some lines a little, peek at what’s on the other side,” but so far she’s managed to resist the urge to take him up on it.
And the urge has never been fiercer. It’s clear from her investigation that President Silph either directly uses or willfully ignores the use of criminal actions to maximize the power and wealth of his corporate empire. That he’s already targeted her in some way weaves a constant thread of anxiety through her days and nights, a drive to get things resolved as quickly as possible, however she can.
But she needs to do things ethically, or the entire investigation would have weak points through which it could be undercut or dismantled. If this scientist in particular is being held hostage by Silph, then she needs to make sure he knows she can help him get out from under the criminal mogul by revealing his activities.
Unfortunately without a verifiable online presence, the only way the man could be contacted would be through physical means. Hence the letters.
She finishes penning the latest one, then reviews it.
Hello.
This is a test to see if your place is bugged or being video recorded. I hope this is a safe way to communicate with you about your present circumstances. If not, then simply dispose of this note and make no response. If so, write a response on the note and put it under your doormat.
I suspect you need help, and if so, want to help you. Feel free to ask any question in your response. If I’m wrong, then feel free to let me know that instead, and I’ll leave you be.
She doesn’t like it. She’d told the ninja-girl that she was used to cloak-and-dagger stuff, but there are too many unknowns here. For all she knows the man may be a criminal himself who will warn President Silph about the strange contact.
She would have tried to get more information first, tried to answer more questions before taking a risk, but for Leaf’s investigation.
A list of names for those who may have been responsible for the Mt. Moon incident… and one of them is a Silph subsidiary that was in a prolonged legal conflict over the rights of private companies to bid for dig sites along the mountain range.
And, what a coincidence, Silph made payments to someone throughout the dates of the dig. The only problem is that the file containing the payments didn’t reach the date of the incident, so she couldn’t check if they stopped after Yuuta was caught.
It’s not a clear connection, but it’s enough of one that Leaf’s investigation clearly raised some serious questions that might lead to serious repercussions from Silph.
Damn that girl. And bless her. She’s as driven as Red, and as likely to get herself hurt, one way or another. She told Laura she would sit on what she’s learned, and Laura believed her, was proud of her… but also knows that there will be a limit to the girl’s willpower and patience.
And maybe it’s unfair, but Red’s lie is still fresh on her mind. She can’t assume she knows how any of the kids will act.
Laura puts the recently drafted letter in the small pile beside her, then starts thinking of how to approach the next one when her phone buzzes in a harsh tone. Her pulse kicks up as she pulls it out of her pocket and reads the message.
STORMBRINGER ATTACK IMMINENT ON VERMILION CITY. YOU ARE WITHIN POTENTIAL PATH OF DANGER. STAY NEAR SHELTER AND MONITOR UPDATES REGULARLY UNTIL DANGER HAS PASSED.
For a moment the memory of being at Sam’s house when they heard the news of Zapdos traveling by Pewter is overwhelming. The same icy fingers clench around her heart, the same worry that she’s about to lose something precious.
Then she remembers that Red is on the SS Anne, and she closes her eyes, hands pressing against her face in relief so strong it’s almost painful..
Guilt follows a moment later. Blue is still there… and that girl she met, Aiko. Does Sam know? Of course he does. He wouldn’t
go
though, would he? He can’t, not after what happened last time—
The car is slowing. She looks at the driver, who rolls the car to a stop along the side of the road, then turns to meet her gaze.
“Can you drive?” the woman asks, face pale and eyes wide.
Laura is unable to process the question for a moment, then says, “Yes.”
“Good. And do you have pokemon?”
“Just one, in my purse.”
The driver closes her eyes, and her voice is strained. “Can you drive yourself the rest of the way to Lavender Town?”
“
What?”
Laura stares at her, wondering suddenly if she dozed off in the car and is dreaming.
“I have to go, my little sister lives in Vermilion.” She looks at Laura with pleading eyes. “I have to make sure she’s okay!”
Laura meets the driver’s frightened gaze. What she’s asking her to do isn’t hard: cars drive automatically unless switched to manual control, and if attacked, many of their escape countermeasures are sufficient to distract pokemon and outpace them.
But if the car is attacked by something that can catch it… that’s what the drivers are supposed to be for. Not just trained to evade pokemon, but also trainers who will protect their passengers if needed.
“I understand if you report me, after,” her driver says, a note of desperation in her voice now. “I deserve it. But I’d rather lose my job than my sister. Please, just… tell me you’ll be okay on your own.”
Laura checks their location. Another two hours to Lavender. By then finding her sister would probably be impossible. “How will you get there?” Laura quietly asks.
Hope lights in the other woman’s eyes. “I have an abra, bought it just a couple weeks ago. I can go straight there.”
Laura breathes in, then back out. The price of abra had dropped quite a bit since Red and the others revealed their trick and sold so many. It likely led to her being able to afford one. It feels almost fated, that it would be up to her, now, to decide if she gets to use it.
And how could she decide otherwise? She would do the same for Red, if she knew he was in danger and she could help him.
“Go,” Laura says. “I’ll leave the car at the hotel. Good luck to you, and your family.”
The driver reaches back and takes her hand, squeezing. “
Thank you.
Be safe.” She doesn’t waste another moment, getting out of the still running car and summoning an abra, which quickly teleports them both away.
Laura watches them go, thoughts on Blue and Aiko again. Would Sam go? She’s suddenly not sure he wouldn’t.
She realizes abruptly that she’s a sitting target, and quickly collects her letters and goes into the driver seat. It’s been years since she did this, her mother had taught her when she was young… but everything looks about the same as she guides the car back onto the road, then sets it on autodrive and checks the defense mechanisms.
Smoke cloud, flares, pokedoll deployment…
She keeps her gaze moving as the car speeds her away to Lavender, trying to stay alert for danger as her thoughts are pulled to what’s ahead and behind.
There are a lot of doors the name Samuel Oak can open.
If he wanted a ticket to the Cruise Convention? Even if he didn’t know Hazo personally, they’d fall over themselves to offer him a cabin.
If he wants a seat on a regional council for the treatment of lab-raised pokemon? He helped
form
Kanto’s council. No matter how many years he’s been away, or how much he may disagree with them, he can walk right in and they’d let him speak.
If there’s some politician campaigning in a city across the island, and Sam just happens to be in town and want a minute of his time? He doesn’t even need to write a check. The endorsement of Kanto’s premier Professor has interregional implications.
He makes no pretense at not being proud of these facts. If there was a time in his life where false-humility would be useful, he’s long since past it. Sam is always aware that he has very little actual power, outside of his laboratory. The power his status grants him flows from those who appreciate the mind and acts that earned it.
But opening a door is just the first step. After that, it’s up to his powers of persuasion.
“I’m afraid it’s just not possible, Professor Oak.”
Sam stands at the head of a table, where the sitting presidents of every Kanto and Johto university look at him with a mix of apology, discomfort, or bland disinterest. At least none are hostile, or at least not openly so. “Declaring something ‘not possible’ is a pretty strong stance, Daniel. What in specific makes it seem so hard to imagine?”
His old classmate doesn’t seem to take kindly to the familiar name, or the reframe, but a different university head responds before he can. “It’s easy for labs to say that we should just rely on the information in the pokedexes, but universities can’t afford to test the information ourselves. You get to be producer, regulator, and consumer.”
“It would just be for a little while,” Samuel says, spreading his hands. “The journals are consolidating behind paywalls because they can. Because they know you have to pay for them. If you all decide not to, they’ll bring the prices down. They’d have no choice, not if they want to stay relevant.”
“And what if they don’t?” another president says. “Field researchers are well and good to gather data and conduct the occasional imaginative study, but we all know that most of the listed experiments don’t replicate.”
“That’s a feature, not a bug,” Professor Elm explains. Sam’s Johto counterpart is a wispy sort of fellow, with a long, earnest face and a lanky build that his lab coat tends to billow around when he’s in the frenetic motion that keeps his staff hurrying after him. Now he sits with his lanky legs crossed against the table’s edge, a glass of some pale liquor in one hand. “Being able to see what others have tried-“
“No lectures, please, Professor,” President Nara says. The oldest of the university heads, Sam first met her at a Tier 1 threat near a small town by Lavender. “No one here is doubting the value of the pokedex network. We all pay for them too, and we appreciate that the price is so reasonable, and how hard you fought for those subsidies. But journals are where the real prestige comes from for academics that have hung their belt up, or never threw a pokeball at all. You’re asking us to leave our friends and employees out in the cold for what could be years.”
“Not years,” Sam insists. “Maybe one, tops.”
“And then what?” Osamu asks. “The prices are high, yes, but this assures quality of research. Peer review will suffer if the reviewers cannot be paid.”
“With all due respect, you’re on the review board for three different journals,” Professor Elm says, adjusting his glasses. “How many papers have you personally looked over in the past year, out of all those that those journals published?”
Osamu’s face reddens. “Are you questioning my integrity?”
“Not at all,” Professor Oak quickly says. “We know you’re a diligent and rigorous academic. But there isn’t enough time in the day for you to be solely responsible for every paper in even one of those journals. And instead of hiring more reviewers, the names of the reviewers are what’s being paid for. It’s become a mutually beneficial prestigious position, not something that assures quality.”
“I’d like to add,” Professor Elm says with a wry tone, “That the higher degree of accuracy in recent published research probably has more to do with better coordination in the scientific community, not higher cost of journals.”
“An interesting hypothesis,” one of the younger presidents Sam barely knows says, voice dry. “Would be nice if you decide to test it, sometime.”
“This is getting personal,” Sam cuts in. “Let’s keep things focused on the future. There are people working to turn the whole system of how research is funded and available on its head. To make it more accessible and better for everyone.”
“More about this secret project?” Daniel says. “Sly hints aren’t going to convince anyone, Sam. Maybe if you’re willing to finally be candid about what Bill is working on…”
Sam sighs, and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. But you all know me, my reputation. I hope that you’ll take it into account when I tell you that the longer you rely on the current system, the harder it will be to reach and adapt to a world that’s approaching soon, where knowledge is free.”
It was the wrong thing to say, he realizes immediately. The men and women in the room are good people, people who care about knowledge and truth and teaching. But they’re also driven by the incentives of their positions: they run schools, and the knowledge that schools offer are not free.
“Thank you both for your time,” Osamu says, voice cool. “Give us a moment to discuss, please.”
Sam tries to think of something that will clarify his last point, undo the damage, but Professor Elm is already standing and stretching, then moves for the exit. Sam nods to the presidents, and follows.
David is leaning against the wall between the elevators. “They’ve grown too powerful, Sam.” He says quietly, and takes a swallow of his drink, a frustrated tightness around his eyes. “We had chances to stop them, shape the culture, but none of us wanted to step into it. Same with the journals. The businessmen took over, and it’s hard to argue with the results, from the perspective of… well, people running a business.”
Sam nods and sighs, running a hand through hair that’s more salt than pepper these days. “I know. It’s the politics argument all over again.”
“For what it’s worth, you’d make a terrible mayor,” Elm says with a grin. “You’d turn Pallet Town into an experiment. Cycle through different laws every few months.”
“I would put them up for a vote, at least.”
“That and you don’t deal with unpopularity well.”
Sam smiles. “Think I handled their animosity pretty well.” He reaches absently into his pocket to unsilence his phone. A room full of such busy people would barely be able to complete a sentence if everyone’s phone was on. “If this doesn’t work, which it doesn’t seem like it will, we kick it up to the next level.”
“Don’t like involving politicians in this,” Elm says. “Regulations might work for us today, might work against us tom-… Sam, what’s wrong?”
Sam has stopped dead to stare at the screen.
Sixteen missed calls.
Five unheard messages.
Forty-three texts.
One region-wide warning.
He has just enough time to read that last, to register the words
Zapdos
and
Vermilion
and then his phone rings. Daisy.
“Sam!”
He looks up at Elm. “Zapdos is attacking Vermilion.”
His friend straightens, eyes wide. “Go. I’ll handle this.
Go!”
Sam is already going, answering the phone with a “Where’s Blue?” as he runs down the stairs.
“I don’t know, grandpa, he wouldn’t answer his phone!” Daisy’s voice is tense, heavy wind blowing around her microphone.
“I’m porting home,” he says as he reaches the first floor, knees aching, and runs out of the building to emerge into the darkening twilight, hand going to his pokebelt. “Where are you?”
“Passing over Argent Town. I can see the storm, I’ll be in it in about ten minutes!”
That’s my girl.
“Stop there. That’s my closest teleport point.”
“Grandpa you can’t!” Daisy’s voice is sharp. “The doctor said-“
“Daisy,” he interrupts as he summons Forun. The alakazam senses his tension instantly, and goes into combat readiness despite there being no threats around. “It’s not up for discussion. Teleport.”
The world wrenches around him, and then he’s in his front lawn and withdrawing Forun as he goes inside to his PC, thoughts already turning to what pokemon he’s going to take.
No fire, rock, or flying, which means I’ll need Ice and Poison for the Grass and Bugs…
Daisy is still trying. “Blue will be fine, he’ll probably just help at a defense point or-“
“No, he won’t,” Sam says, voice quiet. “He’s not like you, Daisy. You understand that you can’t win against the storms, only survive them, only mitigate the losses.” Thoughts of his daughter and her husband send a spike of pain through his chest, one he endures a moment, then puts aside as he types search parameters into his collection.
Pokemon that have been trained together, pokemon that don’t use audio or visual commands…
“But Blue will try to find a win. Even aside from wanting to look good, wanting fuel for his legend, he
needs
a win against them, for himself. For your parents.”
Daisy is almost crying, he can hear it in her voice. “We can’t lose you too, Grandpa.”
“And I can’t lose either of you. Wait for me there in Argent. I have the last signal sent from Blue’s pokedex. We’ll find him together.”
The last thing Sam grabs is a small bottle of pills from the dresser in his room. He takes a breath, eyes closed, then swallows two and heads outside to teleport again, hoping that he’s not too late.
Seto could have run, when the alert went out.
It was a simple calculation. The price of a flight out of the city, normally affordable enough, even for someone living almost hand to mouth, had quickly skyrocketed to obscene heights. He could have emptied his bank account to buy a flight for himself, but not one for his mother, who was living on retirement funds.
What kind of a son would do something like that? To his own mother?
The voice was hers, ingrained from a hundred situations, repeated in a dozen tones, so often that she doesn’t even have to say it anymore. He hears it himself, every week when she asks for money for this or that reason, and he considers telling her he can’t. Every time she insists that he stop whatever he’s doing to come help her with something as inane as attaching a picture to a message, or as difficult as moving furniture around the apartment.
“Seto! Where are you?” Her voice was high and afraid, and he felt a stab of guilt for even thinking of leaving the city without her.
“I’m coming there, mom. The hospital isn’t far, we’ll go there and-“
“The
hospital?”
The word scraped along his mind. “You want me to sit in one of those rooms, with all those… people?”
Foreigners, is what she meant. But no, that’s not fair. He knew she dislikes being away from home, being surrounded by others, she rarely even took the bus anywhere, and it can’t be a comfortable place, the shelters…
“Mom, you can’t stay,” he said as he got dressed. His apartment is small and messy and it’s not far from her place, but it’s his. The one major rebellion he’d persisted in, despite her complaints that it was too expensive to have his own place, despite her insistence that a good son wouldn’t move out until he was married (and then take his mother with him to a bigger home, if he could afford it, which he should have been able to, if he’d followed her career “advice”…). “It’s not just a Tier 3, it’s a
Stormbringer,
there won’t be any emergency services if something happens in your building!”
“You’ll protect me,” she said, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You still have those pokemon, don’t you?”
Seto looked at his belt, hung up on the wall by the door with its three pokeballs. Yes, he had pokemon. Three that he’d bought and trained despite her insistence that he was wasting his time and money. The ones that he one day dreamed would be his ticket to a better life, despite being in his early 20s already (getting permission to become a trainer when he was younger had always ended in tears, either for him or his mother or both).
A pidgey, a venonat, and a mankey. That last one had been expensive, he’d saved up for a week, hoping the whole time that the listing wouldn’t be bought out by someone else. “I… mom I only have three, and they’re not very strong-“
“
Well then what did you buy them for?”
she demanded, breaths harsh and quick. “Seto I’m
scared!
People are leaving their apartments with all their things, they say the storm will hit the city in an hour! What if the electricity goes out? Come quickly!”
Seto could have left, even then. Or he could have gone to the hospital himself, helped the defense with his measly three pokemon and fifty or so hours of training, or just gone into the shelter there.
But what kind of son would leave his mother alone in the dark, with monsters all around?
One that wouldn’t be there when a magnemite breaks through her living room window.
“Go, Mankey!” Seto yells, voice shaking with fear as it competes with the sound of the raging storm pouring in, and his mother’s scream as she cowers behind him. “Chop!”
The magnemite’s prongs glow as they build a charge, and his pokemon’s attack comes simultaneously with the enemy’s. The magnemite is knocked against the wall with enough force to crack it, while his mankey crumples into a smoking heap.
His mother screams again at the electric discharge, or maybe just for the sake of it. It makes Seto twitch, and then he’s hurrying to withdraw his pokemon as the magnemite slowly rises up. He fumbles with an empty pokeball (he’d bought three, and never thrown one at a live pokemon before) as it starts to charge an attack again, realizes he’s not going to make it in time, and throws himself behind the couch, empty pokeball falling from his hand and rolling across the room.
Another blinding flash lights the room, followed by the smell of ozone and burning. He coughs, then looks up and realizes the couch is on fire.
“My couch!” his mom shrieks. “Put it out, Seto!”
He starts thinking of ways to do that before realizing the thought is insane and reaching for another empty ball as he backs away from the couch and looks over it at the magnemite.
It’s reoriented toward his mother as she runs toward the couch, table cloth bunched in her hands to beat the fledgling flames out.
In his imagination, Seto snaps his arm up to lock onto the magnemite, then pegs it and saves his mother.
In reality, he stares for a moment in horror, and then raises his arm and has to steady it with his other hand, and throws just as electricity arcs out and sends his mother crashing to the ground.
And misses.
“Momma!” he screams, feeling like he’s in a nightmare. He’s a horrible person, a lazy, ungrateful, disrespectful son who got his mother killed because he-
The magnemite is charging another attack. He should be running, or throwing his third ball. Instead he just stumbles toward his mother(‘s body) while reaching for a potion bottle.
What saves him is a giant scaly fist that punches through the broken window frame and grabs the magnemite with a crushing grip. Seto stares out the second story window to see the nidoqueen rear its fist back and up, then smash the magnemite downward and out of sight. It roars in triumph.
Seto is momentarily stunned by the sound and sight of the monster, then continues crawling to his mother’s body, potion in hand.
“It’s okay, momma,” he whispers, spraying her burnt skin. “It’s okay, I’m sorry, it’s okay…”
He babbles until the potion bottle is empty, and his mother is still lying in an unmoving heap. The healing from the potion is superficial, and it takes him a moment to remember, through the distracting sounds of the howling storm and the crashing of the nidoqueen hitting the building again and again, that potions need flowing blood to be effective.
If the potions aren’t healing her it’s because her blood isn’t flowing.
If her blood isn’t flowing it’s because she’s dead.
What hits him, first, in that moment, even through the self-recriminations and self-disgust, is relief. Just a second of pure, relieved… freedom.
And then the guilt is back, worse than ever, a howling gale of self-loathing that he can’t contain.
I wanted her to die.
I let her die because I hated her.
I killed her.
I’m a monster.
He doesn’t deserve to live.
The building shakes again, and the nidoqueen roars again, reminding him of its presence in a much more personal way.
He should let it kill him.
Seto pushes himself to his feet, stumbles, then walks toward the shattered window.
The nidoqueen saves him again, though less directly. Clearly frustrated by something on the left side of the building, she abruptly stamps her foot hard enough to crack its foundation there, causing a quarter of it to suddenly collapse downward.
Seto is knocked to the ground as part of the apartment breaks away with a grinding roar that drowns out the storm, for a moment. Pain shoots through his knee as it hits the uncarpeted tiles, and he groans, gripping it and curling up into a ball. He can’t even kill himself without looking like a fool and wimping out…
He feels the spray of windblown rain on his face, and looks up with a blankly shocked expression. One of the walls is just
gone
, the apartment that had been next to his mother’s cracked in half down the middle. He can see out into the street below, which means he spots the kid running up behind the nidoqueen.
It’s hard to make out details in the intermittent light and heavy rain, but the kid is definitely wearing a pokeball belt, which means he’s a trainer. A
real
trainer, if he’s out in the storm. Seto’s saved… through no effort of his own. Does he deserve saving? He’s a horrible person. He just needs to end it.
Part of him rebels against this thought, suddenly. Kill himself? Why? His mom is gone, he’s finally
free
to do whatever he wants…
The flood of guilt that drowns him then is debilitating, and as soon as it passes he starts moving toward the hole in the wall, where the nidoqeen is still raging at something out of sight. She’s stretched up as high as she can, one hand clawing at a higher apartment.
The trainer behind her is close enough that Seto can see they have something in their hand. They’re not summoning anything, though… just walking carefully closer. What are they doing?
Trying to capture it, of course. Its back is turned… they could just walk right up to it and-
Its tail suddenly thrashes as it lets out another bellow, arm jerking back and tearing more of the building out with it. Vines are wrapped around its arm, something bright yellow latched onto it. A weepinbell? The nidoqueen tries to pulverize the plant pokemon against the building, and Seto hears someone yelling commands above him. There’s someone else in the building!
The trainer below has to jump back to avoid any debris, and its thrashing tail. His frustration is clear as he tries to get closer, still too far out of ultra ball range to get a lock.
Another figure runs up behind the first, a second pokemon trainer. But she doesn’t summon any pokemon either, and the two start to coordinate to get on either side of the rampaging nidoqueen without getting too close, so they can capture it when an opportunity arises.
But the storm is going to make it incredibly difficult, Seto distantly realizes. The nidoqueen is a big target, even
he
could probably hit it, but to get close enough to for the ball to lock on…
Even I could hit it
… What’s he doing? Just sitting here and… watching, as the nidoqueen crushes the weepinbell, then brings it up to its mouth and bites its body away from its vines, causing the person above him to scream out.
He should be helping them, he’s a trainer too, he can catch it and he’d have an incredibly powerful pokemon…
No. All he has are pokeballs, scattered around the room (one fell out the newly opened wall). He would need an ultra ball to capture something that massive.
But he can still help. He can keep it distracted…
…with a pidgey and a venonat. He pushes himself back and away from the gaping wall, survival instinct finally returning for a moment. He can’t help with this, his pokemon are too weak,
he’s
too weak—
Well then what did you buy them for?!
His gaze flicks to his mom’s body, and he closes his eyes, groaning as his forehead lowers to the floor.
Worthless…
And then the sky explodes with light, and a screech as loud as thunder echoes across the city.
Seto stares up at the glowing figure that descends from the storms, lighting the whole city in its intense glow. A constant current of electricity runs through its black and yellow feathers, making it easy to pick out but hard to look directly at. Its power is obvious and absolute, and if Seto wasn’t already on the ground, he would fall to his knees. Instead he merely bows his head again.
God…
That’s what this feeling is, what this power represents. Zapdos is a god, and his judgement is all around them, inside them. That’s why he’s been feeling the god’s judgement: Seto has been found unworthy.
There’s only one path to redemption for his sins.
He stumbles to his feet and walks forward again, out into the brightened night, out into the storm, eyes closed, waiting for the nidoqueen or the fall to kill him…
“
Don’t do it!”
Seto’s eyes snap open, and he looks down to see the male trainer looking up at him, expression one of desperate worry. Seto barely even notices the way the nidoqueen turns right next to him, toward the sound of the yell.
“Don’t do it!” the trainer repeats. “Don’t give up on your life that easily!”
How does he know?
“It’s the Pressure, you have to fight it! We’re here for you! We’re all fighting! Fight with—”
“
Red look out!”
The nidoqueen’s fists pound the ground, and the trainer who had been yelling up at him falls as the street buckles and cracks beneath him. The nidoqueen steps toward him as he scrambles away, and his friend rushes forward, ball outstretched, only to get caught by the pokemon’s sweeping tail, skidding and rolling over the street.
“
Leaf!”
Seto watches, numb with shock and self-loathing. They’re here for him, the trainer said, as if he’s worth all this, and now they’re going to die for him…
Fight with us!
“Go, Venonat!” Seto yells, throat dry and voice cracking. His pokemon materializes on the edge of the apartment floor beside him, and he points to the nidoqueen as it steps toward Red. “S-supersonic!”
His venonat’s antennae vibrate, and the nidoqueen raises a foot over the trainer… then overbalances, and has to take a quick step to the side to avoid falling.
And just like that, he saved a life. For a moment.
But sometimes a moment’s enough.
Red is on his feet, staring at his friend and looking like he’s about to run to her crumpled form… and then with a cry he’s running straight at the nidoqueen, ball out. It spins around, tail whipping toward the trainer, who stops dead just out of its range, as if he saw it coming, then steps forward, holds position, and throws.
And then the nidoqueen is gone, the ball it’s trapped in rolling along the ground as Red runs toward his friend.
Seto looks up, near the blinding figure of the Thunder God as it floats over the city, beautiful and terrible. The raindrops that blow against his face are bitter as tears as guilt suddenly surges through him again, dousing the moment of sudden hope and will.
He goes to sit beside his mother, hands covering his eyes as the dark flood pours down his cheeks. A distant part of him knows he should go and help Red with his friend, but for now, for just a few minutes, all the fight is gone from him, swallowed by a divine judgement that seems deaf to his whispered prayers for forgiveness.
It’s been two years since Karen last faced a legendary pokemon’s Pressure, and anticipation is like a drug in her system as she flies toward the storm around Vermilion. Most people would probably be afraid of flying into a thunderstorm, let alone one created by a legendary. The key is to stay near buildings and fly below the tallest ones.
Reckless is a word that’s been used to describe her, a time or two. Or ten. Stupid, however, is not.
Especially now that she has an excuse to run toward the Pressure, whatever its source.
Two years ago, Entei burned a line north-west through central Johto, and trainers scrambled to wall it off from Enju City and divert it. Karen was on the fourth line that day, and she still felt it coming from miles away while it burned a path through the forests, smoke blanketing the horizon until it burst out of the tree line, a living inferno that seemed to burn the air itself.
That day what she felt was fear. Not fear for her safety, though that’s a part of it that she also craves, as she never feels the rush it provides anymore. The woes of an adrenaline junkie, as her oldest brother used to say, before his own addiction got him killed.
What’s more nuanced, more driving toward something
productive
, is the fear of
losing.
The fear of messing up, of being publicly shamed and judged unworthy. The fear of disappearing back into the masses.
It was the fear she dealt with every time Pressure hit her, a valuable reminder of what drove her. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her that being the middle child in a big family made her seek recognition and attention, or that it was the primary thing that pushed her to risk her life in Tier 2 and 3 events around her. And each time she was around the Legendary Beasts, their aura confirmed that it was still her primary motivation.
She wasn’t an Elite then, had just gotten her eighth badge, but she was already known for her reckless battle style, a mentality that made her and her pokemon go all out to prove themselves, no matter the risk.
She knew one day her luck would run out. Watching Entei leap the first line of defense and run through the virtual wall of water that met him at the second, only to emerge from the cloud of steam without pause, made her think that would be the day.
But it wasn’t, and here she is: flying into a storm as she feels the Pressure rise in her thoughts like fog on a chill morning.
As the wind grows harsh and powerful and the cold rain quickly soaks her, she wonders what she’ll feel now. One of the four Elites of the Indigo League, and by far the youngest… is she still afraid of obscurity? She has to know. Is being one of the strongest and most renowned trainers in two regions not enough for her? The Pressure will tell her. And even if it wasn’t her job, she’d be diving right into it to find out for sure.
Reckless? Nah. It boggles her mind that more people don’t seem to appreciate the insights facing legendaries gives. Who needs therapy, when you can literally face personifications of your deepest subconscious fears, and then blast the hell out of them?
She flies over the city until she spots a tall building near the coast with flares on the roof, then guides Orochi toward it as best she can with the wind buffeting him out toward the ocean. Her hydreigon isn’t terribly large, having only evolved 7 years ago, but it’s faster than any other she’s encountered, and its three heads work seamlessly to keep them floating between the various buildings and billboards and light posts in the dark, rainy city. It’s always been a mystery how the Dark Dragon flies, one the recent discovery of the Flying Particle shed no light on. At least flygon has decently sized wings, but Orochi just glides along with barely any effort from the appendages on its back that look more like furred tentacles than wings.
When she gets close enough to the marked building, she finds another in the distance, and from there another, until she spots an occupied rooftop. She brings Orochi down into a dive and “lands” beside the figure of Lorelei, the dragon hovering just above the concrete. The older Elite is only identifiable by circumstance: her whole body is covered in the same type of Faraday suit Karen is wearing. Conductive wire mesh sandwiched between thick layers of fireproofed material would keep them safe from stray lightning bolts, though it does impede movement more than she’d like.
She’s also standing on a platform strapped to the back of a hovering cryogonal the width of a couch, with half a dozen other ones of varying sizes floating around her.
Kind of distinctive, that. Particularly for a non-Psychic.
“Good to have you, Karen! First Stormbringer fight, right?” Lorelei shouts, voice calm and assured despite having to contend with the storm. There are radios attached to the neck of the suits, but in this weather they’d be practically useless.
“Right!” she replies, and alternates stroking Orochi’s three necks, his scales slippery in the heavy rain.
“Then you’re going to be under Giovanni in attack order!”
“Understood!” The idea that elites are below Champions and above Leaders only applies when Champions don’t do weird things like become Leaders afterward. “No appearance yet?”
“No! We’ll be tracking the center of the storm and moving with it, in case it appears!”
Karen nods and turns as lightning flashes again, then again, illuminating the cityscape intermittently. In the moments between, she can make out a number of dull red spots, fires that even the intense rain and wind aren’t putting out right away. There are also a couple of obscured spots where dust clouds from collapsed buildings have been kicked up, and not yet fully battered back down by the rain and wind.
“And in the meantime we wait,” she mutters. Karen itches to go down and help fight, to protect the hospitals and pokemon centers they passed by, but she knows they can’t. The Gym Leaders who could come and their people are spread out around the city already; the Elites’ job is to stay fresh and ready for the cause of all this to make an appearance.
But that’s assuming it ever even does.
“Where are we taking it?”
“My initial pull will be west-southwest! You and Giovanni will need to bring it as far out to sea as we can!”
“Right, but after that?” Cinnabar Island is in that direction, if they lure it that way they’d be putting the people there at risk…
Lorelei laughs. “I like your optimism!”
Karen smiles and squeezes the base of Orochi’s middle neck. “You haven’t really seen my baby in action yet!”
“Noted!” There’s silence for a moment, and then, “If you get it past the bay, turn sharp south!”
Karen’s smile fades, and she suddenly wishes she could see Lorelei’s expression. By luring Zapdos south, there’s a chance it would pass by or over the Sevii Islands, Lorelei’s birthplace and home. Drawing it away from Cinnabar would mean endangering her family and friends and neighbors.
Of course, it could well miss the Sevii Islands entirely. They’re not that large… but in the worst case scenario, well, the total population of all the islands put together is a quarter of Cinnabar’s.
Simple math. Their primary objective is to ensure Zapdos doesn’t travel further up the mainland to Celadon, or turn north toward Saffron, but past that… The only choices risk some deaths to save many more. And the consequences of indecision would be no different than making the choice.
Still, Karen knows the knowledge must feel like hell, and the Pressure is probably making it that much worse. Yet Lorelei sounded composed, and calm, a rallying point for everyone present. Karen can do no less.
The center of the storm has clearly moved, and soon they’re moving with it, lighting new flares and placing them around another roof that’s not the tallest in its area, but still high enough to have clear sight of the cityscape. They’re there for about another fifteen minutes, and then they move again, waiting and watching for their opportunity while another wave of pokemon hits the city.
Karen has to fight the Pressure each time, the desire to
do
something burning through her. At one point they see another building collapse, and only Lorelei’s unmoving figure keeps Karen in place. She can’t look weak and impulsive in front of the other Elite, not while there are lives on the line.
Eventually Giovanni arrives, followed by half a dozen other trainers. They’re all also wearing faraday suits, so she doesn’t know by appearance who they are, but a vibrating chorus of high pitched noise accompanies them, as each of the trainers is riding a flygon, and that makes it pretty obvious. She’d be surprised if even Blackthorn Gym has this many flygon among its members.
“Good evening, Elites!” Giovanni’s voice is loud but clipped, and it makes Karen feel a little better about herself. She knows it’s petty, the Viridian Gym Leader has faced Pressure at least five times as often as she has, but the fact that the legendary Sakaki is struggling with it too makes her feel less weak.
Karen always feels awkward around the ex-Champion. His decision is one of the reasons she’s even in the Elite Four. She has no illusions that she could beat Lorelei or Bruno if they were going all out… or even Agatha, despite the Type advantage Karen’s strongest pokemon have against hers.
There are a number of Champions that step down from the position, but most do so to pursue other vocations, like Professor Oak, or travel to other regions. Brock is the only other ex-Champion Leader in Indigo, and he only won his match thanks to Aeosis; he must have known he didn’t deserve the title when he stepped down, wouldn’t be able to hold it against a challenger that prepared for that monster.
Giovanni? He might still be Champion, if he wanted to be. She wonders how it makes Lance feel. As far as she knows the two have never battled.
“Good to have you, Leader!” Lorelei’s tone is neutral. “I wasn’t aware that you would be bringing others!”
“All volunteered to be here, and are under strict orders to observe! They will only assist in pre-discussed emergency situations!”
It’s been a problem in the past, trainers who attempted to attack legendaries, either in a bid for revenge or glory, and only ended up getting themselves killed, or worse, interfering with the League’s plan. Giovanni probably didn’t bring his Second or Third, but Karen feels better with the other trainers around. She’s used to facing Johto’s Beasts in groups, both to effectively drive them in a certain direction and to deal with the rampage that would come in their wake.
“Very well! Attack order is myself, then you, then Karen! Hard south after the bay, if possible!”
“Respectfully, Elite, I would suggest I go first!” Giovanni yells. “Our pokemon cannot fly as effectively over water as land!”
Lorelei doesn’t seem happy about this, from what little body language Karen can read. Which isn’t much, given the storm and suit. “The first pull will be the hardest! My cryogonal are more expendable than you or your people! If you reach the bay, let Karen continue, and assist the city!”
Giovanni is silent a moment, then bows his head. “By your command, Elite!”
Karen isn’t sure who she agrees with, but she finds herself happy that she’ll have Zapdos all to herself once they’re over the water… even as the idea of being the sole target in the Legendary’s crosshairs sends cold fingers down her back to grip the base of her spine and squeeze until she’s shivering, legs numb…
Hello fear.
She smiles, breathing hard as she focuses on how she will feel when she comes out the other side of this, alive and triumphant.
It’s nice to feel you again, for a time.
Because what is there to fear, really? From the perspective of moment to moment experiences in a few hours the fear will either be gone, or she’ll be dead.
Those aren’t the only outcomes. I could be maimed. I could lose Orochi. I could fail and cause others to die.
Karen’s pulse is faster, her breaths short. This Pressure is tenacious. She lets the excitement and fear war within her, drive her to greater heights. Fighting Pressure is all about framing. She stares out at the storm and grins.
Your greatest weapon will only give me strength.
They move as a unit to another two rooftops and well past the midpoint of the city when it finally happens: the god of thunder’s cry splits the sky as it descends from the dark like a slowly falling star.
Its presence below the cloudline transforms the city from a strobing world of dark and light to an endless black room with a single impossibly bright bulb hanging in it. Karen wishes briefly she could take a picture of the cityscape, illuminated from a single central point. The shadows the buildings cast move as Zapdos floats with deceptive slowness across the sky.
And then Lorelei is floating rapidly up and to the side. Her swarm of cryogonal forms an array around her and starts to gleam with extra ice that forms on them in a protective layer. After getting in position, one of her pokemon starts accelerating faster than the others, and Lorelei’s voice is suddenly sharp as steel in Karen’s headset. “Initial pull starting now.”
The cryogonal disappears into the distance, followed by Lorelei and the others. Giovanni follows her, but not at maximum speed, and Karen takes her cue from him, though it galls her to just hang back here doing nothing.
Wait. Your chance is coming. Wait.
She keeps Orochi behind the Leader as she strains her eyes against the glaring brightness of the god’s electric aura. Eventually a thin beam of blue and white lances out at it in the distance, and the jealousy churns through her. Lorelei’s attack has begun.
Zapdos doesn’t react to the attack, and Karen imagines that it might not have even felt it through its Light Screen. Once there are three beams hitting it simultaneously, however, lightning flashes down around it, and its cry once again echoes over the city in a thunderclap.
Karen wonders how many of the cryogonal just died, but a moment later more beams hit the legendary pokemon again, and finally the glowing bird turns to face them head on.
Karen sees the light around the bird flare, and banks Orochi into a steep turn just as a twitching ball of lightning flies out at them. The Zap Cannon is far slower than an actual bolt from the sky, but wherever it goes, arcs of electricity snap out from it to the buildings below, the rain evaporating into a hazy mist behind it.
Orochi manages to get out of its flight path in time to avoid being struck by it, and Karen turns to watch the glowing orb fly out over the coastline and out past the edge of the storm, where it quickly loses coherence. Orochi’s left head roars at Zapdos in defiance, and she quickly smacks its neck to get it to stop before looking over the city, and feeling a ball of ice in her stomach.
Roughly a dozen buildings in the path of that attack are on fire. Their lightning rods were overloaded.
She turns back to the Thunder God. There are more beams of icy light hitting it from the front, keeping it turned toward the ocean as it starts calling lightning down on its assailants again. They need to get it out of the city as quickly as possible.
She realizes with a start that Zapdos is closing the gap between them rapidly, now, and sees Giovanni abruptly loop and turn his pokemon toward the coast. She quickly follows suit, and they lead the legend across the city, racing to stay just out of its range.
Karen trusts her pokemon to keep them from hitting anything and turns to watch the battle as best she can as the rain pelts her face. There aren’t any new attacks hitting Zapdos, however, and she can’t make out Lorelei at this distance. The only reason the Thunder God is so visible is how bright it is.
Karen feels a chill go down her spine. The engagement has barely lasted a minute, and Zapdos is still a long way from the coast. Is Lorelei out of the fight already? She carefully drifts Orochi closer to Giovanni’s flygon. “I don’t see any more Ice Beams!” she yells.
“Maintain course! I will engage if it starts to deviate!” Giovanni calls back. “Be prepared to pick up if it does again after me!”
“Right!” Karen clenches her jaw against the impatience swirling in her. Lorelei knows better than to personally get in range of an attack, but determining the range of an enemy that can call lightning down in a thunderstorm is difficult, to say the least. There’s no truly safe way for a prolonged fight against legendary pokemon, who seem to shrug off all but the most powerful or effective attacks…
And their response when truly challenged, is always to retaliate with overwhelming force.
Lightning crackles through the clouds and pours into the tallest buildings, blinding Karen and probably anyone who’s outside, for a moment.
The thunder hits a split second later from everywhere at once, a grinding roar of noise that seems to practically vibrate the air around her. She blinks spots out of her eyes as her ears ring, and feels Orochi vibrate under her as all three heads roar in pain this time, the sound muffled.
She notices her dazed pokemon is drifting aimlessly to the side, and taps a command against his neck to get him to turn and speed up again. When she thinks to look behind her, she sees Zapdos is no longer facing them.
Before she can panic, a burst of light speeds toward the legendary’s glowing figure, and starts splitting into multiple sparks, each leaving a glowing trail behind them.
Most of the barrage misses Zapdos, but some hit, and its screech is a distant scrape against her throbbing ears. It turns back toward the coast, chasing Giovanni now, whose pokemon doesn’t bother attacking again and merely goes for pure speed as lightning blasts it.
Immune to electricity as flygon is, the heat from bolts of lightning is not so easy to ignore, and Karen knows that Giovanni’s suit can’t take many hits like that. The Gym Leader manages to outpace the Thunder God for a brief time, hopefully letting the wind and rain cool him off, but Zapdos is locked on and focused, and another Zap Cannon suddenly launches out.
Karen is far enough to the side to avoid the sphere of lightning without drastic action, but the others from Giovanni’s gym have to scatter. Zapdos keeps trying to turn after one of them, and Karen realizes they’re buying their Gym Leader time, each trading off to be the one chased while keeping Zapdos aimed unerringly toward the docks.
She’s not sure how this qualifies as an “emergency situation,” but it’s clear Giovanni’s people were prepared to do this at the first opportunity and help their Leader escape danger by taking some hits themselves. But with their pokemon and suits, they should be okay…
…and soon enough the ground below Karen gives way to docks, which give way to water. The squadron of flygon disperse rather than float over the sea, and Zapdos seems to be choosing which of them it wants to chase.
Now, finally, it’s her chance. “Come on, Orochi,” she mutters. “Let’s show them all what we can do.”
She taps out a command to the two side necks, then another to the middle one, hands adjusting along his neck to steer as he banks toward Zapdos while flying south-southwest as two of his heads curve back behind it and emit a pair of dark purple beams.
Karen watches the energy splash against Zapdos’s glowing form, and from this distance the speed at which it turns toward them is startling. “Go!” she yells with a surge of adrenaline even as her hands grip in the actual command, and her pokemon’s wings sweep all at once and jet them forward.
Lightning blinds Karen as they soar out over the bay, and Orochi cries out in pain, but doesn’t stop moving. She blinks away the spots and taps out a different command, and the next attack to come from her pokemon’s mouths is a pulse of darkness so complete that even Zapdos’s glowing form is obscured by it, for a moment, and the world returns to pitch black again.
She dips Orochi down in that brief darkness, then turns and darts back the way she came.
Then the legendary’s glowing form is revealed again, like the first sun being born in an endless void, and it screeches in rage… but in front of Karen, this time, rather than behind her.
Gods still need to see.
Karen grins and flies behind the stormbringer, letting Orochi rest as Zapdos flies ahead.
Minutes pass in the harsh winds and soaking rain, and Zapdos flies over the water like a shooting star. Karen stays alert for any sign that the legendary is turning, but it’s hard to tell without the city to navigate by anymore: there’s nothing but water all around them. She watches the lightning bird as best she can through its blinding aura, and can just make out the dark patch in the back of its glowing form. All the while, the Pressure batters at her mind, making her itch to do more. She ignores it, for now. Part of mastering her fears, proving she’s stronger, is being able to resist it when necessary. She has a job to do first, and once it’s done… the fear of failure will be gone, and all that will be left is the invigorating fear of death.
Zapdos is flying farther and farther ahead, and she realizes Orochi has been getting tired, which is bad for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that they’re effectively in the middle of the ocean. She takes some ether out of her bag and taps its necks one at a time so they can bend around and open wide for her to point the nozzle into each mouth and spray. Ether’s effects on the body would work no matter which mouth Orochi ingests it with, but for the mental effects…
Her pokemon dutifully speeds up, and she finishes the bottle off by pointing the nozzle between the bars of her mask and spraying the last squeeze of ether into her own mouth before she can stop herself.
It’s like swallowing rubbing alcohol and coffee while a bolt of clarity lights her brain up from the inside. She feels more wired and alert than she can ever remember, and drops the empty bottle into the ocean as she leans over Orochi’s neck, body vibrating with energy as she grins even as worry rises up in her. Dangerous, taking ether, lots of side effects, but side effects don’t matter if you’re dead.
Time loses all meaning as she flies behind the storm god. She keeps her eyes away from it as much as she can, worried about damage to her eyes and hoping Orochi will be okay, and eventually the endless expanse of water below stops, and she realizes they’ve reached the mouth of Kanto’s massive bay.
She did it. She brought it all the way out to sea… assuming she can turn it in the right direction, at least. If it hadn’t drifted since they left Vermilion behind then Cycling Road would be directly ahead and on either side of them, but instead the enormously long and poorly named bridge is a distant string of lights to Karen’s right, and to her left… yes, there’s Fuchsia City in the distance.
She has to turn it hard west, now, to minimize the storm’s effects on nearby towns and pokemon populations, then south to minimize its chances of flying to Cinnabar.
Or… she can take it by surprise… fly up to it, get within capture range… throw an ultra ball…
Karen almost stops breathing as she pictures it. The first trainer in history to catch a Legendary pokemon… to have the god of lightning on her belt… it would prove her greatness to everyone, once and for all… she just needs… to fly a little closer…
Karen carefully pulls an ultra ball from the pouch on her saddle. The ball is slippery in her gloved hand, and she feels herself sweating in the thick suit. Zapdos is harder to look at the closer she gets, and she starts to feel warmth, then heat.
How is it not cooking itself?
She suddenly has doubts that even an ultra ball would even make it through that constant electric aura, but she has to try… She pushes Orochi a little harder, trying to get
just a little closer…
It’s the buzzing in the air that she feels which snaps her out of it, the way Orochi vibrates and squirms in pain. She quickly has him back off. What was she thinking? Effective range of an ultra ball in these conditions would be maybe three meters, and they’re flying at speeds that would make any throw almost impossible.
Been in the Pressure too long…
By the Guardians, how long have they been flying?
The land is too close, now, she has to turn Zapdos before he flies over it. She carefully commands Orochi to turn to the right and fly faster. Karen tries to judge the right distance, making sure they’re not too close while being at the right angle… then has Orochi’s left head fires a Dragon Pulse.
Zapdos is hit, but as the energies clash around it the Thunder God barely seems to notice or care. She has Orochi fire again and again, but her pokemon seems too tired to hit it with much power.
She quickly sprays more ether into its mouths as they start to pass over land, hands fumbling with the bottle in her haste. She’s fucking it up, she should have turned him earlier, should have paid attention…
Draco Meteor,
she taps out, and her pokemon’s three heads each pour glowing orange death out at the glowing god, hoping no one is below them to get hit by the attacks.
Zapdos finally seems to notice them, and she quickly wrenches Orochi around to the right to lead it back on a chase. Electricity crackles through the storm clouds around them, but no lightning hits her and her dragon, and soon they’ve left the narrow strip of land, as well as the even narrower bridge, behind.
Now.
She has Orochi turn slowly southward, and uses Dark Pulse again to distract Zapdos a couple times when it cuts through the inside of the curve to get closer to her. It fires another lightning ball back, and this time they’re too close to avoid it: electricity plays over her suit and Orochi’s body as the ball sails past, and she feels a surge of sympathy for Orochi as he endures the electricity and just keeps flying, a single bellow his only concession to the pain.
That, and he’s going slower. A lot slower.
Karen quickly orders another Dark Pulse, then opens the pouch at her side and grabs a syringe full of potion out of it, then another for electric injuries as Zapdos’s blinding light is temporarily obscured. She searches as best she can with her thick gloves for the soft spot between the scales in Orochi’s shoulder and injects both healing liquids into his bloodstream one after the other.
Orochi puts on more speed just as the Thunder God re-emerges, screeching in anger, but it’s too late to attack them again, and soon they’re leading it south… and then, exhausted though she and Orochi are, south-east. There are no islands in this direction. If she can take Zapdos as far out in this direction as possible, its odds of harming anyone else would be effectively zero.
Some part of her is aware that this is the Pressure pushing her to do more than she needs to, to rise above expectations and stand out. She ignores that part of her. She’s saving lives, by doing this. She can keep going. She has to prove that she can. And then… all this fear and struggle… will have been that much more worth it… what’s another hour of flying, after those she went through already? Will she even remember it as being any worse?
Still, no reason not to be smart about this.
Karen orders another Dark Pulse, and prepares to dive down and loop behind it again. The wave of pitch black spreads out behind her…
…and Zapdos dives under it, screeching in anger and firing another Zap Cannon at them.
The light engulfs her, and she can smell ozone and burning canvas as her pokemon screams in pain… then starts to fall.
Karen desperately blinks spots out of her eyes as the stormy ocean rushes up at them, hands fumbling for the medicine pouches along her saddle as her suit burns around her. The last thing she hears before they hit the angry waves is the Thunder God’s cry of victory.
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From the moment Blue reached the pokemon center, it felt like all control was gone.
Up until then, things were going fine. News of Zapdos’s approach threw him, briefly, but he recovered. Even reeling from his forced decision to join Vermilion Gym and all that implied, he was still able to process the Stormbringer’s arrival, and quickly reached out to everyone so they could coordinate their next steps. Some of the trainers he’d been spending time with were either out of the city or were assigned other groups, but once Surge finished his debrief, Blue managed to get Aiko, Glen, Elaine, Taro, and Chie assigned to the same defense point.
As the six of them biked their way through the mass migration going on throughout the city, constantly slowing down or dodging the crowds of people, his feelings of anticipation and worry felt perfectly balanced. It was easy to stay focused while it felt like every minute a different vital decision mattered.
They were almost at the center when Red called, which only added to Blue’s sense that everything was under control. It humbled him and filled him with pride, that they left the cruise to risk their life for the same purpose as him. With such amazing friends, anything felt possible.
Once they reached the pokemon center it was clear that defense coordination was being handled by a handful of rangers and gym members. One ranger stood on a table with a megaphone, and Blue led the others to the crowd forming around her, so they could report their pokemon and trainer experience.
And it’s there, waiting in line, that he feels the sense of purpose and forward momentum… stall.
He starts checking and rechecking his supplies as the crowd mills around him, only half paying attention to what the others are saying. He shifts from one foot to the other, casting look at the oncoming storm clouds. He just… waits. Waits, in essence, for more important people to decide what to do with him. To decide what to do with his whole group.
“Don’t like that they might split us up,” Glen says as they watch people who arrived together sometimes get sent to opposite areas around the center.
“Maybe we can convince them to keep us together,” Aiko says, and glances at Blue.
“Maybe.” He shuffles forward another step, studying the way a perimeter is set up, trainer by trainer, around the pokemon center. In general, the oldest trainers look like they’re being positioned at the half of the building facing the oncoming storm. “Arguing with the rangers at Golden Hills was different, though. Back in the Viridian Fire I stuck my foot in my mouth pretty hard by trying to argue with an assignment, and that was just a Tier 1.”
“Hey, look,” Taro points as people in the pokemon center’s uniforms start summoning things along the street. “Some kind of barrier?”
That’s exactly what it is. Small walls of concrete in alternating sizes and shapes are being released from storage balls in a loose square around the pokemon center, particular attention being paid to block the gaps between the buildings around it.
“Are all cities here this prepared for Legendaries?” Glen asks.
“No,” Blue says, and starts looking through his bag for the container ball holding his raincoat as the ranger reminds everyone to put on their storm gear. “This is all Surge.”
“You chose a good Gym to join, I guess,” Chie says, her tone making it clear she’s half joking.
Blue snorts.
Chose.
Like he was left with any choice, after the Leader trapped him with his own criticism. But complications with Red and Leaf aside, Chie is right. When he said he wouldn’t join any gyms, it was before seeing the way Surge operates. The potential in his methods and ideology.
Leader
Surge, he reminds himself. Soon to be a title that’s more personal to him than it ever has. The whole thing still feels a little unreal, and probably would until well after the Thunder God is past.
The shortest barriers are still taller than Blue, which means he watches as little by little he’s locked away from the world outside the perimeter. There are gaps left for arrivals to continue to make it in, what looks like a hundred people every minute, carrying bags that are probably full of container balls. Most make their way into the Pokemon Center to go down the bunkers below it, but some divert toward the rangers, trainers who seem to decide at the last minute to help with the defense of their loved ones.
Eventually the last barrier is put into place, leaving just a few gaps for late arrivals to keep trickling in. And as Blue watches the ranger ahead split up yet another group, telling them another ranger will give them specific instructions at the locations they’re being sent to, he suddenly feels the claustrophobia of the surrounding walls and people hit.
It’s not like in the diglett tunnels, the feeling of there not being enough room around him. Instead he feels trapped, not by the barriers but by circumstance. Trapped in a place where he won’t be able to do anything of importance, trapped in a place where he won’t be the leader of his own group of trainers, but just another cog in a machine.
He thought he got past this in Viridian Forest. This… entitlement, this feeling of being squandered, of not having his potential recognized, of not doing anything meaningful. But with his first Stormbringer encounter being such an important part of his goals, his future plans, apparently it’s back in force.
Still, he recognizes that it’s a dangerous way to think. What can he
really
do, against Zapdos right now? What, is he going to risk his friends’ lives just to accomplish something heroic? No. He’s going to be a good trainer, a good
Vermilion Gym member,
and show that he can do what he’s told when he needs to.
“They’re still not here,” Aiko says, and he follows her gaze to the procession of people that are still arriving.
“They’ll be alright.” He tries to sound confident, but has a hard time suddenly thinking that it matters. Maybe they should have stayed on the cruise after all.
It’s finally their turn, and when the ranger splits Blue and the others up, he doesn’t argue. Instead he just goes to the north-western side of the pokemon center, thankfully not on the complete opposite side of where the storm is coming, and tells the ranger there his lineup so he can be told who he should use (Maturin, obviously) and where he should stand. Turns out he’s close enough to Glen and Taro to see them to his right and left, if he cranes his neck around the random people.
No, not “random people.” He shouldn’t think of them that way. They’re other trainers just like him.
What did Blue Oak do when he first encountered one of his parents’ killers?
He stood around a pokemon center with about fifty other trainers just like him, protected by walls.
Fantastic. Truly inspirational.
He watches lightning arc across the stormfront, the near constant sound of thunder growing louder as it approaches, then looks at his two neighbors. An older woman to his left, tall and thin and standing with a stiffness that Blue interprets as an attempt to control her nervousness, and a girl that looks to be about Aiko’s age to his right, tossing a pokeball from hand to hand. Watching her reminds Blue of all the time he spent practicing tricks with pokeballs. He’s glad he did, for the dexterity he’s trained into his hands, but it would feel like a waste of time, now that every hour of his journey is one that he could be spending training his pokemon or looking up new strategies and ideas for training them or his friends.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m Blue.”
“Katie,” the girl to his right says, still bouncing the ball between her hands.
“Fumiyo,” the older woman says, and holds a hand out for Blue to grip briefly.
“Good to meet you both. Let’s watch out for each other, yeah?” He says the words because he knows they’re the right thing to say, for multiple reasons, but he can’t help but find them hollow. He wonders if they hear it that way too.
But Fumiyo nods, and Katie just says “Yeah,” and then it’s quiet again. He hears the distant chatter from others along the perimeter, all of it with a thread of nerves under it. He wishes he was with the others at least, so he could feel like he has some control over what’s about to happen.
But no, if he does well enough here he could impress others outside of those who already know what he’s capable of. He has to think of this as an opportunity.
Blue fidgets for a while longer, still watching for Red and Leaf every so often, then takes an empty pokeball out and starts mimicking the girl’s hard toss back and forth across his chest. The minutes creep by, and suddenly the apparent speed of the storm feels like it’s growing at an alarming rate, until dark descends on them like a smothering blanket.
They’re not going to make it,
Blue realizes with a sudden twist of anxiety as the alert goes out about the aerial wave, rousing everyone into readiness. The rangers and gym leaders have stopped directing people as the last pieces of the perimeter are put into place, the last citizens running as they’re waved inside by rangers at the perimeter. Blue swallows and thinks of calling Red and checking where he is…
But then he hears it: the sound of wings.
“Civilians inside, now!” the ranger with the megaphone yells. “Trainers, prepare for contact and brace for hurricane wind gusts!”
The remaining civilians run for the pokemon center entrance while the trainers summon their pokemon. Blue’s pulse kicks up, ready to finally
do
something, and the battle calm descends even as he spares one last worry over Red and Leaf.
They’ll be okay. They’ll have gone to another defense point…
“Go, Maturin!” Blue yells as the cloud of pokemon approaches, and goes down to one knee, hands braced against the pavement. “Bai!”
The command is almost lost in the other trainers’, and Maturin joins the dozens of pokemon sending ice, fire, electricity, and other projectiles up into the oncoming cloud of pokemon to divert them around the pokemon center.
The forefront of the wave falls or veers away, tangling with the ones behind them and causing a chain reaction of interference and deterrence. But there are too many still coming behind them, and within another few heartbeats the rest of the mixed flock is flying overhead in a cacophony of noise and force that knocks multiple defenders down, and stuns most of their pokemon into stopping their attacks.
Blue rubs grit out of his eyes and sees some rangers and gym members moving inside the trainer perimeter to finish off and catch any of the flying pokemon that hit the building or were knocked out of the air. He watches as others around the perimeter converge on any of the wild pokemon that are staying to fight rather than flying off again, itching to join them, but none are close, and he doesn’t want to break position in case one of the straggling fliers ends up nearby.
And then the Pressure is upon them, and Blue finally experiences the aura of a Stormbringer.
It’s like being turned into someone else. The battle calm he held onto through the aerial wave shatters, and he’s left feeling… weak. Impotent. Meaningless. What could he do to stop Zapdos like this? What difference could he make?
As the sense of frustration and despair fills him, two people around Blue break and run for the pokemon center, one screaming out “
I’m sorry!”
over and over until he’s inside. The older woman next to Blue, Fumiyo, is shivering so hard she has trouble standing straight, and after a few moments she groans and turns away, stumbling toward the building.
It’s a stark reminder that what he’s feeling isn’t real, and he straightens his back as the ranger on the megaphone tells them to contract to make up for their losses.
“You okay?” he asks Katie as he steps backward. She nods, though she looks like she’s going to throw up. “Glen! Okay?” Blue yells.
“I’m good!”
“Taro?”
“Y-yeah!”
He turns to the new trainer on his left and sees him rubbing his eyes. He almost introduces himself again and ask his name… but doesn’t see the point, suddenly.
It takes a few minutes for the next alert to go out, and then the first ground wave is there, a trickle that became a living tide of pokemon who race around the barriers as the darkness deepens. Blue can’t see over the concrete, but he can hear what’s on the other side well enough; the whinnying and the screeching, the stomping and the bellowing. Everyone’s eyes are drawn to the burning rapidash that leaps the wall, only to be overwhelmed by water attacks that smash it against the concrete it just jumped over. Blue itches to catch it, as, he’s sure, does everyone else, but no one breaks the line, their discipline reinforced by caution of what they can hear moving around them.
And then they’re coming over from all sides, a dodrio here, a ponyta there, even a scyther, which leaps over the wall, dodges the attacks that get sent at it mid air, then zips back over the concrete as soon as it lands, wings a blur. Blue fights against the feeling of pointlessness as best he can and tries to stay focused on his segment of the wall, but only a few pokemon attempt to cross near him, and Maturin is just a turret, sending out attacks that just add to the onslaught.
“Bai,” Blue commands. “Gaw. Gaw.” The doduo is knocked down and doesn’t get back up, and then he’s just listening to others make similarly repetitive commands and watching his segment of the barrier in the dwindling light.
He never imagined that facing a Tier 3 would be so… boring.
Blue hears the rain before it hits, an onrushing
shhhHHHH
that envelops them in the space of a breath. He shivers even through his raincoat as the ever present wind turns bitingly cold against his legs and arms. He tries to stay alert for anything trying to cross the walls, any sign of an emergency he has to help with elsewhere, but the heavy rain makes it hard to see, and the sound of the downpour plus the now overhead thunder makes it hard to hear.
Floodlights eventually snap on behind the trainers, directed at the barrier so they can see if anything crosses, but for a long while, nothing does. Blue can imagine the pokemon on the other side, not a full wave but just disparate individuals running away from wherever the Pressure is originating. He looks up into the strobing dark clouds on the off chance that he can make Zapdos out, and has to remind himself that he needs to be focusing on what’s around him.
The first bit of excitement comes when a nidoking smashes through one of the barriers far to Blue’s right. He watches with envy as the pokemon there all start attacking it, causing it to roar and back away, then charge forward on all fours. More wild pokemon enter from behind it as the trainers there swap in physically bulky pokemon to stop it.
Blue is about to break ranks and go to it, feet already having turned him completely that way, when Leader Surge’s Second, Jack Riely, is suddenly there, a nidoking of his own out along with a forretress. Blue stares in fascination as the Second uses both together to take down the wild nidoking, his own keeping its attention by attempting to wrestle it to the ground while the forretress pins them in place with traps. He hadn’t even known Vermilion’s Second was here. Did he just teleport in?
Meanwhile the rangers direct the trainers in the area to pick off the other wilds trying to come in behind the nidoking. They finally manage to get another barrier up in place, and Jack catches the exhausted and badly injured nidoking.
“Eyes front,” the boy beside Blue reminds him, and Blue flushes, moving his gaze back to his own part of the perimeter where… nothing has continued to happen.
What feel like hours pass in the constant onslaught of wind, rain, and thunder. Blue wonders at times if he’s dreaming, if this is some purgatory, and he’s still in bed getting rest before his match with Surge. Should he do things differently, if that’s true? Maybe not put the Objections on, if he doesn’t
actually
want to join the gym…
“New wave!” the ranger shouts, and Blue’s attention snaps back to the present, looking around until he spots the magneton hovering above the barriers. Attacks quickly converge on it to bring it down, and everyone is tense for a moment as they wait for more to appear, but it takes a while before Grass and Bug pokemon start climbing the walls or squeezing through the gaps, and suddenly things feel slightly real to Blue again.
Happy to finally have something to do, Blue orders Maturin to send out Ice Beams against a tangela that pulls itself over the wall. The beams have an odd effect in the rain, freezing the drops that fall through them and leaving trails of fog in the chilled air. It takes real effort for Blue to switch to another attack when the next plant pokemon arrives, a weepinbell that climbs the barrier in a mess of vines. Instead her Water Guns help pummel it into a stupor. He doesn’t want to “steal the spotlight” if it means he’s just exhausting his pokemon to try and grab the decisive blows against the enemies that happen to be around him.
The defenders deter each small wave of pokemon that make it over and between the gaps in the wall until there’s a small ring of bodies acting as a second layer to the concrete barrier. The pokemon who do manage to make it across now are easily picked off, and despite his effort to stay focused, Blue steadily feels his vigilance give way to dull monotony, until he’s not sure he’d even order Maturin to attack any more unless some really powerful pokemon shows up.
And then light burns across the heavens, and Zapdos fills the city with its cry.
Blue turns to the source of the light along with everyone else, shading his eyes and squinting at the crackling electric shape of a bird winging its way lazily across the sky.
He waits to feel something at his first in-person sighting of a Stormbringer. He waits for the arcanine in his chest to roar fire through his blood. He waits for steely determination to bring him some focus. He waits, gaze following Zapdos without looking straight at it, for even awe.
Instead there’s nothing. Nothing except maybe the frustration at the distance between what he wants, and where he is. Frustration is like anger, right?
“Eyes out!” the megaphone wielder yells. “Don’t get distracted!”
Easier said than done.
Blue’s not sure if it’s the Pressure getting worse, or the sight of his nemesis so far out of reach, or both, but it takes all his will just to tear his gaze away from Zapdos. He distracts himself by focusing, not on the barrier in front of him, but the skyscrapers beyond it, so bizarrely and beautifully lit by the thundergod’s glowing presence, each window reflecting the single, searingly bright point of light as it drifts across the black sky.
Eventually lightning flashes across the sky, so widespread and bright that it makes him glad he was able to tear his eyes away from Zapdos. A moment later it’s followed by thunder that seems to shake the very air around him.
This is the moment we’re most vulnerable.
Blue tries to shake the ringing out of his ears as he rapidly blinks. There’s the sound of battle around him, but when he looks it’s all distant and easily contained.
He needs to do something, something
meaningful
, and standing here and staring at a wall on the off-chance something comes across it… isn’t.
Zapdos’s light moves across the city until the shadow of the pokemon center stretches long and dark over Blue and the rest of the trainers on the north side of it. Pokemon start attacking from a different direction as the source of Pressure shifts, and the rangers and gym members take up the slack as people start getting shifted around to try and predict where the next pokemon would come from.
It’s a confusing process of shuffling around one group at a time, and it makes Blue think the ranger coordinating is having trouble with their own Pressure; it seems much simpler to just have everyone step to the side as many times as it takes for the perimeter to rotate. But no one’s asked him, and he can’t exactly go up to the ranger and suggest this. He has a wall segment to watch.
Eventually the immense bright light starts to noticeably fade, little by little, until all of them are back in the relative darkness of a thunderstorm with far less lightning than it used to have.
Blue’s been watching the walls for some sign of an encroachment for a few minutes before he realizes it’s easier to focus, now.
They survived. The Stormbringer is gone.
Blue is watching the sullen red glow to the west when the others find him, sitting against the side of the pokecenter. Most of the trainer perimeter is resting, no new pokemon encroaching on the walls since Zapdos left about a quarter of an hour ago.
“I think part of the city’s burning,” he says. It’s unfair that he should feel so tired despite not
doing
anything. “When did that happen?”
“Might have been the Zap Cannon,” Aiko says. “Could have overloaded the lightning rods.”
“Calling that a Zap Cannon is like calling a Hydro Pump a Water Gun,” Elaine says. “I saw it, looked like a comet. Like a… lightning comet. That’s what we should call it. Lightning Comet.”
“You want to name an attack only used by one pokemon?” Taro asks. “Why not just call it a Zapdos Cannon?”
“Oo. That’s better…”
Blue is still watching the red glow, letting their conversation wash over him as he remembers the blinding figure of the Thunder God, the feeling of helplessness. He wishes he’d been able to watch it more, to see who had managed to pull it away from the city. Instead he was busy staring at a wall.
“Blue?”
“Hm?” He turns to find everyone looking at him, each holding a bottle of Glen’s custom energy drink. Glen is holding one out to him. “Sorry. Thanks.” He takes it.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He opens the bottle and drinks, swallowing the sweet, salty, and oddly refreshing liquid, then looks at the others again. “How’s everyone doing?”
They look at each other, or at the ground.
“Alright,” Aiko says after a moment. “Better than I expected to be.”
“Yeah,” Elaine says. “I think I mostly just feel relief? Like whatever I was expecting a stormbringer fight to be like… I mean it wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as… I don’t know. If it wasn’t for the Pressure I’d rather go through that again than have a repeat of the onix nest.”
Glen and Aiko are nodding agreement, and Blue opens his mouth… then closes it, looking away.
She’s right. It wasn’t terrible. If he had to pick a word for his first encounter with a legendary pokemon, “boring” is the main one he can think of that fits. Or “frustrating.” It’s a testament to Leader Surge’s defensive planning, and he’s sure the other cities in the region will start copying his methods, but part of him worries that it might make people even more complacent with the existence of the Stormbringers.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Elaine goes on. “Glad we could help without anyone getting hurt. Anyone feel like a victory dance?”
“It’s not over yet,” Blue says, unable to keep silent at that.
Who knows how many people got hurt outside those barriers? What if someone tried to run up to the wrong side of them and got caught outside?
“The city is full of pokemon, and even if they’re not rampaging anymore they’re still not going to be happy about where they are.”
Aiko’s face is illuminated by her phone screen, hand covering it against the rain. “Networks are still down… Red and Leaf were coming from your trainer house, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And they called, what, ten minutes before the the first alert went out? So they were probably still traveling when the aerial wave hit.”
“You think they were caught out in the storm?” Glen asks.
Aiko’s face is drawn, voice tense. “I’m looking for other safe spots they may have reached. There’s a pokemon center to the west and a hospital northeast of here. Maybe they made it to either.”
Blue looks at the screen over her shoulder, then out at the storm. It’s much less intimidating than it was: the rain is just rain, not a torrential downpour, and the wind no longer has to be fought against just to stay upright. Most of all, the lightning is sporadic, the thunder mostly distant rumbles rather than the constant auditory assault of before.
He spots a group of rangers approach a part of the barrier without pokemon bodies piled near it and start slipping between the concrete screens. They’re moving in the direction of the burning buildings.
It’s not over yet,
he thinks again. He gets to his feet. “I’m going out.”
“To look for them?” Aiko asks.
“No. Odds of finding them by just stumbling around are really low. I mean for that.” Blue gestures to the burning. “You guys don’t have to come. But I don’t think there’s much else we can do here. And if there’s even a chance that we can help out there… It beats sitting around here doing nothing.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then Aiko nods and tucks her phone away. “I’m in.”
Blue searches her face. “Are you sure? It’s already past the time you’d head home to help your dad.”
“He barely even noticed, when I fell asleep in the hospital after the tunnels. I can still help for another couple hours.”
“I’m in too,” Glen says, and Elaine nods.
Taro hesitates, then looks at Chie, who’s looking at the ground. “I’m sorry, I don’t… I think we’ll stay?” He turns to his sister again.
Chie nods, gaze jumping from one face to the other as she fidgets. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around how the Pressure made me feel, and I’m tired, and… it seems really dangerous out there.”
“Yeah, of course,” Aiko says. “Get some rest.”
“Thanks. I’m just not sure we’ll be of much help to you guys…”
Taro isn’t looking at his sister anymore, but Blue. His gaze tells Blue he only cares what
he
thinks of their staying behind, and Blue… doesn’t answer right away.
He knows it’s not fair: they came here with him (though maybe only because they didn’t know what else to do) and they didn’t break when the Pressure first hit, despite not having been in the cave with the rest of them. It’s not fair to judge them for wanting to rest, for believing they’re at the end of their rope rather than go back out into uncertainty and danger. If anything they should be commended for knowing their limits, right?
But he does judge them. Not morally, but… their merits, their competence, their potential. He can’t help it. What he needs of his companions are people who
will
follow him into those things, because there’s no way he’s going to be able to take down what he saw drifting lazily across the sky like a deadly sun, causing so much death and destruction
passively,
without people willing to do something far more uncertain and dangerous than this.
He could train everyone up anyway, and hope they grow into that trust and determination. And he would. He’ll be in Vermilion Gym for a few months, and he’d help them get their badge just like anyone else. But for the people he wants traveling with him, the people in his party… He wants heroes born for that eventual fight.
“Get some rest,” is all he says. “We’ll meet up later, once the storm is fully past.”
They nod, Taro still looking a little worried, and say their goodbyes. Once they’re gone, Blue gets up and goes to a pair of rangers under the awning near the front door to the pokemon center. One of them has a headset on and is sitting beside a radio set, presumably using it to coordinate with the rest of the city’s defenders.
“Ranger,” Blue says to the one standing by. “Would the pokemon center remain secure if my group leaves?”
The man looks them over, then the trainers remaining around the pokemon center. “In my judgement, yes. What’s so urgent?”
“We’d like to help with whatever is happening there.” He gestures, body language as confident as he can make it. He’s ready for a half a dozen different objections but part of him wishes that this time, just once, a ranger could look past his age and-
“Good timing, Trainer. We haven’t received check in back from a few of the defense points that were along the path of the Zap Cannon. I believe the gym members are organizing to head out soon, and could probably use you.”
Huh.
Blue follows his gaze to the group of five trainers who are huddled near one of the floodlights. “Will do, thanks.” He starts to jog over to them. “This okay with you guys?”
“Sure,” Elaine says. “Safety in numbers and all that.”
“Just making sure.” He’s more worried about them not being able to make their own decisions, but there’s no time to discuss it further.
The gym trainers are all dressed in their tan and olive uniforms, along with hooded raincoats. They’re a mix of ages, the youngest close to Glen’s sixteen and the oldest being the gym’s Second. Blue hasn’t had the chance to spend much time with him, but he knows the Unovan fought with Surge in the war and has an aggressive style.
“…from Saffron and two more from Celadon are here, so if one of you wants to stay behind we can make sure there’s coverage in every direction.”
“What if they get called away?”
“The rangers can request more help if they need it.” Jack spots Blue and his group and turns slightly. “Yes?”
“Rangers told me you might be heading to the fires over there?”
The Second looks over at the Rangers in surprise, then back at Blue. “Wouldn’t say no to it, but this is a gym operation, Oak.”
“We’re going anyway. Just figured we could work better together,” Blue says before he can stop himself. “And I
am
a gym member.”
“What? Since when?”
“Tonight, actually,” Trainer Tori says, a tall blonde in her mid-thirties that Blue fought to reach his Challenge match.
“Didn’t think there was time for it to finish,” Jack says, frowning slightly.
“Surge called the match just before making the announcement.” Tori smiles at Blue, and he smiles back. “It was short, but a good strat.”
“Thanks.”
“Alright, you can tag along and get a taste of our search and rescue protocols. But your friends—”
“Are going to challenge for membership too,” Blue says. “And they’ll win. I’ll bet all my Objections on it, if you want.”
There are smiles and snickers from the group, and Blue keeps his own expression mild and friendly as his heart pounds. Is he being too confrontational? He probably shouldn’t interrupt the Gym Second, he has to get used to the idea of having superiors…
But Jack is looking at him with only mild irritation to go with his own amusement. “What do you think
I’m
going to do with them, offer them to Surge?” He turns to Glen, Elaine, and Aiko. “If you’re all coming because you’re planning on joining Vermilion Gym, then I’m going to treat you like fresh members, and you’re going to follow orders. We’re not going out there to capture rare or powerful pokemon, though we will be capturing wilds that we run across if we can and killing them if not. Anyone have a problem with that?”
Blue watches the three shake their heads, Aiko with a only a moment of hesitation. He was worried she might object to the idea of killing wilds, but she looks resolute.
“Good. Jerry, executive decision. You stay, and the rest of us will head out now.”
The youngest nods and salutes, fist over heart, and says, “Good luck.” He turns to Blue’s group. “Looking forward to working with all of you, so long as you make it back.”
“Ignore him,” Jack says with a stern look. “He’s got a morbid streak.”
“It was meant as inspiration.”
“We’ll have to work on that, Jer. Special class on inspiring speeches and parting words, starting this weekend.”
“Yes, Sir.” He salutes again, no less seriously, then heads off to inform the rangers, presumably.
Jack turns back to the rest of them. “Alright, so our main priority is going to be reaching the shelters that were caught up in that.” He bobs his head in the direction of the sullen red in the distant sky. “They’re not responding on the radio, and it’s possible the ones they were using got damaged. Surge is calling for an evacuation of that area, but they may not even have heard about it. We find anyone that needs help on the way, we do our best to help them, but otherwise we’re just going straight there. Hopefully phones are back up soon and we can get a better sense of what’s happening where. Any questions?” He gives them a moment, but no one responds. “Okay. Let’s get names, too. You three first.”
Blue’s friends introduce themselves, and then he learns the names of the other two gym members: Peter, a tall guy that towers over everyone else, and Mei Li, who has infrared goggles strapped over her head.
“Keep in mind,” Tori says after introducing herself, “Just because the Pressure is gone doesn’t mean you’re clean of its effects. People still feel primed for the way it makes them think for a while after, sometimes days. Sometimes it’s more insidious, since it feels more like your own thoughts. If you’re worried you’re making strange decisions, let someone know.”
“Eight trainers means starburst,” Jack says. “You four make up the square. Let’s move.”
He leads the way toward the barrier, checking carefully between the concrete walls in either direction before slipping past it. Once they’re all outside the perimeter, the four senior gym members take up a loose diamond pattern around Blue’s group, who cover the four corners, and everyone summons their pokemon, using commands they’ve trained with at the gym to complete the formation.
The city is unrecognizable in the dark. Trash and broken glass litter the slightly flooded streets, and there are pokemon lying here and there, most very obviously dead. Blue keeps an eye on Maturin, making sure she’s not too tired from the earlier vigil in the Pressure, but his pokemon seems mostly pleased by the environment. Elaine’s psyduck and Glen’s quagsire move with similar springs in their steps. He expected Aiko to bring out her krabby, but instead Eevee shines silver in the occasional streetlight.
Blue is on the back left of his party’s square, and he’s walking almost entirely sideways so he can keep an eye out in that direction. He’s worried at first that he’ll have trouble keeping his eyes where they need to be, but without being submerged in the Thunder God’s Pressure it’s far easier to focus on just his role.
It also helps that the group he’s a part of is smaller, so he doesn’t feel as useless. It’s alarming, in retrospect, how much his attention wandered under the Pressure. He’s lucky no one died because of his (ego) inattention, but he’s going to need to figure out a way to get a handle on it for next time. He can’t expect to be in a position of authority so quick that he won’t go through that again: there were plenty of experienced gym members and rangers that were part of that perimeter too.
He needs to look into ways to predict what it will feel like, and how to deal with it. Even if it feels the same the next time he faces a Stormbringer, he has to be prepared for a different emotion and thought process to overcome him if he’s actually in a position to do something meaningful. He wonders what would have happened if Zapdos had landed right in front of him: would the feeling of Pressure suddenly change to something more like in the caverns, where he was so shaken by the a sense of being caught in a trap that he’d missed a throw at an onix?
Blue winces at the internal jab of shame that still comes up when he thinks of that, then does his best to put it out of his mind. He’ll talk to Red and Gramps about Pressure once all this is over. For now, it’s enough that he’s on the move and with a clear goal.
“Venonat in an upturned garbage can,” Aiko says after they’ve been walking for a few minutes. “I think it’s still alive.”
“Halt,” Jack says. “Peter, check with her. Everyone else eyes out.”
Blue keeps his gaze moving on their surroundings, only slightly tense as his battle calm hovers at the edges of his thoughts. He hears the sounds of commands being given and battle starting behind him. It’s over quickly, the sound of the pokeball capture muffled by the sound of the steady rain, and once they return to formation and everyone starts moving again he’s reassured by his ability to keep his attention where it was supposed to be.
They go another block before Mei Li notices a magnemite floating down an alley, and goes off with Glen to capture it, and shortly after Peter spots a spinarak hanging from a wall, and goes with Elaine to deal with it this time. While he waits for them to capture it, Blue spots something moving in a small lake formed by a depression in the flooded street.
“Contact, I think” Blue says, pulse picking up. “I think it’s a buizel? Barely got a glimpse of it.”
“Wait till they’re back, then go with Tori.”
Blue nods and waits, gaze flicking away from the puddle every so often to ensure he’s not missing anything else. Eventually the other two return, and he follows the blonde woman to it… then lets out a breath of relief as he feels himself rapidly relaxing, his attention narrowing to a point.
He has his battle calm again. Even as he prepares Maturin to attack the buizel alongside Tori’s tangela, the tension of the situation doesn’t interfere with the state of flow: he shifts from one command to another, Tackle, Bubblebeam, Bite, until she catches it. Easy as can be.
It’s good to have it back, after spending the whole night without it. But as he returns to the group, he realizes it’s just one more thing that he can’t rely on, moving forward.
They continue their journey through the city, and while part of Blue is eager to find more pokemon that he might potentially catch, it’s hard not to also be worried about the signs of destruction around them, particularly once they pass a crushed car.
“Think anyone is in that?” Glen asks.
Jack pauses, and they pause with him. “I’ll check with… Aiko, right?” She nods, and he leads the way there, checking under and around the car first for any pokemon, then carefully peering into the crushed cabin as best he can while Aiko and Eevee stay on high alert.
“Think that nidoking did this?” Elaine asks. “We haven’t seen any other big pokemon.”
“They’re out here,” Mei Li says, her goggles on as she watches the sky. “Heard the ranger on the radio mention it.”
“Not too worried about them,” Peter says as Jack suddenly summons a machamp. It towers over him, and with a gesture and a word the pokemon grips the car door and tears it open. “We’ll hear them coming. More worried about the small ones…”
He trails off as they all watch Jack flash a light into the car and reach inside, then step back and return his machamp to its ball before walking to them with Aiko. He takes his position at the front of the group before Blue can make out his expression, but his tone is grim enough.
“Let’s go.”
They go, and Blue wonders again if Red and Leaf were caught out in all this, anxiety like a fluttering bird in his chest until he reminds himself to focus on his surroundings.
Little by little the red glow in the distance gets closer, and Blue begins to get flashbacks to Viridian Forest, the dark night around him growing brighter and brighter as he got closer to the fire. The storm continues to lessen too, rain fading to a drizzle and thunder more sporadic. Soon visibility has increased enough to make out how all the tallest buildings in a line down the path of the Zapdos Cannon were set on fire.
The mood of the group subtly shifts as the scope of the disaster becomes clear, and as they get closer to the affected area Blue hears Tori curse behind him.
“One attack,” she says, voice curt. “One attack did more damage than the entire rest of the storm’s lightning combined.”
“That’s how it goes,” Blue replies, remembering something he read about the way Articuno destroyed some town over a century ago without even summoning a storm, just flash freezing the whole area so severely that the trees literally exploded from the sudden drop in temperature. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being the most successful defense against a Stormbringer in history. But they’re not something you can totally protect against or predict, no matter how hard you try.”
Lightning rods on every building in the city, and what does Zapdos do? Melt the rods. Just sheer brute forced its way through the protection.
No such thing as perfect defense. Sooner or later, unmatchable and unpredictable power wins.
It’s not quite like a whole street is on fire: in truth only the tallest buildings are, like giant torches stuck in the earth every few blocks. Some combination of good building materials and the rain kept them from being entirely engulfed or spreading to neighboring ones. But with the storm dying it’s only a matter of time.
“Shit, this is worse than they mentioned,” Jack says, one hand going up to rub under his raincoat hood. “Two closest shelters that are being evacuated are a stadium to the south and a hospital to the north.” He turns to look over the group. “Eight might be too many to send in one direction. We’re splitting up.”
Blue blinks. Are the gym members ditching them already? It’s nice to feel trusted enough to go on their own, at least. “Alright. Which way should we take?”
Vermilion’s Second shakes his head. “We’re all one unit now, Oak. You’re heading with Tori, Peter, and Glen down south. The rest of us are going north. If communication isn’t back up in two hours just follow whoever’s in charge locally.”
Blue stares at Jack a moment, then looks at his companions. None seem particularly thrilled about this, but… they said they’d follow orders. And he’s part of Vermilion Gym now.
“Right.” He forces a smile at Aiko and Elaine. “See you guys soon.”
They hug him and Glen while the gym members work out some logistics. “Be careful, Blue,” Aiko says after she pulls away, watching him with worried eyes. “Remember, you have nothing to prove to us. We’re with you.”
Blue squeezes her upper arm, touched but knowing that she knows better than to think it’s them he feels driven to prove himself to. “Thanks. Don’t feel pressured to prove anything either, okay? If you’re worried about your dad, head back.”
Aiko smiles, a wry twist of her lips. “Alright, I guess we’re both in the same boat then. But I won’t leave Elaine until I know she’s with one of you guys, so let’s meet up as soon as we can.”
“Right.” Aiko steps away, and Elaine hugs Blue hard around the ribs, making him smile. “Be careful, El. Won’t be able to do that victory dance later if you squeeze any harder.”
She loosens her grip and steps back, grinning. “Just making sure you feel the love.” And then she kisses his cheek, which leaves him feeling very confused as she turns away to join Aiko, who’s already following Jack and Mei Li.
Glen is giving him raised eyebrows, and Blue shrugs helplessly, which makes his friend smile and shake his head before heading to Peter and Tori, who are waiting for them. Blue puts his confusion and embarrassment aside and steps opposite of Glen to make up the sides of their new diamond formation, with Tori in front and Peter in the rear, and then they’re making their way south toward the docks.
There’s enough light from the fires that they can make out the street between the buildings, which is why they have plenty of warning every time some pokemon suddenly appear and start to run, hop, float, or skitter from one area to another. With just four of them they don’t go out of their way to catch any, though Blue wonders who eventually will. Maturin seems on edge as she walks beside him, and he’s not sure if it’s the fires above them or all the pokemon they can spot.
“There’s probably no one in these buildings, right?” Glen asks as they pass close to one.
“Even if there are, we’re not in a good position to help them,” Peter says. “Particularly if there are pokemon in them. They’re not rampaging anymore, but they’ll definitely be skittish from the fires, especially if they start spreading faster.”
“Anti-fire design and systems should slow down or extinguish some of them eventually,” Tori says. “But we need to reach the stadium quick to make sure they know Surge’s plan to get them out of the danger zone. There are probably close to fifty-thousand people at the stadium, and their wellbeing has to be prioritized over a handful that might be in any given building.”
Blue remembers what Surge said, at the end of his speech.
Just remember that you’re making a choice, and that good intentions can often cost more lives than they save.
He’s clearly drilled that concept into all of his people, and it’s not that Blue disagrees, exactly, but… if he knew for a fact that someone’s life was in danger in one of these buildings, he’d have to go in. He wouldn’t feel like he
had
a choice.
A voice in his head that sounds very much like Red asks him what he thinks the odds are that there
isn’t
at least one person in that building, and he informs that voice that guessed odds aren’t the same as knowing. And then hopes, again, that Red is somewhere safe.
They walk for over ten minutes before they hear the roar.
It’s distant, but coming from somewhere ahead, and distinctly recognizable.
“Was that a goddamned steelix?” Peter murmurs, and then the earth trembles briefly beneath their feet, a bare brush of the distant shockwave’s epicenter.
“I think that was in the direction of the stadium,” Tori says, and pulls out a container ball. “Bikes, everyone. We need to move quick.”
Within a minute they’re pedaling down the street toward the stadium at the edge of the wharf district, the wide, tall building rising up in the distance just before the ground slopes down into the harbor, the still-stormy ocean illuminated by lightning beyond it. The stadium’s dome is deployed, keeping its insides nice and dry from the rain, but there are clouds of dust from collapsed buildings nearby it, or perhaps destroyed parts of the stadium itself.
Blue feels his excitement growing as they get closer, and has to caution himself not to get too carried away. This promises to be something important, but they don’t know if the steelix is wild or under the command of a trainer who’s using it to fight off something worse…
A crowd of people are running as more tremors ripple through the area, though not at random. Blue can just make out their figures in the bright lights around the stadium, moving quickly in a column away from it and into the wide open lot, where a wide gap has been made in the same concrete walls that were placed around the pokemon center.
And on the other side of where they’re exiting from…
Blue blinks, then blinks again as he follows Tori and Peter onto the winding road toward the stadium lot, trying to watch where he’s going in the dark and make sense of the spectacle at the same time.
That’s definitely a steelix. And beside it is
another steelix.
And on the other side of the arena is a snorlax, around which are what look like a number of pokemon, all of whom are trying to flee the three titans… directly toward where the people are escaping.
Blue doesn’t know what’s happening, or what caused it, but there’s one thing he recognizes immediately as they get closer, and it makes him swerve his bike away from where the other three are headed and bike directly for the battle instead.
There’s an exeggutor, a venusaur, a lapras, and a blastoise, all fighting at the same time. And possibly two more pokemon Blue can’t see.
And behind them, moving his feet and arms, and sending out shrill whistles that Blue can just barely hear, there’s a figure. He’s not wearing his lab coat, and Blue can’t make out his hair or features under the hood of his own raincoat…
But he recognizes those pokemon, and there’s only one person he knows who can command that many at once, in a situation like this, to deal with two steelix at the same time.
Gramps is here.
And if Gramps is here, then the slim figure holding that snorlax back with a dragonair and a tangrowth is his sister.
And they’re still not quite winning, because the rangers and gym members are dealing with some commotion he can’t see behind the walls. They were left to deal with the problem on their own, probably demanded that the others go. There’s no one else around to help them.
Blue reaches the blockade and turns sharp to go around it and behind the snorlax. He lets his bike fall once he gets close enough and dashes forward, his battle calm secure around him as he takes out an ultra ball. There’s no thought here, not when things feel this right: if someone asked him yesterday or asks him tomorrow whether he believes in destiny or fate, he’d say no.
But in this moment, coincidence decides his next actions for him. He’s caught in the stream of his own nature.
Daisy sees him as he runs up behind her foe, and no words are needed. A quick command has both her tangrowth and dragonair unwrap the snorlax just as Blue steps into ultra ball range.
Locks on as it stumbles a step forward in surprise.
Throws as it heaves itself forward for a body slam.
Hits, catching it in a flash of light that sucks it out of the air mid-fall.
Blue rushes over and picks up the ball, victory singing through his blood, and neither of them bother exchanging words as they rush over to the Professor.
He’s still going, whole body composing a song that his pokemon dance to: his left hand has straps with bells on them wrapped around the back of each finger, his shoes make distinct noises when they hit the ground in bursts, and his right hand plays the flute between his lips in a constant stream of notes, high pitched for one pokemon and low for the other.
Together, his four pokemon can just barely keep the steelix in check, but they lack the type advantages needed to deal decisive blows, and there’s no one around to follow up on their moments of weakness.
The same strategy is too risky here, with the steelix’s long bodies moving in constant battle. They’re going to have to help Gramps take them down.
“Left,” Daisy says, and summons her hitmontop.
“Right,” Blue says and unclips Rive’s ball, hoping his pokemon can stand the rain for a few moments.
Together, the three Oaks stand tall against the storm.
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Fear. Deep as her bones, like a weight on her very skin. Compressing her. Making her back hunch, her knees bend. Making her want to be small. To hide.
That’s what the Pressure did to her, when it hit after the aerial wave passed by. Just like before, when she saw a myth float above her in rainbow blaze of heat.
She couldn’t believe how anyone was able to function, under that. The only thing that kept her upright and moving was sheer fear of social condemnation and letting her friends down. Once Zapdos appeared like a blazing incarnation of nature’s fury, she couldn’t even open her mouth to give commands.
Thankfully there was nothing in her section of the wall that needed attacking: she just had to stand there and not collapse until the god had flown past.
And she had. Her knees buckled, but didn’t break. And now… she’s free.
That’s how it felt, as soon as the Pressure ended. Like she was awake and alive and herself in a way that was hard not to feel innervated by. Even walking through the storm-ravaged streets, seeing all the dead pokemon and people, wasn’t enough to completely dispel that relief.
Part of her feels proud that she made it through. But mostly she’s just ashamed of how useless she was, and how she never wants to go through that again. A voice inside is whining that she just wants to go home and crawl into her bed and sleep.
More than anything, what keeps her moving is the need to shut that voice up.
Aiko moves along the street with the others as they make their way between the burning buildings, keeping the right side of the street in her field of vision, but occasionally glancing forward and back to see Jack and Mei Li in those positions. It’s a little surreal for her to be working so close to a Gym Second, but it’s definitely reassuring in a way that being separate from Blue and Glen wouldn’t otherwise have been.
Mei Li is more distracting: her goggled head swivels around to watch the ninety-degree cone behind them while her feet step backward with easy, practiced grace. They trained in this formation at the gym, but only for one class. Aiko wants to ask how long she practiced that backwards walk, but doesn’t want to distract her. There will be plenty of time to ask after, since she’s going to end up joining the gym too, after what Blue did.
Elaine makes up the other side of the formation, which puts her out of Aiko’s field of view. Aiko is waiting for an opportunity to talk to her, but both the situation and their positions makes it difficult.
Instead it’s Jack who initiates conversation, keeping his gaze sweeping forward as he says, “Now that we’re a smaller group, the need for information of each person’s capabilities are magnified. Aiko, Elaine, I’ll need a rundown of your pokemon.”
“Raticate, venonat, sandslash, oddish, krabby,” Aiko says. Eevee is trotting beside her. “And an abra, just for teleporting.” She hasn’t trained it for combat yet, in part because it doesn’t belong to her and in part because she doesn’t keep it on her belt.
“Psyduck, obviously,” Elaine says next as her yellow companion waddles beside her. “Tangela, drowzee, grimer, dugtrio, venomoth.”
“Alright,” the gym’s Second says. “Any special skills, outside of combat?”
“Tracking and pokemon care,” Aiko says.
“That’s it?”
She glances at him before looking back where she’s supposed to. “Uh. Breeding too, in case it’s important for some reason? And I do some training and conditioning programming.” She’s about to add that she can cook too, but realizes it might sound sarcastic.
“After the storm, try to go to at least the third class on leadership,” Jack says, voice empty of admonishment. “It’ll go over why even knowing unrelated skills like that might be important. And Elaine?”
“Um. Navigation and pathfinding, and I took some coordinator classes?”
“Alright. Mei Li’s top four are medical, navigation, rescue, and kiting, just so you’re aware. Mine are containment, medical, coordinator, and habitat.”
Aiko nods, like this is information that will be useful to her. Who knows, maybe it will be. She imagines that Elaine is far happier with all this talk of main skills, and wonders if she’s already classifying them (literally) the way she did her friends. “Sir, if I can ask, why are we staying near the burning buildings?”
“Well, for one they’re going to be beacons for all sorts of pokemon, even as they drive away any with a healthy fear of fire. But I’m hoping trainers with the right pokemon can come and put these buildings out, and maybe they’ll need help with that if so. If not, it’s the most likely area for rescue operations to move through in any case, and if we can hitch a ride with them we’ve got a change in priorities. Priority 1 is still catching wilds we come across, but 2 is being upgraded to 4, while helping civilians stays at 3. Time is our most valuable resource right now, and if I could sacrifice one of each of our pokemon to get there now, I would. Understood?”
Aiko is too shocked by his statement for a moment to realize he expects an answer. It isn’t until Elaine says, “Yes, sir,” that Aiko swallows and echoes her, thinking that there’s no way she’s “sacrificing” a pokemon unless someone’s life is immediately on the line.
“Good. Along those lines, if we reach an area where the road is clearer we can use mounts and bikes to—”
“Incoming from above,” Mei Li cuts in. “Magnemite swarm!”
Aiko almost turns to look, but Jack’s “Inside, this way!” draws her attention to him instead, and she runs after the gym’s Second, feet splashing the small rivers that run along the streets. Aiko keeps her gaze on her quadrant, making sure there aren’t any other pokemon nearby until they reach one of the few unshuttered doors on the street. Jack’s machoke shatters the door, and they pile inside as the cloud of metallic spheres and spinning prongs hovers over the street.
Electricity snaps and crackles between them, catching street lights below and blowing their bulbs as electricity arcs out from them into the various magnemite and magneton.
And then they’re past. It takes Aiko’s eyes time to adjust with the remaining light outside, the flames above giving everything a mild yellow and red tint. The more distant streetlights make it easier to see the outlines of things than any details in all the darkness.
“Well,” Jack says, voice quiet. “Time to find another route.”
“Think that swarm is what’s causing the evac?” Mei Li asks.
“I hope so. If it’s not, there’s something worse, like the hospital being one of the burning buildings.” Jack sighs. “If we could get word to Giovanni, he could probably take them all down himself.”
“Could we… send flares up?” Aiko asks, unsure if suggestions are welcome. “Some kind of signal?”
“Flares bigger than the flaming buildings, you mean?” Mei Li asks, but she’s smiling. It sounds like she’s smiling, at least.
“We don’t have a system of communication worked out through flares anyway,” Jack says. “Though it’s not a bad idea. We’ll be sure to include it in the debrief. Meanwhile, let’s find a route that has more light.”
They make their way out as Jack summons a zebstrika. The white stripes of fur begin to glow as a current of electricity runs along its body, and they shift to a square formation around it so its light spreads between them. Its hooves sound incredibly loud against the pavement as Aiko tries to make out any movement along the streets and between the buildings, the glowing pokemon reflecting in the windows they pass.
Normally this might all be somewhat frightening, but while Aiko feels tense and mildly exhausted, it’s all still nothing compared to the fear that’s behind her. Like the falling rain and occasional thunder that still rolls over the city compared to the previous deluge and constant cacophony, her fear is a muted and weak thing, leaving her feeling incredibly clear minded. She wonders if this is how others feel all the time. Or at least how those like the gym members or Blue feel.
They occasionally spot wild pokemon, but none seem interested in a fight, and rather than waste time chasing them through the streets or into buildings Jack tells them to keep going. Eventually they reach an intersection that crosses out of the corridor of flaming buildings and into a side street where the lights are still on.
When they reach it Mei Li steps forward to scout it with Jack covering her, while Aiko and Elaine step back to back so they can watch the whole street as they wait, and Aiko clears her throat after a moment.
“So. You and Blue, huh?” That kiss seemed to take everyone by surprise. Elaine is usually so… not bashful, exactly, but childish in a way, and sometimes meek, that Aiko expects her to blush and insist it was just a friendly kiss.
Instead, Aiko can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “Well, we’re not secretly dating, if that’s what you’re asking. And maybe he’s not interested. But it’s what I wanted to do, so I just… did it.” Her voice grows more subdued. “We might die here, you know? I just had to try. He’s a great trainer, and a great leader, and a great friend, and really cute. Friends kiss each other on the cheek, right?”
“…Right.” Aiko takes a moment to get over her surprise and keep turning her gaze left and right (and occasionally up). Growing up on the ranch, combined with her goal of traveling as a trainer, Aiko gave little thought to dating or boys, having just assumed she wouldn’t be in a relationship for years. Apparently Elaine disagrees, and Aiko’s not sure how she feels about it. Would it be weird, if she and Blue started… dating? “Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.” Elaine sighs, and after a moment says, “I wish we were all together still. Being split up around the pokemon center was hard enough.”
“Yeah.” Aiko wasn’t near Elaine or any of the others, thankfully. There was no one to see her freeze up the way she did. “Was it hard, for you?”
“The Pressure?” She’s quiet a moment. “Hard to tell, really. Felt like everything was over in a blink. It was scary at first, how fast things were happening, how little time I felt like I was actually… present. But even that didn’t last long, so it wasn’t so bad? It was like I was just jumping ahead, every time I blinked. It all sort of feels like a dream now, to be honest. I barely remember any of it.”
“Oh.” Aiko relaxes slightly, glad that she wasn’t the only one who felt useless.
“Now, though, everything’s slow by comparison. I feel like I can spend a whole minute to decide reactions that are just a second or two.”
Aiko blinks. “That… doesn’t sound right.”
Elaine laughs. “I know. Some weird subjective adjustment going on, I guess. But still, it feels like I can do anything right now. Blue described the calm he feels while he’s in a battle, like he’s just in a state of always knowing what to do next and then just doing it automatically. This isn’t like that, but… I bet he feels this invincible.”
This worries Aiko even more. Whatever perceptual illusion Elaine is having, it might make her overconfident. But hearing her so confident is nice, and Aiko doesn’t want to tear her down without reason.
Soon after they’re on the move again, making their way up a new street with the flaming buildings on just one side and the streetlights still on. Jack keeps his zebstrika out, however, and takes a moment to put its saddle on it so he can switch places with Mei Li and ride it backward, watching behind them as they travel.
By Aiko’s estimation they’re just over halfway to the hospital when they hear the screams for help.
They’re distant, but clearly coming from above. Everyone looks around in the flickering orange light, but no one can see where it’s coming from.
“There,” Mei Li says, pointing up at the burning building ahead with one hand as the other adjusts a lens on her goggle. “About ten stories up.”
Vermilion’s Second doesn’t respond for a series of heartbeats. Aiko looks at him in the dim light, and sees him twisted around in his seat and staring up with a look of intense thought even after they hear whoever it is cry out again.
“ETA?” he finally asks.
“At this rate? Maybe another fifteen minutes out.”
“Then use Tiānkōng.”
Mei Li nods and steps toward a wide open part of the street before she summons a pidgeot. She quickly climbs onto the saddle and straps herself in, then takes off.
“You two, eyes out and keep moving up,” Jack says, and Aiko and Elaine immediately stop looking up after her to form a triangle with their backs, watching for any pokemon that might be approaching as they keep walking. Aiko’s throat is dry, thinking of Jack’s moment of hesitation… surely it was just about the best way to help whoever is up there…
Nothing attacks them while they walk, and soon they hear the beat of wings approaching. The pidgeot glides overhead, then hovers just above the ground, its wingbeats sending gusts of wind around it as it carefully clutches an older woman in its talons, and Jack dismounts to run under it and help her without getting into the path of the huge bird’s gales.
Mei Li gives some command, and the huge bird stops flapping, releases the woman, and lands, all in one practiced movement of its wings to let it glide forward just after letting her go. Aiko has a moment to boggle at the skilled maneuver, then remembers that she’s supposed to be watching for pokemon and scans their surroundings again.
“Thank you… oh, thank you,” the woman says in a trembling voice, and as she looks around Aiko sees Jack carefully help her sit on the wet ground, clearly unable to stand just yet. “Oh gods, I thought…” She starts to cry. “There were… pokemon in the halls…” She clutches at Jack’s arm. “There are others in the building!”
“Where were they?”
“I don’t know… Robert, he lives a floor below me, he said he was staying too… and I heard yelling, when the fire started, and then the pokemon came and people were running…”
“Okay. We’ll do what we can, ma’am,” Jack says, and leads her to Mei Li. “Right now we need to get you to safety.”
Aiko watches through corner glimpses as the pidgeot kneels down, and he helps the woman up onto the saddle behind Mei-Li, who turns to help her strap in.
“Sweep north from here,” he tells her. “Sweet spot is above the light posts to avoid the magnemite, and below the tallest buildings to avoid lightning.”
“Yes, sir. Rendezvous?”
“No, just stay there and help as you can.”
“Right. Good luck, Jack.”
“And you.” He steps back so she can fly off in a gust of wet wind. Once she’s gone, he looks up at the burning building, then turns to them and gestures up the street. “Go ahead, 120 degree sightlines each. I’ll bring up the rear.”
Aiko stares at him a moment in the dim light as the rain falls, then turns to keep their surroundings in view. Understanding creeps through her with cold tendrils, like the rain is seeping through her skin to fill her chest and stomach.
“But,” Elaine says, voice quiet. “She said…”
“We don’t know what pokemon are in the building,” Jack says, and his voice is neutral without being flat, absolute without being cold. “Or how many civilians, and where. Any we found would need to be guarded, and none of us have any pokemon that can carry others. Priority 3 remains assisting with the hospital evacuation. Still, I can’t force you to come with me, and I can travel faster on my own, though it would be safer if we all move together.”
He doesn’t say that they agreed to follow orders, because he doesn’t have to. “But the Pressure is gone,” Aiko says. She’s reaching, and she knows it. “All the pokemon we’ve encountered since have been less hostile.”
“The ones in the building are seeking shelter,” Elaine says, voice low. “They’ll be on edge, especially if they think they’re competing over limited safe space.”
Aiko turns to her in shock. “So you think we should just go?”
Elaine glances at her, then turns back away to keep scanning around them. “Didn’t say that,” she murmurs, and Aiko winces. She thought she was getting better, but her tone was still incredulous and scornful.
“I can assure you we will not lack for people to help,” Jack says before she can apologize. “And choosing to
try
to help whoever might still be alive in there is choosing to ignore those who are likely still ahead.”
Aiko is back to watching her quadrant (now tridrant?), though her thoughts are still on Elaine, bothered by the other girl’s response. She feels a little resentful, as if she’s being asked to make the decision for both of them.
Aiko shivers in the rain, and takes a deep breath, trying to think through the confusing stew of emotions roiling through her. It’s a hard moral choice, one that she knows there’s likely no right answer to, and she doesn’t want to make it. Feels like she’ll regret it no matter what she chooses. And feels… a bit of resentment, to Elaine. For not siding with her, for forcing her to make this decision, in a way.
But no. Elaine has been working harder to be more assertive, to speak her views even if they might disagree, and she’s been getting better, but she still needs encouragement. That hasn’t changed just because of their circumstances. “What do you think, Elaine? I’m really curious.”
Elaine opens her mouth, closes it, looks at her, then back away. Finally she says, “I think… he’s right?” Before Aiko can respond, she says, “Yeah. Not a question, sorry. I think he’s right.”
Aiko reaches out to take her hand, and squeezes it briefly before she lets it go. It feels like there’s a lump of ice in her chest, like a betrayal to what she’s even doing here… but she can’t ignore the logic of the Second’s words, even if she’s willing to ignore his expertise.
“Alright. Let’s go.” She starts walking, and Elaine moves with her, and Jack follows them both without a word, the low crackle of the distant fire quickly swallowed again by the shushing rain.
Aiko tries to stay focused on watching for dangers while they move, thoughts spinning uselessly over her decision as the minutes pass and they make their way to the hospital again. They pass by a small apartment building that looks like something burst out from underneath and inside it, and at one point there’s the sound of an explosion in the distance, making them all turn toward it as it echoes off the buildings, the sounds muted by the rain. Twice they have to hide as more magnemite swarms float by, forcing them to take alternate routes to still have more light than just Jack’s zebstrika provides. It’s in those brief periods that they’re the most vulnerable, as the only source of light along otherwise dark streets, but Aiko still never feels any real fear, just a sort of distant worry and a tension as she stays alert for what might be coming.
They’ve just reached another area that still has streetlights on when Aiko’s gaze moves over the bodies without registering them for a moment. Then she sucks in a sharp breath and runs forward a few steps before staggering to a stop, remembering protocol. “Bodies!” She turns to the others and points.
“Watch the streets,” Jack says as he dismounts and runs forward, and the girls move to flank him while turning back to back. Anxiety makes Aiko’s weight shift between her feet as she watches for any threats, part of her wondering why this form of fear is somehow fully felt, where the distinction is drawn in her own mental landscape.
“I’ve got pulse,” Jack says after a moment, cutting her anxiety in half. “…Steady breaths. No wounds.” Thunder rolls overhead, and when it ends Jack’s voice comes from another place behind Aiko. “Same here.”
She turns to catch him in her periphery this time when he moves to the third body. He curses as he suddenly lifts the woman up, checks her pulse, then lower her onto the ground face-up and starts performing CPR. Aiko’s heart pounds so loud in her ears that she can barely hear him when he finally speaks, voice flat. “Dead. Her face was in water. Drowned in a goddamn puddle.”
Aiko closes her eyes as anxiety turns to grief and denial, though only for a moment. If they’d been here sooner, they might have saved her… but they made it in time for the other two. And if they had stopped to search that building, they might not have.
It’s just like Jack said. Time is the highest priority.
“The others are okay?” Elaine asks.
“Unconscious, but no visible injuries,” Jack says, and grunts. Aiko turns to see him lifting a big man by his shoulders so that he’s propped against a trash can, well away from the water on the floor, and looks back at her half of the perimeter before he does the same with the younger figure. “I’m guessing mental attack.”
“Could have been plant based,” Aiko suggests, voice dull. “Rain would wash away spores.”
“Right… we’ll administ… er…”
Aiko blinks as Jack trails off, and turns to him just in time to see his body hit the street, the sound of it muffled by the rain. His machoke, however, makes a much louder sound when it falls.
Something that bears only a passing resemblance to fear goes through Aiko, an empty and meaningless sensation compared to what she felt from the Stormbringer’s pressure. “Elaine!”
Elaine turns and sees Jack. She gasps and moves forward… only to stumble.
“Hypnosis,” she says, falling onto her hands and knees, and then mutters something else that Aiko can’t hear before she falls facedown too.
There’s no moment of hesitation, even as Aiko fears her friend drowning too, panics at the sudden sense of exhaustion that makes her eyelids heavy. Her arm moves to grab the awakening on her belt as Jack’s zebstrika falls over, followed by Elaine’s psyduck.
“Eevee,” she mutters as she brings the bottle up to her face, arm heavy. “Track…” She feels herself falling, but even still jams the rubber nozzle into her nose and breathes in as she squeezes the handle.
One.
The awakening lights her sinuses on fire, a jolt that knocks her mind reeling out of the beginnings of sleep and makes her heart start pounding again. She catches herself against the ground as her mind clears, looking around as pain jolts up her arm.
Eevee is barking at something, but the sounds are fading as her pokemon sags with exhaustion too. Aiko follows its gaze past Jack and Elaine’s figures to an alley behind them across the street, where something yellow and humanoid standing at the mouth of an alley… four of them, one taller than the others.
Aiko rushes to wake Jack
two
then his zebstrika
three
before moving to Elaine. “Drowzee in the alley!” she yells as she pushes the nozzle into Elaine’s nose and presses it.
Four.
“Cover your eyes! Zee, Flash!”
Aiko presses her arm over her eyes and covers Elaine’s face with her body just in time for the blinding light to creep in at the edges. When it’s gone, Elaine is stirring against her, and Aiko quickly jumps up to help with the battle.
Jack’s zebstrika is racing at the figures, electricity arcing outward to shock the wild pokemon as they try to recover from the blinding. Its charge suddenly falters from some combined mental attack.
Five.
“Eevee, Fast!” she yells after her pokemon gets back to its feet, then grasps for her sandslash’s ball and summons it too.
Mental attacks are hard to avoid or protect against, though most rely on something similar to line of sight. As soon as her sandslash is summoned, Aiko points to the drowzee and says, “Dig!”
Her pokemon’s claws move in a blur, ripping up asphalt and burrowing into the wet ground with a full-body shimmy, its scales scraping and churning the ground up as its legs kick it out behind it. Jack has summoned a liepard, and Aiko feels a rush of relief at the sight of the dark pokemon.
As the lean purple feline dashes forward to tear into the group of psychics with claws and teeth, Elaine’s psyduck starts to spray them with water guns while Eevee dashes in and out for tackles, dodging the drowzees’ fists. The three trainers advance on them even as the hypno leaps at Jack’s liepard with a headbutt that sends it sprawling, and Aiko tries to keep up with everything happening.
“Double Edge!” she yells as Eevee is knocked away, then turns in alarm as Jack stumbles to one knee. But he already has an awakening of his own pressed to his nostril while Elaine summons her own drowzee and commands it to hypnotize their opponents as she wakes her psyduck back up.
The hypno has dropped down onto all fours to rush at the liepard again, but leaps away a moment before claws dig out of the ground below it. Before Aiko can give her pokemon another command, the hypno’s eyes glow, and Aiko’s sandslash slumps back into its hole… just as the liepard leaps back onto the hypno, tearing bloody lines down its yellow hide and trying to bite its neck through the thick white fur there.
Eevee went down while she wasn’t looking, hopefully asleep, but before Aiko can summon another pokemon the drowzee break and run, all three racing on their stumpy legs down the alley. “Don’t let them get away!” Jack yells between commands, crouching beside his zebstrika to reawaken it.
Aiko stops moving toward her sandslash and races after the drowzee, free hand going to her pokeball pouch as she keeps the awakening in her other one. It should have two or three more sprays left in it, she can’t remember if she’d used it five times or six, and she knows she used it three times before—
She gets close enough to lock onto the rearmost drowzee and throws just as it and the one ahead turn to her, eyes glowing. Her target disappears in a flash and she presses the nozzle into her nose in anticipation…
…just before getting punched in the stomach.
That’s what it feels like, anyway, despite nothing touching her. She sprawls back on to the wet ground as the breath rushes out of her, confusion and pain making her head spin as Elaine dashes forward and captures the drowzee just as it turns to her.
“Aiko!”
“I’m fine,” she tries to say, and instead just wheezes with pain. She waves her free hand forward instead, toward the last retreating drowzee. Her friend looks at it, then back at her, then takes off at a run.
Aiko leans back onto her bag and pulls a potion out, lifting her shirt over her stomach to spray where the telekinetic hit landed, and sighs as the pain is somewhat numbed. As she lies there and waits to heal, another one of those echoing explosions reverbrates throughout the city.
After a minute or so it’s easier to get full breaths, and she pushes herself to her feet with one hand on the wall until she’s standing. She’s about to start after Elaine when her friend turns the corner back into the ally and jogs over, picking up their captured drowzee along the way.
“You okay?” she asks Aiko.
“Yeah. Go help Jack.”
“Right.” She starts jogging back the way they came, and Aiko hobbles after her. By the time she makes it to the street again, the battle is over.
Aiko uses a flashlight to reach into the hole and awaken her sandslash, then wakes Eevee up and checks her for injuries. The bottle is surely empty now, and she takes a moment to look for a trash can to throw it out in before realizing she can’t find one. She places it carefully on the ground, feeling absurdly guilty, then goes to Jack and Elaine next to the two civilians they saved… and the one they didn’t reach on time.
“You saved us,” Jack says, looking at Aiko and clearly reading her expression. “Which means you saved them too. Focus on that.”
“Elaine figured it out,” Aiko says, though she still feels her spirit raised a little. “If they’d targeted her first instead of you, I wouldn’t have…”
“It was just a guess” Elaine says.
“Good job to both of you, regardless,” Jack says. “With the battle too. If I were traveling alone and came upon them I might have stopped despite my better judgement, and would have paid the price for that.” He sighs and looks down at the bodies. “But now we have another hard choice to make.”
Aiko looks at him, then the civilians. “We’re not going to leave them?” she asks, unable to keep the incredulity from her tone. “Just because we have no transport—”
“We don’t know what condition they’ll wake in,” Jack interrupts.
Aiko gets it just as Elaine covers her mouth, eyes wide. “You think they were fed on.” She slumps against a light post, a weariness that has nothing to do with sleep coming over her. “Of course they were.”
The damage done by “dream eaters” like drowzee and hypno often vary in symptoms from instance to instance; Aiko has heard of people and pokemon who temporarily lose their memories, have trouble with random types of physical movement or coordination, can’t control their emotions, hallucinate, and more… all of which might be permanent if fed on for long enough, until the victim is comatose.
“Even if they weren’t,” Jack says, voice just loud enough to be heard over the rain. “One of them died. If the other two wake… they likely won’t be able to just brush that off.”
“So what do we do?” Elaine asks. “What
can
we do?”
“My machoke can carry one. I can put the other in Zee’s saddle, and walk beside him to make sure he doesn’t fall off. The third…” He trails off, letting them work it out themselves.
Aiko doesn’t need him to lay the options out for her again. She can see them. “If we work together to carry her in a sling, we slow down a lot. Limit our reaction time. Get tired faster.” She swallows. “And there are more people ahead who may need help, right now, while we stand here waiting.”
“There almost certainly are, at the hospital,” Jack says.
“It feels wrong,” Elaine says. “Leaving her here. But we… saw others. And we left them. This just feels worse because…”
“Because of them,” Aiko finishes, looking at the other two. Whatever condition they wake in, when they regain their senses (assuming they do), they’ll wonder where she is. And know that she was left behind.
“I’ll remember where she is,” Jack says. “And ensure she’s picked up soon.”
It takes a couple minutes to get both of them secured, the young boy cradled in the machoke’s arms, the older man slumped against the zebstrika’s neck. Aiko is still trying to think through ways to bring the woman too, and almost asks if he has any container boxes big enough to fit the woman, but… whatever he would have to empty out to make the room for her might be things they end up needing. She doesn’t ask, but resolves to buy a bigger container ball herself as soon as she can.
Eventually they’re ready to go, and without looking back they start moving again, Jack walking with his hand over the man’s around the pommel and looking over his shoulders as Aiko and Elaine watch in front and to their sides.
They’re almost at the hospital when Eevee alerts them to the coming danger. Aiko sees her shift to a battle stance, large ears turned upward as she barks.
It’s another magnemite swarm, or perhaps one of the earlier ones: it’s hard to tell its size as it spreads and condenses, electricity arcing through it and outward at its surroundings. Once again Aiko’s only reaction is a faint and empty panic, and vaguely wonders if such emotions would ever feel meaningful again, or if the Thunder God’s Pressure broke something in her.
“Shit!” Jack says. “Get ready to run if it turns this way, we’ll head into the—”
A blast of orange light spears through the darkness and hits the ground beneath the swarm and drills into it… and a moment later there’s an eruption as a column of earth soars up and encompasses the magnemite before detonating as well, knocking scores of them to the ground and burying them in rubble.
Aiko’s hands are clapped over her ears from the now-familiar noise, which is far louder from this close up. She watches wide eyed as more beams of light hit the remains of the swarm from different directions, and Aiko follows them to their sources to spot the green, sinuous bodies of the flygon that glide soundlessly overhead.
It takes them less than a minute to blast the remains of the magnemite swarm out of the sky, and then they’re descending, half a dozen of them, to capture as many as are still alive.
“About time,” Jack says, and Aiko turns to see him smiling. “Wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with that myself.”
Aiko turns back in time to see one of the flygon swooping down to land in front of them. Its rider quickly unstraps themself and slides off, then fiddles with their hood as they approach…
…and pulls it off to reveal Giovanni Sakai.
“Leader.” Jack is still smiling as he steps forward to clasp hands with him. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you, Jack. What’s your objective, here?”
“We’re on our way to evacuate a hospital to the north, which we think may have been in the path of Zapdos’s attack.”
“It was. The hospital is burning.”
Aiko’s stomach sinks at the words, dispelling some of the feeling of being starstruck by her proximity to the ex-Champion and Leader. She turns and sees a similar expression of dismay on Jack’s face. “How bad is it?”
“The top few floors were lost almost immediately. No telling how many died then, but there were a number of trainers there who worked their pokemon ragged to try and stall the fire from going lower, and the evacuation got the next few out before it spread. It’s an ongoing race since then.”
“Shit. They still need help, then?”
“Badly. My men and I have been ensuring no major threats approach as the hospital’s defenders help escort its civilians out. The job is almost done, but the bottleneck is still trainers able to assist in escort. The sooner you arrive, the better… but I see you have wounded. Civilians?”
Is that judgement in the Leader’s tone? Aiko tries to read his expression, but it seems neutral… though intense. He has the same air of focus that he exudes through videos.
“We just picked them up,” Jack says. “Can you assist us in transporting them?”
Giovanni looks at his people a moment, then back to Jack. “Yes, we can take all of you. It’ll only be a couple minutes for us, opposed to another ten for you. Come and help with the captures, and we’ll fly over together.”
Aiko lets her breath out, relief making her almost dizzy. She doesn’t know how much more there’s still to come, but for now at least it feels like the hardest part of the night is over.
It takes five minutes to finish catching all the magnemite that are still alive, and then fly to the hospital. Aiko and Elaine managed to get 4 and 5 respectively, and she can’t help but feel that they, along with the drowzee she caught, are something of a reward for choosing to stay and help… even if some part of her feels disgusted at herself for thinking of pokemon in that way.
Aiko has never ridden on such a smooth ride as a flygon, and the simple lift and forward propulsion created by its sail-like wings allows her to relax for the first time since they left the pokemon center. She takes in the city as best she can on the short ride. There are whole blocks that are dark, and the giant torches of the buildings cast a broader glow from up high, letting her see how little the slice of the city they’ve been struggling through really is. She hopes the others are alright, wherever they are now.
Then she can make out their destination, and squints against the wind and rain to scan the hospital campus. She can see most of the defensive perimeter is still in place, but the area within it has become a mass of people as the flaming building continues to be evacuated. In the handful of seconds before they land, Aiko can make out two processions of people: one thick and bustling mass going to the southwest, likely toward the pokemon center she and the others came from, and one similarly thick one going to the east toward another shelter.
Once they land she discovers there’s a third, much smaller one underway.
Aiko and Elaine rest against one of the barricades, shoulders leaning against each other as their backs lean against their bags. Eevee and Psyduck are resting with them, eating the same nutrient bars they’re munching on.
“How’s your stomach?” Elaine asks after a minute.
“Only hurts when I breathe,” Aiko says, causing Elaine to snort and nudge her shoulder. Aiko nudges her back, smiling. “How you feeling? Still invincible?”
“A little. Mostly tired. Think it’s too early for a victory dance?”
“Probably.” Aiko glances up at the burning building. There’s a wide area around it that’s empty, which makes the rest of the campus perimeter a bit crowded. “We’re definitely doing one before we go to bed tonight, though.”
“Oh, man. I’m excited already. Mostly for the bed part, though.” Elaine turns to her. “We going to do that thing again, too? Where we talk about how we screwed up?”
Aiko blinks. “Yeah, I think so. I will, anyway. You been thinking about that?”
“Uh huh. Been trying to come up with a name for it too. How does Aiko Accountability sound? AA for short.”
Aiko laughs despite herself and nudges Elaine’s shoulder again, harder this time. “No thanks.”
“Heroic Accountability?”
“HA, for short?”
“Hmm.” Elaine munches her bar. “I’ll keep thinking. But yeah, I’ve been considering how I could have dealt with those drowzee better.”
Aiko thinks back to the battle. “I think you did great, but if you have something specific in mind…?”
“I felt like every decision was fully thought out, like I had plenty of time to think things through. But looking back… could have stopped those drowzee more easily if I’d been willing to switch to lethal attacks right away. Just didn’t consider it.”
Aiko did, once the drowzee ran. Jack had said to stop them, and Aiko interpreted that as run after and catch them. If she’d summoned Sneaker or other pokemon, she could have taken them down much easier. But… they were running. She didn’t want to hurt them if they weren’t even trying to fight back, at the time. “Well, I’m definitely not someone who’s going to blame you for that. Not just because I didn’t either, but also because I think people resort to lethal means too easily when dealing with pokemon. And everyone got out okay, right?”
“But maybe we might not have. Couldn’t have known that, at the time.” Elaine sighs. “And it’s not about whether you blame me, is it?”
“No. I guess it’s not.” It’s strange, seeing the thing she created adopted so fully that it’s being applied beyond her own views and boundaries for it. Before she can think on it further, she sees Jack making his way back to them, with another two Vermilion Gym members she vaguely recognizes.
“Aiko, Elaine, this is Sab and Josh, boys, these are the two who I came here with, and likely to be new gym members soon.”
“Good to meet you,” Sab says, and Josh nods.
Aiko nods back while Elaine waves. “Same.” They appear to have gone through their own ordeals tonight: Sab’s pokebelt is half empty, his hand tracing over the spots every so often as if confirming that they’re gone, and Josh’s clothes are covered in soot stains that the rain hasn’t fully washed away. She recognizes the look on their faces every time they glance at Jack: something like relief and trust and hope, that the worst of the night is over.
“The two civvies we brought were folded into the patients that are being transported in groups,” Jack says. “You’ve both done plenty already tonight, but this is what we came here for. If you’re still able, every trainer will help us transport more people faster.”
The girls look at each other, and Elaine speaks first. “Is your dad going to be okay?”
Aiko checks the time and is shocked to see it’s only 9:14 PM. Did it really only take them an hour to travel here from the pokemon center? “I think I’m okay to help a bit longer. I don’t want to leave you here.”
Elaine nods. “Then I’m okay to help more too.”
“Good. Let’s move out, then.” He holds a hand out to each of them, and Aiko smiles as she takes one and gets to her feet with the help of the Gym Second, then tucks the rest of her meal bar away. “Patients are heading out in a procession every few minutes. Anything you need to do before we go? There are working PCs here if you need to swap pokemon or transfer equipment.”
“I’m good,” Aiko says. She has all her strongest pokemon with her already.
“Same.”
“Alright then, let’s go.”
They meet some hospital staff and another three trainers around a small fleet of enclosed transport gurneys meant for outdoor travel. After just a couple minutes of waiting for a hospital orderly and a nurse to arrive with one last patient, they all begin their journey past the perimeter, trainers in a wide eight point star that keeps the patients and hospital staff in the middle. There are flares along the road to indicate the fastest route to the nearest hospital, and by now enough trainers have made the journey that the route is fairly clear, allowing everyone to move at a brisk pace, alternating between quick steps and jogging when they reach long stretches of empty street, the sounds of the gurney wheels nearly thunderous.
Aiko stays alert throughout the trip, waiting for something to go wrong. Occasionally an ambulance passes by in one direction or the other, those headed to the same destination no doubt full of patients, and they also spot other trainers going back the way they came on bikes or riding pokemon, probably having just finished their own escort. Overall the trip feels far safer than the other traveling they’ve done, and after about half an hour of jogging through the rain, they spy the hospital.
The group makes for the guarded gap in the perimeter, and once they’re inside the hospital staff thanks the trainers profusely as they lead their charges either into the building or to some outdoor treatment areas.
“Good job everyone,” Jack says. “Fifteen minute break, then we’re meeting here to head back, but only those of you with bikes or pokemon to ride. The rest should stay here and see if there’s anything you can do that’ll be useful.”
Elaine approaches Aiko as she sets an alarm on her phone, and together they go looking for another spot to rest in. “Let’s try inside,” Aiko says. Her legs ache and she’s sweating under her clothes, but mostly she has to pee.
“Gods, yes. Getting out of the rain for even a minute sounds amazing.”
There are a number of buildings on the grounds, and they head for the nearest one, a squat reception center that looks like it’s mostly for administrative purposes. When they arrive, however, it’s clearly been transformed into another treatment facility, all the furniture inside cleared away for patients to lie down or rest in chairs as tired looking medical staff move from one person to the next while concerned friends or family hover nearby or hold their hands.
There’s no line for the bathroom, thankfully, and when they both emerge they find a bare patch of tile to rest on. It really is nice to be out of the wind and rain for a moment, and Aiko is just wondering if a five minute nap would make her feel better or worse when she spots a familiar red outfit and mop of black hair passing by from the direction of the bathrooms too.
“Red?” she whispers, heart racing, and stands. “Red!”
The boy’s head snaps around, eyes wide, and then they’re running to each other and hugging, and Aiko feels some last bit of tension relaxing inside her. “Are you okay?” they ask at almost the same time, then grin at each other as Elaine approaches, beaming.
“I’m fine,” Aiko says. “We rode out the Thunder God at a pokemon center, then went with Blue and Glen and some gym members to help at a nearby hospital that was set on fire… Elaine and I just got here by helping with the evacuation.”
“Hi Red! It’s great to see you again.”
“Hey Elaine. I’m… really glad to see you guys too.”
“Why are you wearing two pokebelts? And…” Aiko studies his face as her initial joy fades, her smile fading with it. “Red, you look… awful.” Not just exhausted, but also like he’s been crying all night. Dread suddenly fills her stomach. “Wait, where’s Leaf?”
Red’s smile drops, and the dread reaches her heart, freezing it and sending ice through her veins. No, he wouldn’t have smiled at all if she’s…
“She’s here. Alive.”
Aiko feels her heart thaw, but it’s still pounding. “Alive is nice. ‘Great’ is better. I’ll even settle for ‘Fine.'” Red doesn’t smile, and Aiko’s grip on his clothes tightens. “She was injured?” she whispers, and when he nods, she has to swallow against the dryness in her throat to ask, “What happened?”
“We didn’t make it here until after Zapdos left too,” he murmurs. “Got caught in the storm and did our best to help people. We… didn’t get everyone, but… we had to clear out an apartment building and… then there was a nidoqueen…” Red passes a weary hand over his face. “I caught it, but Leaf got hurt. Bad. One of her arms was broken in three places, and some ribs on that side, and her lung…”
“Oh, Leaf,” Elaine whispers, and Aiko hugs him tight again as he trails off, eyes closed as if that will block out the mental image of her friend so badly hurt.
“Where is she now?” she asks after she manages to get herself under control, voice hoarse.
“Here. I carried her to the barricades with the help of someone we saved, and a doctor that saw her started treating her outside. Once she was more stable… there’s not enough room in the main building, with everyone that’s coming here, but they’ve prepared surgery rooms on the third floor.” Red leads them in the direction he was heading before, and they go up some stairs and into an office space turned patient resting center.
The second floor’s atmosphere is more hushed and calm, though not by much. Still, the nurses and doctors moving between beds are doing so with more purpose than the frenetic triage going on downstairs, which is somewhat reassuring, and instead of cots the rooms and open spaces are full of hospital beds and equipment that must have been brought over from the main building’s storage. Red leads them to a windowed office that’s been converted into a single patient room, and they file in to see Leaf lying on one of the beds.
Aiko feels tears gather in her eyes at the sight of her friend lying on the cot, half her body wrapped up, but to her shock and delight, Leaf is awake, and smiles at them as they walk in.
“Heyoo,” she says, voice low.
Aiko wants to hug her, and settles for clasping her unhurt hand tight to her chest. “Don’t you heyoo me! You were supposed to be safe on a cruise!” One hand rises to wipe at her cheeks. “You should have stayed there!”
“Pretty rich… coming from you. What about… your dad?” It’s clear that it’s hard for her to take deep breaths, each word sounding strained and breathy. She turns her head as Red approaches with a water bottle and a straw, and takes a drink.
“Dad will be fine.” She feels a bit of guilt saying it this time as she glances at the clock. Almost ten. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Nah. I’ll be… fine too.” Leaf turns her head a bit. “Hey, Elaine.”
“Hi Leaf. I’m really glad you guys ended up at this hospital instead of the last one we saw.”
“What’s wrong with… the last one?”
“It’s on fire.”
Leaf winces, and turns to Red, who shrugs. “Haven’t been paying attention to much since we got here,” he says, and Aiko sees something in his face, the way he looks at Leaf.
“The others… okay?” Leaf asks, turning back to them.
“As far as we know, yeah. We split up after Zapdos blasted—”
Her phone alarm goes off. “Fuck,” she whispers, taking it out and turning it off, then checking to see if service is back up so she can send a message to Jack. Still nothing.
“Such language.” Leaf’s voice is more wary than teasing. “What’s up?”
“That would be the burning hospital,” Elaine says. “We’re supposed to head back to help with more evacuation.”
Leaf’s brow rises, and she looks at Red, who immediately starts shaking his head.
“No way. Not leaving you.”
“This isn’t like… the forest,” she says. “I’m safe here. There are others… that need help.”
“Screw others!” Red half shouts, and everyone flinches except Leaf, who just watches him as he takes a deep breath, eyes down and hands gripping the railing of her cot.
A nurse walks by and pauses at the door. “Sir, please keep your voice down or go outside.”
Red’s eyes are closed. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
The nurse looks over them a moment, then walks on. Aiko realizes Leaf is putting some pressure on her hand, trying to tug it back, and reluctantly releases it, watching as her friend rests it on Red’s instead.
“I understand,” Leaf murmurs. “And if you’re… at your limit. I get it. We’ve done enough. But if it’s just that you… don’t want to leave me… I appreciate it. A lot. But they’re going… back out… and they’ll need you… more than I will.”
Red takes a deep breath, then lets it out, and nods. Aiko almost says she’s
not
going back out, she’s with Red on this one, they’ve done enough and just leaving Leaf alone makes her feel terrible—
“I’ll stay.”
Everyone looks at Elaine. “I agree with Red. Leaving you here would be really demoralizing. And I think we can all use a rest. Maybe we switch off? They mostly need warm bodies at this point, so Red and Aiko can go back now for another run, then when they get back Aiko can stay, then Red again. If we’re not done by then.” She turns to Aiko before anyone can respond. “You can stay first instead, if you want. But we can’t keep Jack waiting. He’s going to be our Second soon, too.”
“Wait… what?” Leaf asks, eyes wide.
“Oh, right. I’ll explain it to you while they’re gone. Or Aiko will.”
Everyone looks at her, and she takes a moment to consider how she feels. Okay, overall. And she’ll have to head home eventually tonight… she’d rather give Elaine some rest and then stay with Leaf before teleporting, rather than stay and then leave without giving Elaine a chance to.
“Alright, let’s go before they leave without us.” Aiko leans over and kisses Leaf’s forehead. “Rest up, okay? I don’t care if
this
hospital catches fire too, no heroics allowed from people with multiple broken bones.” She turns to Elaine. “Take care of her, E.”
Leaf rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Finally.”
Red looks like he wants to kiss Leaf too, but instead he just squeezes her hand. “I’ll be back soon.”
She squeezes back, then lets him go, smiling wider. “I know… you will.”
Aiko and Red hurry back to the perimeter, where Jack is waiting with an impatient look on his face, already mounted on his zebstrika… alone. Whatever he’s about to say gets aborted when he sees Red with her instead of Elaine, however. “What happened?”
“Long story,” Aiko pants as she summons her bike and starts getting her gear out of the box to strap onto her elbows and knees. “Sorry we’re late.”
He’s quiet a moment, then says, “You came. That matters more.”
“Where are the others?” Aiko asks, a brief flare of pride chasing away some of her regrets.
“Sent them ahead when I decided to wait a bit longer. Can take care of themselves, and might be needed to make up another group.” He looks at Red. “Verres, right? Pokemon and special skills?”
Red lists them as he pulls his own gear on, and Jack perks up at the mention of him being psychic. “Alright, it’ll be good to have an extra early warning system, if you’re up for sweeping for wilds?”
Her friend looks as though he’s going to say something, but just nods distractedly as he clasps his helmet on, and gets on his bike. “Sure. Do you want to know if any are in buildings, or just outside? And what about people?”
“Just wilds and people outside. Everyone ready? Let’s go.”
They head out, and soon Aiko’s thighs are burning as she struggles to keep up with Jack’s pace. She’s not sure if he’s trying to reach his people or just in that much of a rush to help with the next escort or both, but she wishes she had put her goggles on too: the rain is annoying enough without it whipping her face as she speeds by. On the plus side, the rain is definitely lighter than it used to be, and she can’t remember when she last heard thunder. The storm seems to finally be ending.
Red rides beside her, quiet and focused on whatever he’s sensing. She wishes they were able to talk, she wants to know more about what happened with him and Leaf, to know why he felt so nearly at the end of his rope… and why he was looking at Leaf that way, as if she couldn’t guess. It’s strange thinking of yet another romance budding around her without her realizing it, though the two did have some time alone together lately. Or maybe it’s just the extreme circumstances.
While racing back to the burning hospital, they pass by two formations of patients and trainers early on, and then no one else. It makes Aiko feel nervous, then hopeful. Maybe there’s no one left to evacuate. Maybe they can just turn around and head back to Leaf…
A vibration runs through the ground, shaking the street beneath her tires and almost spilling her. She hears breaking glass and cracking sounds from the buildings around her, and sees the water on the streets ripple with the vibrations. Aiko glimpses a squad of flygon soaring overhead, probably hunting whatever might be in the area that caused it, and hopes the fight doesn’t take place near the hospital.
When they arrive a couple minutes later, she immediately notices two things: how much more of the building is now on fire, and how much emptier the campus around it is. Jack leads them through the barricade and starts looking for someone in charge to direct them, but the few people still around appear to be preparing to transport the final civilians away from the area. There don’t appear to be any other patients that need escorting, but they eventually find some hospital staff in a cluster nearby, staring at the burning building or recovering from some ordeal. The Gym Second pulls his zebstrika up alongside them.
“Hey! What’s happening?”
“Building too far gone!” one man gasps, clutching at a stitch in his side. “Some pokemon came under and sent a quake through the place, and it started to collapse! Fire’s spreading faster above, and first floor entrances are blocked!” In the dim light Aiko can see tear tracks on his dirty face, and that he’s not wearing black clothing but hospital scrubs, covered in soot. “Some trainers that just arrived went in, but the atrium collapsed! Doesn’t matter who they save, they’re trapped on the floors above!”
Jack is turning his pokemon and riding for the hospital before he even finishes speaking. Aiko stares after him a moment, then follows, legs pedaling furiously.
“Aiko!” Red yells as he bikes beside her. “What are we doing?”
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t know
how
to answer, but trusts Jack to have a plan. He rides past the entrance, which she can see is filled with the collapsed ceiling above it, and stops at a spot just past it and along the wall. When she reaches him he’s dismounting from his pokemon and swapping it for his machoke and a blastoise.
“Aiko, Red, you don’t have to follow,” he says without looking at them, pointing instead to the wall and saying, “Brick Break!” His pokemon rush forward and smash through the concrete, forming a wide hole. Beyond it is just more rubble, but his next command is “Brick Break, slope!” and his pokemon keep going, focusing their efforts upward and creating a steadily climbable pile as they toss what they find behind them.
“What are you going to do?” Aiko asks, and
still
the panic she feels is hollow and empty. It’s a worry, nothing more or less. She can think through it, she can act. She’s not stuck in fear.
“Create an opening, find my people,” he says, and there’s a fierceness in the Unovan’s face that Aiko hasn’t seen all night as he pulls his bag off his shoulders and tosses various medicines off his belt, adding burn heals instead. “Rescue whoever I can.”
“Sir, this isn’t going to work,” Red says, voice strained. “Even with the blastoise, you can’t know what path they took, it might run out of water before you find them. And if the roof comes down on you… there are too many things that can go wrong, we’d need
everything
to work
perfectly
…”
“I know the hospital, and I know my people. Might be enough.” Jack pulls an air mask over his head, and just a single raindrop beads the face visor. “You two don’t have to come. I’ll welcome the help, but I don’t expect it. I should have died a long time ago, to my own mistake, but someone came for me when it wasn’t smart. Saved my life. Kept me close after, so I’d rise up with him. Trusted me with command… and I used it to send these trainers here. No one’s fault. But now it’s my turn.”
Red stares at him, then turns to her. “Aiko… we can’t—”
“We’ll be okay, Red.” The thought of just staying out here while the people and pokemon burn inside… she wouldn’t be able to live with herself, would never be able to look Blue or Leaf in the eyes again… The memory of how she froze up when Zapdos appeared shames her all over again.
This is my chance.
“We need to think this through, to premortem it! I don’t have any water pokemon, or anything strong enough to help with rubble—”
“Didn’t you catch a nidoqueen?”
“I… yes, but it’s not trained!”
“Doesn’t have to be to push rubble! And I have a sandslash to dig us out too!” She’s doing the same thing Jack did, stripping off everything unimportant. Her only pokemon that will be needed inside are her sandslash and krabby, and maybe Sneaker too. She drops the rest of her pokemon into her bag, then clips more potions and burn heals onto their spots.
Jack’s pokemon have found the stairwells that he clearly knew was there, and Jack whistles sharply, causing them to stop digging. “It’s okay to stay out here,” Jack says to them. “I hereby give you permission. Just tell me one thing, Verres: are there people still alive in there?”
Red’s face twists in anguish, and his mouth opens, closes, opens, jaw trembling.”Y-yes.”
“Where?”
“Spread out, every floor above the first.”
“And my people?”
“I… I don’t… how many?”
“Seven.”
Red closes his eyes tight. “Third floor.” Tears leak down his cheeks. “That side.” He points to the left and rear of the building.
Jack clasps his shoulder. “Good man.” And with that, Jack scrambles up the rubble and into the building.
Aiko turns to Red, her own air mask hanging from her neck. “I’m going.”
“Don’t, Aiko,
please,
the risk is too high!”
Aiko looks at him a moment, then reaches out to brush a tear from his cheek. He wasn’t there, after the fight with the absol and onix. Maybe it would be unfair to think that he wouldn’t understand, he did come all the way from the cruise to face the Thunder God… But whatever he went through while here, whatever got Leaf injured, it used up what brought him.
And Jack’s already inside. Jack, who twice tonight made hard choices, hard sacrifices, for the greater good, and twice let her make them too. She’s sick of making those kinds of sacrifices, and if he’s going in, she can hardly do less.
“It’s okay,” she says, and on a whim kisses his cheek for luck. “I’ll be back soon.”
Then she slips her mask on and runs after Jack. Red’s shock lasts long enough that she gets a head start, but she feels his hand on the back of her shirt, trying to pull her away from the rubble as she starts to climb. She keeps going until she tears away from his grasp, and by the time she’s in the stairwell, he’s not with her anymore.
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. Thank you!
Sabra is so distracted by the sight of the hospital going through its final immolation that she almost misses the young trainer sitting on the wet ground nearby it.
The top half has already burned itself out, while the smoldering bottom illuminates the boy and the bags sitting next to him. Vermilion Gym’s Third rears her manectric Sheen to a stop, then dismounts so she can approach the trainer as her people fan out to search for other survivors that may still need help. They just finished hunting down and catching the onix that was cracking streets and building foundations, and are working their way back along its path of destruction to help who they can.
The people who evacuated ensured that the fire wouldn’t spread, but few trainers are here now: it’s clear there’s nothing left to save.
The boy is staring at the hospital, gaze distant and body slouched over his knees. There are two bags and various pokeballs and medical equipment sitting next to him, and the sight of them fills Sabra with foreboding as she gets close enough to talk. “Are you alright, trainer?”
He turns to her, and even with his wet hair in his face and the dim light, his expression is one that Sabra has seen a hundred times before, and Arceus permitting will see a hundred times more. That blank, empty look of someone in deep shock.
“I couldn’t stop them,” the boy says, and she suddenly recognizes him by his voice. It’s Red Verres, the trainer that helped catch all those abra and decided to wholesale them, then took a few of her classes at the gym. “I’m sorry.”
“Who?” Sabra asks, and looks at the bags again. One she doesn’t recognize, but the other is Vermilion Gym standard, and the foreboding spreads through her chest. It wasn’t his friends, surely? If it were Oak and Juniper, wouldn’t they have all gone in together? “Who went in there, Verres?”
“Aiko Sakai,” Verres says, voice low, and turns back to the blazing hospital. “And your Second.”
Sabra spins back toward the hospital, denial and horror warring in her as she imagines Jack somewhere in that burning rubble. No one could still be alive in there, not unless… “They could be safe, they could have tunneled under, or—”
“No,” Red says, and Sabra looks back to him. He’s still staring at the fire, voice low and expression blank. “I sensed it, when the floors fell in together. Their pokemon survived, for a bit. Now they’re all gone.”
Pain pierces through her chest as Sabra closes her eyes.
Jack, you brave fool.
Vermilion’s Third gives herself a moment to grieve, and when she steadies her breathing and opens her eyes again, it’s as its Second. “If you’ll accompany me,” she says voice steady, “We’ll ensure you’re at a safe location while the city re-stabilizes. Leader Surge will want a full debrief, after.”
The young trainer doesn’t even look at her. Just gets to his feet, looks at his friend’s belongings, and starts to gather them up. “I can’t. I have to tell the others.”
Sabra does the same with Jack’s things, strapping his bag to her chest and filling its empty pockets with the pokemon he left behind. “I’m sorry about your friend, Verres.” She vaguely remembers the girl from classes too, usually there with Blue Oak. Short dark hair and an intense concentration, like she was soaking up every word of the lessons. “She was a hero.”
“Yes,” Verres says, still in that flat voice. “Blue will be proud of her.”
“But Surge needs to know—”
“I don’t care. You’ll have to restrain me if you want to stop me.”
Sabra turns to the boy in surprise and sees he’s already walking without her.
He’s in shock,
she reminds herself to keep from snapping at him in a tone of command, nerves frayed by the long night. Instead she takes a deep breath, immediately regretting it as her nose fills with the scent of ash.
Her quick strides move her in front of him before he gets far, and she lowers herself to one knee so that she can more easily meet his empty gaze, barely feeling the water seep through her pants, which were just starting to dry. He doesn’t move as her hands firmly grip his shoulders, nor when she pulls him into a hug.
It’s awkward, with the extra bags. Their clothes are still damp from the rain, and the boy has an extra pokebelt on, one of its balls pressing uncomfortably against her hip. But she doesn’t let him go, even when he fails to respond.
Surge has always told her that she relies too much on commands to be commanding. That if she loses the ability to connect with people, she’ll forever be someone that can only take the mantle of Leader, rather than being one without it.
“Just because it hurts, doesn’t mean you did the wrong thing,” she murmurs against his ear, eyes closed as her own past feelings of guilt swirl inside her, filling her with pain and nausea, letting it speak her truth and hoping that it resonates with him. “We don’t always get to know.”
It takes a minute for the trainer to thaw, and the boy to return from wherever he went. She holds him as he shakes, tears lost in the dampness of their clothes.
Eventually they part, and Sabra takes his hand to lead him to her patient manectric. She helps him into the passenger saddle, then mounts behind him and turns to look at the hospital. The night after she became Vermilion’s Third, Jack took her out for drinks. Confided the survivor’s guilt he carried, said he had made it a source of strength, pushing him to help others. His biggest worry, he said, was what would happen if he felt he had done enough… and his biggest fear was that he never could. That he would carry it to his grave.
Her hand rises in a final salute, throat tight, then comes down to command Sheen forward.
The boy keeps his gaze down, back bag resting against her front one, and neither of them look back as another part of the building caves in, sending a rush of sparks and smoke up into the cloudless night.
If you have found a spelling error, please, notify me by selecting that text and pressing
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In case you missed it, there was a mid-month subchapter, “Pyre,” published two weeks ago.
Blue sits in the uncomfortable hospital chair and stares down at the heavyballs in his hands, morning sun glinting off of each through the window. Aptly named, they’re notably heavier than other kinds, with thicker cases. It reminds him of when he first held a pokeball, fingers too small to comfortably grip the round orb, and he knows he’ll have to train with them soon to make sure his catches and throws aren’t off. A steelix and a snorlax give him more power than he expected to have for months yet, if not years, and chances are he’ll appreciate them more in a few days, when his thoughts don’t drift to less happy thoughts every few seconds.
He can’t quite remember when he fell asleep, but he woke downstairs half an hour ago feeling tired, but not exhausted. The city is in cleanup mode; trainers present for the storm are resting, while others arrive from all over the region to help catch wilds and assist with rescue and repair. Wireless networks are back up, but reserved for official use for now. Occasionally backed up messages and emails come through to Blue’s phone, but none from his friends, who he assumes are still asleep.
Blue needs to find them, needs to make sure everyone’s okay and reconnect his team. He knows Glen is safe, at least, and Elaine and Aiko were with two highly competent gym members, but Red and Leaf…
“Mr. Oak?” Blue looks up and sees the doctor. “He’s awake. I can give you ten minutes, but then he needs to rest.”
Blue clips the balls to his belt and hurries to the room. It seems wrong to hurry in a place like this, at a time like this. Like he should be walking slowly, out of respect. But there are other places he needs to be, and ten minutes won’t go slower just because he does.
When he reaches the doorway, however, he stops and stares, one hand going to the doorframe.
Gramps is lying in the bed without his coat on, dressed in a simple hospital gown like any other patient. Like he’s not a Kanto Champion, and one of the greatest researchers in the world, and just helped save thousands of people.
For once, Professor Oak looks as old as he is. Older, in fact.
He looks like he’s dying.
Blue’s throat is clogged, and he bites down on his lip to keep from making any noise. When he finally walks forward, however, it’s with all the fear and pain and childish shock of seeing a parent brought low.
He has to keep repeating to himself that Gramps will be okay in order to keep from breaking down and clutching at his grandfather’s form as he lies prone, to simply stand beside his bed and take his frail, liver spotted hand. Those faded blue eyes open, unfocused at first, until they lock onto his.
“Hey, Gramps,” Blue whispers.
“Blue.” Professor Oak squeezes his hand back without any strength. “Okay? Daisy?”
Blue nods, and has to clear his throat before he can speak again. “She got you out. And I’m fine.”
Lines of tension ease away, leaving the professor’s face simply wrinkled, his sharp jawline shifting and rounding as his lips part for a sigh. “Good.” His chest rises under the sheets as he breathes in deep. “So. Your first. How was it?”
Blue knows what he’s asking. “Too easy, at the start.” He remembers what felt like hours of staring at a rain-obscured barricade, struggling to keep his feet in place and not rush around to sate his impatience. “Then… harder.”
It took less than a minute for the Oaks working together to pummel the first steelix into submission. As soon as Blue caught it, the end came quickly for the second, and they all stood for a moment in the dwindling rain amid the torn up concrete, catching their breaths and recovering from the adrenaline rush.
And then Gramps collapsed, opening a gash on his cheek as it hit a chip of broken stone.
Daisy and Blue rushed to his side together, and after determining he was alive, Blue helped recall his pokemon while Daisy pulled him onto her pidgeot so she could take him to the nearest hospital. “Stay alive,” Daisy said, hugging him tight and kissing his wet hair before climbing into her saddle. “He came for you.”
Her words echoed in his head as he watched them fly off, and were hard to put aside when he went to help the others. Pokemon were coming out of the rift in the concrete that the steelix made when they burst free, and the entire stadium of civilians had to be moved while the trainers there fended them off.
It was tense a while longer, but with no other truly powerful pokemon around the defenders were able to secure the civilians’ safety with minimal casualties.
Relatively speaking.
Tori was killed by a fissure that opened up under her and a ranger who were defending a group of civilians. No warning, just an almighty
crack
that could have been thunder but wasn’t, and they were gone. Efforts to rescue them weren’t quick enough before the pokemon beneath the streets reached them.
Blue almost lost Maturin to a tangrowth, then did lose both his ekans and one of his bellsprout to it before he and Glen took it down together. Glen lost a couple of his own pokemon, but luckily nothing too powerful. Less luckily, his leg and hip were broken. Blue spent the rest of the battle keeping him safe while they moved, slowly but surely, along the path of the evacuations.
All told, the exodus from beneath the city lasted almost two hours, and an estimated six hundred people of the roughly seven thousand in the coliseum were killed, with another three hundred wounded. It would have been far worse, without Gramps and Daisy.
Blue never got so much as a scratch.
Once Glen was seen to, Blue could tell that Peter was pissed at him. It was hard to care while worrying about everyone else, and still is. He’s already gotten thanks from other trainers and civilians who saw how he helped stop the steelix and snorlax from coming after them, and he figures any reprimand would likely be done in private. Or maybe Peter would just tell Surge, and leave his judgement to their mutual superior.
Worries for the future. Right now his thoughts are still trying to expand on his answer to the question. Gramps gives him time, knowing that he would eventually.
“Harder, because I couldn’t take on any of the real threats,” Blue finally adds. “I let Aiko and Elaine get sent off, don’t know where Red and Leaf are, and Glen got hurt, and… then you collapsed and I thought you might be dead…”
He trails off, throat tight as he regains control of himself. “I was just one person, by the end, no different from anyone else,” he whispers. “Was all I could do to keep my friend alive.”
“M’sorry,” the professor says, closing his eyes. “Wasn’t there… for you…”
No trick can stop the burning from spilling down Blue’s cheeks now, and he clutches his grandfather’s hand. “You
were
there. A lot more people would have died without you and Daisy, and I might have been one of them.” He takes a deep breath and wipes his face with his other arm. “And the only thing I did of any real importance was because you were there. Without you… would have been a gap in the story.”
“First time,” Gramps repeats, as if to remind him. “At 12… still impressive.” He sighs. “Not strong enough… for more.”
“I know,” Blue says, letting out a breath. “I need more powerful pokemon, and
I
need to be stronger against the Pressure, and… I need more
social power
, to do something meaningful next time, but I don’t know what kind would best…” He catches himself before he keeps venting his frustrations, and squeezes his grandfather’s hand. “Sorry. Can talk about that later. Can I get you anything? Or do anything for you?”
His grandfather shakes his head. “Not yet.” He takes a deep breath. “Just let Elm know… long recovery… and leave a message… for Samson…”
“Yeah. Of course.” Blue wonders if his twice-removed cousin would even get the message before he’s back from wherever he’s currently exploring, and his brow furrows as he imagines Gramps in here for day after day. “How long will you be in here?” Surely not more than a week…
“Last time was… almost a month. This time… don’t know.”
Blue stares in horror. “No, that’s… why would you… You can’t
do
that!” His voice is rising as his heart pounds, guilt and indignation warring within him. “Why didn’t you
tell
me, it’s bad enough you risked your life, but this is… You can’t just throw your life away, the world
needs
you—”
Sky blue eyes blaze into Blue’s, and a soft, weathered hand cups his face. “Will always come for you,” his grandfather whispers between labored breaths. “You and Daisy… are my world.”
Blue’s tears scald as they slide down his cheeks, and he clasps his grandfather’s hand against his face as he tries to regain control. It’s not
fair
, he’s not supposed to have to worry about this, to think that every time he faces them Gramps will…
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“You are who you are… And I have no desire… to bury another child…” His lips twitch upward briefly. “So you see… I’m actually quite…” The next word comes out in a shaking breath. “Selfish…” His eyes slip closed.
Blue doesn’t respond, simply holding his hand tight as his mind races to find a workaround. Zapdos came to him, this time, but if he decides to go into another Stormbringer attack… He would have to disable the tracking on his equipment first… no that would just tip Gramps off. He’d have to leave all his trackable equipment elsewhere, and his companions’ too. But what if he calls…
“Mr. Oak? It’s time.”
Blue glances back at the whispered voice of the doctor, then turns back to the professor, whose eyes stay closed. He gently releases his hand and places it on his chest, then bends to kiss his forehead. “See you later, Gramps.”
He gathers his things and heads down to the lobby. He’s expected at Vermilion Gym to debrief and coordinate with others. He doesn’t know if Surge is waiting for him or not, but he wants to hurry up and do whatever needs to be done there, so he can make sure his friends are okay.
Leaf spent the night after the storm ended in a haze, drifting in and out of sleep as medicine coursed its way through her veins, repairing the damage to her body and draining it of energy so fast that she was given a meal’s worth of calories every three hours. She was faintly aware of Elaine sitting with her as she drifted in and out of sleep, waking only for treatments and bodily necessities, while her dreams were full of dark streets and rain, lightning and danger, all of which seemed more real to her than the hospital room she kept finding herself in.
She’s reliving the battle in the clothing store, but with a far worse ending, when a jolt sends her gasping awake. Daylight streams through the window, and a nurse is preparing to wheel her out for what she fuzzily assumes will be more x-rays and injections.
“Red?” she croaks, looking around and blinking sweat from her eyes.
“Don’t worry about them,” Elaine responds from her seat by the window, bringing a cup of cool water to her lips, which she thirstily gulps down. “Just focus on getting better.” Her voice is thick with worry and exhaustion of her own.
Them?
she thinks, then remembers Aiko left with him. She assumes she missed a whole cycle of them changing who stayed with her, which is disappointing. She wanted to talk to Aiko…
There’s a nurse with her when she next wakes, an older woman who smiles upon seeing her eyes open. “Hello there, hon. Happy to say you’re out of the woods, now.”
For a moment Leaf thinks she’s back in the hospital she slept in after Viridian. After a few seconds she recognizes that the stiffness in her arm and side aren’t from an electric shock, and soon she’s remembering the injury and back to full awareness.
“Thank you,” Leaf whispers. She’s starving. Her unbound arm stretches out from under the blanket to drink from the water cup beside her bed. There’s a note beside it. “Where’s Elaine?” she asks as she opens it.
“The girl who was here all night? Left you that.”
Leaf,
Morning! Doctors said you were stable, so I went to put our pokemon in queue at a nearby center. Don’t know when they’ll start accepting them, but they’re going to be backed up for a while, and I thought I should check in case it’s soon, otherwise it might take days. If not I’ll be back as quick as I can!
Hope you feel better when you wake!
Elaine
Leaf smiles. She knows it makes little sense to worry about her injured pokemon while they’re in stasis, but it’ll be nice to have them healthy again as soon as possible. “Am I free to go, then?” she asks as she puts the note back and drains the water cup.
The nurse finishes marking something, eyes on a monitor next to Leaf, then looks at her in surprise. “Go? Well, we can’t stop you, but you really shouldn’t. It’s still a bit of a warzone out there, and your injuries aren’t really healed yet; they just aren’t at risk of getting worse unless you’re too forceful with them.”
“Okay.” Without her pokemon the word
warzone
had killed her intention anyway. Leaf reaches for her phone and checks for messages, finding no new ones besides those sent on the emergency channels. Leaf tries sending Red one, and watches the indicator beside it spin endlessly for a few seconds before she gets back an unsent error. She sighs and sits back against the pillows again. “Is there anything I can do around here?”
The woman raises a brow. “Do you have any medical training?”
“Not really. Mostly just for pokemon, and basic first aid.”
“No fresh injuries coming in now, thankfully. Not here at least. Just get some rest.”
Leaf makes a frustrated sound. “I’ve been resting for…” She checks the time and blinks. “Thirteen hours? Thirteen hours! I can’t just sit here a whole day while my friends are still out there, I’ll go crazy.”
The nurse pats her leg in a decidedly unsympathetic manner. “From what I heard, you’ve done enough for now. I’m sure your friends will show up soon as they can.” She finishes tapping Leaf’s blood pressure into her tablet, then starts moving to the next bed. “If you want to do something so bad, take a walk around, ask people if they want water. Your legs and other arm are fine, and you can use the exercise.”
So that’s what Leaf does, slowly and carefully getting to her feet, then shuffling around the makeshift hospital. She notices that a lot of the nurses and doctors are different from the ones she remembers, while the familiar ones look exhausted. Probably nearing the ends of their shifts, but with how many people need help it’s possible they
have
no shifts. She hopes they get rest soon, regardless.
It’s still painful to breathe too deep, and with one arm immobilized she feels unbalanced and clumsy, but for once she’s thankful that she’s left handed. She spends an hour walking each floor of the makeshift treatment center, fetching water or blankets or extra pillows. It’s distracting and repetitive work, which is just what she needs to keep her mind off her worry for the others.
Most of the distraction comes from seeing so many people injured, many of them as bad as Leaf, though anyone worse was likely transported to the actual hospital. She sees a lot of family or friends gathered by bedsides, some having murmured conversation, others asleep, hand in hand. For the first time in what feels like days, Leaf thinks of her mother and grandfather, and wishes they were here.
An hour passes, and in that time the change in her thoughts is subtle. Seeing heartbreak after heartbreak eventually starts to lead her to thoughts about what caused all this, to
why
she’s worried about the others, which effectively means it stops working as a distraction. It isn’t until she sees one of the survivors from the apartment complex that she and Red saved, sobbing like he’s being torn in two as he sits at the bedside of a little girl missing a leg that Leaf has to take a moment to herself.
She goes to her bed and sits on it, eyes closed and breathing deep as she tries to identify the burgeoning pain.
You’re saying that as sad as a pokemon’s death might be, a person’s death… ripples outward more, and is much more affecting.
This very name you use, ‘pokemon,’ shows how little respect there is… I cannot describe to you what the world was like before such a word existed.
I don’t hold all pokemon accountable for what happened to him…
“Don’t you?” she whispers, repeating what she told Red that night. How could he not?
How many tragedies are playing out right now, thanks to one pokemon? One pokemon that weaponized
thousands
of others with no conscious thought, and turned them into murderous, rampaging monsters?
She closes her eyes as a bloody crib flashes through her thoughts, sending a pulse of anger and grief through her. Blue’s ambition is right. This… all of this… once every few years? No wonder so many people are indifferent to pokemon suffering. No wonder they’re considered so much lesser.
Something must be done.
Blue wants to capture or kill the Legendaries, but that might not be possible anytime soon, if at all. It’s audacious…
…but not enough. There are still more deaths from non-Tier 3 events. They
all
need to stop if people and pokemon will ever coexist.
But how? There’s an idea burgeoning in the back of her mind, but she can’t think of what it is, it’s too vague… something about the Stormbringers, about the stampede of pokemon caused by their Pressure…
She sits frozen for a moment, mind racing over the new idea, feeling it out. Their pokemon are immune to most of the effects of Pressure due to virtual conditioning to prevent any aggressive actions without command.
What if they catch every single wild pokemon in the region, then release them, but with an altered program that only prevents aggressive action against humans or buildings, so they can reintegrate into the wild and maintain an ecosystem? They would still be immune to Pressure in all the ways that matter… and better yet, this would prevent the problems of lower tier incidents as well.
It could work. No more violence by pokemon against people… and then… peace.
She feels something soul-deep clicking into place. A possible path to victory, a purpose she can meaningfully dedicate her life to. She knows that she found it, at long last. Not just getting people to stop eating pokemon, which artificial meat might do, and not just making people treat pokemon better, but eliminating any need for people to feel threatened by pokemon
at all
. Practically no more need for
trainers
, which combined with artificial meat… would mean that the vast, vast majority of harm against pokemon would be eliminated.
She wants to stand up and pace, foot bouncing off the floor, and recognizes that she’s getting too excited.
Calm down. Someone must have thought of this before, right?
Even if so, just because she hasn’t heard of it doesn’t mean it was dismissed for good reason. Maybe they dismissed it as too difficult, or thought that new pokemon being born would make it too much effort to maintain, especially if no such programs exist yet. She doesn’t want to assume that the only reason this hasn’t already been done is that no one
cares enough
about pokemon suffering to recognize how it might benefit humans too.
But in any case, all it would take is two things: the right programs, and a way to convince the world to do it, one region at a time.
Leaf smiles.
Right. Easy as pie.
She needs to talk to her mom and grandpa about this. And Professor Oak, and Bill if he’s not too mad at her and Red for leaving the cruise, oh and Red of course, and Aiko would probably be all on board…
She checks her phone for messages again. Still nothing.
A meal arrives for her as she tries to send another message, and she eats mechanically before getting up to take a careful sponge bath in the washroom, thoughts turning her new idea from every angle she can until she returns to helping around the makeshift hospital.
Another hour passes before someone shouts in surprise, causing Leaf’s head to snap around toward them. It’s a middle aged man staring at his phone, and after a moment he clambors onto a nearby chair.
“Hey! Everyone! The list is up!” Conversation breaks out in a babble, and he has to raise his voice further to yell, “Front page of CoRRNet, last update was ten minutes ago!” A nurse is trying to reprimand him for yelling while another calls for everyone to be quiet, but most are already checking their phones with intense expressions of worry and hope.
Leaf hurries back to her room as she pulls her own out, then carefully sits on her bed and opens the webpage, heart pounding. She has to try refreshing the page a dozen times before it loads, after which she just stares at categories of names and wonders if she has the courage for this.
There are three categories, and her eye gets stuck on the third one:
Confirmed Deceased.
The number next to it seems absurdly low given what she experienced that night, but she knows that it’s still early, and that many of those currently counted in the much more populated
Missing
and
In Treatment
columns are likely to migrate.
“
Migrate.” What a pleasant euphemism I’ve created. And now I get to ruminate on that instead of just looking at the names.
Okay. It’s very simple: she’ll just open a search field and type in names, one at a time.
Before she can, a wail of grief erupts from outside, followed by choked sobs. Leaf closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then another.
I’m going to start typing as soon as I open my eyes. Three… two… one…
Leaf’s fingers shake only slightly as she starts to tap out
Blue Oak,
and she lets out a breath of relief as the number beside the field became 0 when she reached the
O
.
Next comes
Red Verres,
and a knot forms in her stomach until she reaches the
V
and the number goes to 0 again. She deletes back to just
Red
to look through the two that popped up. Only one is a first name, the other being part of Redmayne.
She’s still stalling. She swallows and starts tapping again.
Aiko S
Leaf’s fingers stop. The number beside the search window still shows 0, and she feels the last tension relax inside her. There are still other names she wants to search, but if she’s being honest with herself, those were the ones she most cared about.
She quickly searches for Elaine and Glen, and is just about look up Takada when someone says, “It updated!” and she quickly presses refresh and gets an error message.
Leaf curses and lowers her phone.
We should just find a big monitor and cast one of their phones to it, reduce the server load…
The thought reminds her that she can try sending a message again, and she guiltily does so, even though she knows Red and the others are alright now.
Except she doesn’t know that at all, because new reports are still coming in and the page is constantly updating. She could spend the whole day here just refreshing the page and searching her friends’ names, and she
still
wouldn’t know if they’re okay until she sees or hears from them, so… really, she should just skip all that and wait until she does.
So resolved, she lowers her phone with what feels like a massive expenditure of will and looks up to see Red standing in the doorway, lowering a pair of bags beside his feet.
Leaf’s eyes widen, and they just stare at each other for a moment. There’s a burning in her throat as sudden relief spreads through her, not just the absence of anxiety but a wave of warm gratitude that makes her smile and finally stagger to her feet and toward him.
He catches her in a careful hug, and Leaf closes her eyes. It hurts a bit, but not enough for her to care. “Swords of Justice, Red, don’t ever scare me like that again.” Her arm wraps carefully around his waist, which is bereft of his pokebelt, for a brief squeeze.
“Sorry,” Red says. His voice is quiet and calm. “You’re… okay?”
“Yeah. Going to take a while to heal, but… okay.” She relaxes her arm, which he takes as a sign to lower his too, and she leans back to look him over. He looks tired, but not as much as before he left with Aiko, and the fact that he’s dry and wearing new clothes probably goes a long way toward her feeling of relief. It wasn’t just his physical health she was concerned about, but somehow the visual observation of him just looking… clean and dry and relatively put-together translates in her mind as him being emotionally better. “Where have you been?”
“The gym. Leaf… can we sit down?”
Something in his voice makes her gaze snap to his, not even registering it as a simple request to rest. There’s an odd hollowness in his eyes that she missed before, or maybe it just wasn’t as strong, but when they meet hers, she sees grief and pain lurking in that emptiness, and her heart freezes.
And then she looks down at the bags, registering the implication of a second one for the first time.
“What happened to Aiko?” She grips his shirt. “Is she here? How bad is it?”
Red pulls away from her to sit on the bed, hand taking hers, and she follows without resistance, barely feeling her body as she lowers herself beside him. He won’t look at her, which scares her more than anything.
Not dead. Just don’t say that, anything else…
“Red. Tell me.” It’s hard to breathe, like shallow breaths aren’t enough but if she breathes deeper her side hurts…
“I’m sorry,” Red says, and then
she watches his lips form words that hammer her chest
(no, that’s her heart beating)
vision going white around the edges
Red’s face is panicked and tilting out of view
blood rushes through her ears in a roar
that ends in darkness. Leaf drifts from glimpses of her new friend’s intense gaze, hears harsh words exchanged on rooftops, sees a smile that’s sometimes wry, and sometimes bitter, but often genuine and surprised and warm, like she just couldn’t believe that life had this to offer her, and when Leaf wakes it’s with wet eyes pressed against a damp pillow.
She stays still a moment, recognizing where she is by the feel of the hospital bed and the sounds around her. For a moment she allows herself to think it was all a dream, and she’ll turn to find the nurse beside her, but when she turns her head and opens her eyes a crack, she sees Red sitting beside where Elaine used to, looking about half of how she feels.
“Leaf, are you—”
“How?” Leaf croaks. Her throat is dry, and she shifts herself to sit up. A nurse must have been by, because there’s a pulse monitor around her wrist and a fresh cup of water beside her bed. She sits up and drains the whole cup, then scrubs her face with her sleeve. “How did it happen?”
Red stares at her. “I think you fainted, you shouldn’t—”
“You have to tell me. It won’t be real until you do.” She draws her legs up and wraps her good arm around them, not looking at him as shock settles in around her thoughts again. The tempting denial. “Now, Red. Tell me what happened.”
He’s silent for a minute, and just before she yells at him to just
tell her
she realizes that she’s not thinking, that it must be hard for him too, maybe even harder, but before she can say anything he starts talking, and she’s transfixed by her need to know.
“We went to one of the hospitals that got hit by Zapdos. It was on fire, being evacuated. An onix was moving through the city, probably trying to avoid…” Red pauses, blinks rapidly, shakes his head. “Sorry. She was inside, and the roof collapsed.”
Leaf stares at him, heart hammering and breath catching in her throat as she tries to speak twice. “Did… you see?”
Is it possible you’re wrong?
“No.”
“Then how…” she trails off as Red raises a finger and taps his temple, and Leaf’s last bit of hope fades.
Tears blur her vision and trace new lines down her cheeks, but this time there’s no merciful unconsciousness to divorce her from the rising tide of pain. She imagines Aiko trapped under rubble and bleeding out, mind flinching from more horrible outcomes, and then imagines Red staring at the rubble and knowing that she’s gone… “Gods, Red. I’m so s-sorry…”
She reaches an arm out, and he’s there for her to press her face into his shoulder. As the grief floods through her, she feels and hears his own stifled sobs, and grips him tighter. Even through the pain, she thinks of what he showed her on the cruise; the effect his dad’s loss had on him. And now this…
That thought makes her suddenly think of Aiko’s dad, and the flood feels like it expands into every corner of her thoughts. Gods, what are they going to say to him? He barely seemed to accept her leaving for her journey… the thought of him not accepting that she was gone, just… living on as if she’s coming home at some point…
It feels like her heart is being squeezed into pulp, the pain so great that her muffled keen is as much from the simple physical feeling as the grief.
Have you ever lost a person?… There’s like a crack in your life that doesn’t ever really go away.
She can feel it, already formed. A dark rift into which all the plans and hopes and dreams of her friend have disappeared forever, a fissure that cuts across the future and splits it off forever from what could have been, and the more she contemplates it, the more it feels like it’ll pull her in too, sink her through inky depths that will crush her like an empty soda can.
And she does get pulled in, and she does get crushed, and for a time all the world is reduced to the compact agony.
When the storm finally passes, it does so in stages of awareness. First Leaf becomes more cognizant of the feel of Red’s shirt. Then her own hospital gown. Then the sounds of others in the building. Then some stray thought clutches her leg and drags her back down until she’s ready to try coming back again.
Red is quiet and patient beside her, until the world returns little by little again and stays. She keeps her head where it is, feeling like she’s cried out, for now. Red seems content to stay still too, and what eventually makes her lift her head is a sound of grief from elsewhere in the hospital.
Another tragedy, only tangentially related. Another ended future.
Leaf opens eyes that feel puffy and sore, and notes with only minor surprise that it’s still light out, the bright midday sun shining down on a city full of cracks. There’s even a rainbow in the distance, a testament to the insanity of this new world she’s sidestepped into. In a saner one it would be night already, and raining again.
“How did you stand it?” she eventually murmurs. “With your dad.”
Red shakes his head. “Didn’t, remember? I broke. Took a long time for the pieces to settle, but even then a lot was blocked by my partition.”
Leaf pulls away slightly to search his face. “And did this break you again? Or…”
Red meets her gaze, then slowly shakes his head. “It’s… different.” His voice is quiet, but she can hear the thread of pain under it. “I think I understand how partitions form, now.”
“How?” she asks, because it’s something to talk about, anything, that’s not…
“Sometimes it seems like memories and preferences and perceptions are all we are. Like a messy bundle of data files, sensory equipment, and programmed directives that…” He stops, frowns, shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not… Anyway, partitions divide your memories. Memories are almost like a person, right? Just… with no access to the senses, or intentions… it’s just a pattern. When I was younger… I didn’t realize I had powers, but they were still developing and working to revert harm through partition.”
“So they formed… what, another person inside you?”
“No. Sorry, I’m butchering it, and I think it’s hard to explain anyway.” He sighs and closes his eyes. “I lived a pretty sheltered life as a kid. My mom and dad were my world, and that world was good. There were things that made me sad, but life still felt… fair. Sensible.”
Leaf’s chest aches. What Red’s describing sounds very much like what life was like for her, before she decided to leave Unova.
“I was practically a baby when Blue lost his parents. Only have vague memories of them, but my dad was… more than a person. He was like an idea given form. A heroic font of wisdom about how to survive, he taught me
so much
about how to stay safe on my journey…”
“And then he died,” Leaf whispers. “No, not just died. Was killed by pokemon.” Leaf watches Red study her bed, focusing on the sound of his voice and the ideas he’s expressing, to keep herself from dwelling on things that would make her fall apart again.
Red nods. “It was like… if some new mythical pokemon shows up and reverses gravity for a few seconds. Forget the planetary effects, I mean just from the earth’s surface. And everything goes flying up into the air, then comes crashing down. Bunch of people die, probably, and maybe a lot of houses collapse, I don’t know. But the point is you just can’t take it for granted anymore that gravity is constant. That pokemon might do it again at any point, and everyone just… The world is different.
You’re
different. And you’re less shocked, the second time it happens. But a partition… it holds onto the old mental pattern, or something.” He rubs his face. “Sorry, this analogy is breaking down. I have a lot of questions I need to ask another psychic.”
Leaf worries her lower lip, watching him. “I think it made sense, sort of. So with your partition weak, you were… more prepared, for this?”
“Not prepared,” he murmurs, gaze down. “And I don’t know if the partition being weak mattered. I just… there wasn’t as much, built on some idea that we were all invincible. I think if I wasn’t psychic it would have been the same. It all feels like it’s part of the same pattern now. Maybe that’s why it was easier for me, to not go in the building.”
Leaf stares at him. “What do you mean?”
Red sighs and closes his eyes. “I wasn’t with her, Leaf,” he says, voice finally descending into full monotone. “I tried to stop her from going into the hospital, but I let her go in with just Vermilion Gym’s Second. They were going in to rescue his people and others that were still trapped inside and I said not to, I said it was
too dangerous
, but they went in anyway. No one came out.”
She stares at him, unable to understand what he’s saying for a moment, then unable to accept it. “You didn’t… no, Red, you risked yourself to save
strangers,
you don’t… how could you not…”
Now he does open his eyes, and they’re wet and angry. “How could I what, Leaf? How could I not throw my life away too? How many times did we almost die last night? I count three for myself, you probably had more. What would it have taken? A command given a second too slow? A trip or slip at just the wrong moment? If that nidoqueen meant to attack you instead of just turning while you were in the wrong place,
you’d be dead.
” His anger has faded, anguish coming through instead. “Dead, Leaf, just gone, like Ai…” Her name turns into a sob that brings her own tears back, and then they’re holding each other again as the tears flow, and this time Leaf feels like she’s comforting him more than the other way around.
It’s hard to fully grapple with the idea of her own non-existence in any circumstance, let alone through the numbing grief. But she can feel a little bit of the horror at how close she came, through the fear in his voice.
Another endless moment passes as Leaf lets the grief take her away again. There were just so many things she was waiting for… conversations that would never happen now. Talking to Aiko about the diglett caves, and the cruise, and her ranch, and lab grown meat, and cloning… Blue probably has his own list, and Red too, and it all adds up to sorrow that has nowhere to go. A lifetime of pain that may fade, but will persist until each of them are gone.
And all because of what? Leaf finds herself searching for justification in what Red said, for and against, because it still doesn’t make sense to her. Red was so brave all that night, despite all the fear he was dealing with… Could it be that he was using his powers to keep himself steady, and then they ran out? Or maybe…
“Red,” she whispers. “The Pressure was really hard on you. Did it—”
“No.” He sounds so tired, like he’s argued this a hundred times before. Maybe he has, to himself. “Zapdos was gone. If anything I felt less afraid for myself, after that. It was me, Leaf. Just me. I decided the risk was too high and I didn’t go in. That’s all.”
Leaf hears the words, but still… doesn’t believe him. She saw how affected he was by it, even lost in her own nearly hysterical concern for the pokemon around her—
“So it’s true?”
They both jump at Blue’s voice, and Red stands and steps around the chair so Leaf can see him, standing in the doorway like Red was.
“Blue! You’re okay!” The relief is such an unexpected positive thing to feel that she forgets her injuries and tries to get up too. She quickly stops, hissing in pain, and relaxes back into her bed. “How did you find us?”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even move further into the room to hug Red. He just stares at Red with an expression of barely leashed anger, and it takes her a moment to remember that he asked a question.
Just when she thinks he won’t answer, his gaze moves to her. “Just came from the gym. Found out where Red was going. You’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” She searches his face, heart sinking at his clipped tone. This isn’t the tearful reunion she imagined, let alone the joyful one. “The others… are they…?”
“Glen was hurt too, but he’s also recovering. Elaine?”
“She’s fine. Went to a pokemon center.”
Some tension leaves Blue at that, and he leans against the wall. “Glad you’re okay.” He opens his mouth, then closes it and turns to Red. “You still haven’t answered me.”
“You didn’t specify,” Red says, and Leaf looks at him in surprise at the leashed anger in his voice too.
Sudden foreboding fills her, and she’s about to speak when Blue answers.
“They told me you were there. When the Second and Aiko died.” Blue’s voice is controlled, but his hands are fists as he crosses them over his chest, and there’s anger under the calm like hints of flames licking an underbrush. “That you let them go into the building alone.”
“Yes,” Red says. Just that. As Leaf looks at him, all traces of the sadness from before are gone.
Blue waits, clearly expecting more of an answer. Blue’s jaw sets, and he shakes his head. “You’re not a coward. You wouldn’t have come if you were. How could you do that?”
“Guys,” Leaf says, forcing herself to speak against the sense of pressure she feels filling the room. “Maybe now isn’t the right time for this. We’re all still exhausted, maybe feeling after effects of the Pressure. Let’s just… let it go, for now. She wouldn’t want us to—”
“Yes, she would,” Blue interrupts, and she sees his fists tighten as the heat enters his voice, now. “You two didn’t know her as well as I did, you weren’t there after the caves, you don’t understand. We all take responsibility for our fuckups. She understood that, started it. Now tell me what the fuck happened, Red!”
A silence of three parts fills the room: Leaf’s shock and dread, Blue’s angry expectation, and Red’s detached hostility. It’s broken not by any of them, but by a nurse who walks by the door.
“Is everything alright in here?” she asks, looking at Leaf.
“No,” she says. “We… lost a friend.”
Blue lets a breath out through his nose and turns to the nurse. “Please excuse my outburst. It won’t happen again.”
She eyes him briefly, then looks back at Leaf, waiting for her confirmation. After a moment, Leaf nods, and the nurse walks away. It’s only after she leaves that Leaf realizes she was probably asking if she was okay, if she wanted them to stay.
As soon as she’s gone, Blue closes the door. When he turns back to Red, the silence returns.
“That’s what you want?” Red asks at last. “You just want me to say I made a mistake?”
“No, that’s not it. But it would be a start.” Blue lets out a breath and rubs his face. “It’s more than that, but just… explain what you did wrong, and why, and we can go from there.”
“If you want a real post mortem, there were three mistakes,” Red says, voice soft and hypnotically monotone. “The first was made by Vermilion’s Second. It wasn’t when he sent his team ahead while waiting for Aiko and me, that made sense. Don’t think they could have reasonably predicted the onix. The mistake came when, after arriving at the clearly unsound and doomed building, he decided to go in at all. It was too high a risk. He should have known that. He
did
know it, but went anyway. He didn’t make a plan for the roof collapsing, didn’t have a way to deal with that, so he shouldn’t have—”
“Stop,” Blue says, and the anger is back. “You’re not doing it right. You talk about
yourself,
not what other people did wrong. That’s for them to do, and he’s not here. His friends and gym mates were in the building, and he couldn’t just watch and not go try to save them. Some people can’t live like that.”
“Maybe they can’t,” Red says. “But if that’s true, those people shouldn’t be leaders. Ask Surge, if you disagree,” he quickly says, seeing Blue about to speak again. “But fine, you want me to admit my own mistake? That’s the second one. I should have lied to him. The Second asked me if there were still people alive in the building. Don’t know if he would have believed me if I said no, but… I should have said no.”
They both stare at him, and Leaf can’t keep her silence. “Red, what if someone had made it out? No one would ever trust you…”
“Maybe not. But Aiko might be alive right now.”
“That’s all you care about?” Blue asks. “You would have condemned them all to death, just to save two lives?”
“My dad taught me that risk is something you have to
actively manage
. It’s not just about having knowledge, it takes
time
. Effort. Sometimes resources. If you’re not spending anything to manage risk, you’re just rolling dice.” Red shakes his head, and now some emotion enters his voice as he leans back against her bed, gaze down. “Aiko should have known that. That’s the third mistake. She’s… she was… smart, she understood risk, and I wish… I wish I could have just paused time and
talked
to her about it, I’m sure I could have convinced her, but it all happened so fast…”
Leaf reaches out to put a hand on Red’s arm as he trails off, sounding close to tears again. “Red, you can’t blame yourself for this. It was her choice to come with us, we all tried to get her to come but she’s the one that ultimately chose it, just like she made the choice to go in there.” She turns to Blue. “Tell him.” He bites his lip, staying silent, and anger suddenly sparks in her own chest. “Blue,
tell him!”
Blue rubs his eyes, then lets out a breath. “She did it because she chose to. But you’re wrong saying it was a mistake. She followed what she felt was right. She knew it was a risk, and maybe it was the wrong call this time.
Your
mistake wasn’t that you failed to
stop
her, Red, it was not going in after her. It’s the same mistake you make in battles, that you could have learned in Pewter if you went for the badge: you’re too hesitant to take risks.”
“This wasn’t just a risk, it was suicide.”
“You didn’t
know
that ahead of time, you’re saying it now, after the fact!”
“The
roof collapsed,
Blue, if I’d gone in then I’d be dead too!”
“
Then you should have died!”
The silence is back, and this time Leaf pushes through her shock. “Blue, you don’t mean that.”
“Would you have done different?” Blue asks, eyes piercing her. “Be honest, Leaf. For her, for him, for me. Would you have stayed outside?”
Leaf’s throat locks. She can’t
know
what she would have done… she could say that, could try to stand up for Red, but…
Blue reads it on her face, and nods. “That’s what it means to be someone’s
friend,
” Blue says, looking back at Red now. “That’s what you don’t get, Red. You’re talking about risk and the smart thing to do like it’s a game, like your decisions don’t say things about who you are, how people see you. Forget strangers you’re on a mission with, how could anyone trust you to have their back on a journey, if they know that’s how you see things?”
“Of
course
that’s what you care about,” Red says, bitterness spilling out with every word. “Your precious fucking persona. Word gets out that one of your journeymates will leave a friend to die and people wonder if you feel that way too, right? That’s what being a hero is, to you, what
looks
heroic, not what actually saves lives.”
“Shut up,” Blue says, face red and voice deadly calm. “That’s not how it is.”
“No? That mean you’re going to stop pretending that your definition of a hero is the only one?” Red sticks a finger forward. “Did you consider that maybe she heard your voice in the back of her head, telling her she had to go in there or she didn’t belong at the great Blue Oak’s side?”
“Get that finger out of my face before I—”
“Stop it, both of you!” Leaf cuts in, heart pounding. Both boys have moved closer to each other, faces flushed, and she forces herself out of the bed to stand between them, looking back and forth. “You’re
best friends
, you can’t let this change that, Aiko wouldn’t want this, you
know
she wouldn’t!”
Blue swallows, hands balled into fists at his side as he takes a slow breath. “Just… admit your mistake. Just say it, Red, it’s okay if you were afraid,” Blue’s voice shakes slightly on the word, “You can overcome that, we’ll help you, but you can’t go forward like this, thinking that what you did was right.”
For a moment all Leaf can hear is her heart pounding and their breaths. The world outside the door is oddly quiet, as if the whole building is waiting for Red’s response.
“That’s where you’re
demonstrably
wrong,” he says at last, and steps around Leaf. Blue’s arms flinch up, but Red just takes his bag from the floor and pulls its straps onto his shoulders.
“Red…” Leaf steps forward, struggling to find the right words, frustration mixing with panic.
Say something, if you want to persuade the world to do the right thing then you should at least be able to stop a friend from making a mistake!
He pauses and glances at her. There’s something in his gaze that reminds her of that night on the cruise, and she feels heat go up her neck in the moment it takes for him to look away. “You don’t have to worry about me tarnishing your reputation, Blue. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m not fit to be a trainer after all. Either way, my journey’s done.”
“Red, don’t,” Leaf says, but he’s already opening the door, and he closes it without looking back.
Red spends the day walking through the city. It’s shocking to see the damage in the daylight; all the bodies seem to have been collected, thankfully, but there are entire blocks that are a wreck. That said, watching the repair efforts that are already underway is soothing, in its own way. It’s a reminder that not everything that happened last night would leave a scar.
Red doesn’t have a specific destination in mind. He mostly just walks to keep himself busy as his thoughts churn, and his emotions ebb and flow. Occasionally he thinks of the conversation that just happened, of Blue’s tone or the look on Leaf’s face, but those pains are minor.
Mostly he just thinks of Aiko, and practices manipulating his partition.
At one point Red reaches the shopping mall that he and Leaf took shelter in, and goes inside to ensure that the group who hid there is okay. A path is cleared through the spike trap they laid, so he assumes they got out okay, at least. Afterward he goes to a pokemon center and puts his pokemon in queue to be healed. It would take a few days before his pokemon are healed, but he waits a couple hours anyway to speak with a doctor who examines Pikachu’s ball, and reports confidence that he would walk again. It doesn’t undo last night or this afternoon, but it’s a small stone off Red’s heart. He misses his pokemon’s weight on his shoulder.
Wireless signal gets fully restored by dinner time, and Red eats a meal bar in a park as he composes a message, then sends it.
He doesn’t call his mom. He would probably have to tell her that he got off the cruise at some point, but right now it seems a better problem for Future Red. He does let Bill know, and apologizes for not seeing the whole convention. He reads updates about the search for Elite Karen, which resolves just as the sun begins to set: she was found in critical condition, but alive, atop her slain pokemon. The death count for the city is up to seven thousand. It’s being cautiously referred to as the least deadly Stormbringer attack on a major city in history. Mass funerals are already being planned, and there’s a speech by the mayor and gym leader tomorrow afternoon.
The sun is setting by the time he gets a response to his message. As he gets up he spies the messages waiting for him from Leaf. Each expresses caution and reassurance that Blue will come around. He sends her a quick response telling her he’s okay and would visit tonight. There are none by Blue.
It’s a forty minute bike ride from the park to the cafe, and by the time he arrives it’s fully dark. He does his best as he packs up his bike and pads to ensure his mental state isn’t too uncomfortable, then walks into the cafe.
Most businesses aren’t re-opened yet, but Sabrina is already there, waiting with a cup of something. Or maybe she’s not waiting: Leader Giovanni sits beside her, along with Leaders Koga and Erika. Their conversation stopped before he even entered, and so he steps into silence as he stares at the four Leaders, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Ah, sorry,” he says, and swallows before bowing. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Not at all, Red,” Sabrina says as Giovanni and Koga nod in greeting, and Erika twiddles her fingers. “I already told them this would only take a moment. In fact, it’s already done.” Her gaze is sympathetic, but warm. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. But your assessment is correct. Your partition is now partially under your control.”
Red’s heart hammers as he feels hope pierce the grief, for a moment. “You’ll take me as your student, then?”
Sabrina sips from her cup, gaze thoughtful, then seems to reach a decision. “I will. When can you start?”
End of Part I
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Pallet Town hasn’t changed in four months. Or at least, not that Red can tell just by biking through it.
Maybe some store has closed and been replaced, or some new homes have gone up. If so, they’re not in his line of sight as he bikes down the main street. The illusion of its stability is only broken by his knowledge that his home is being inhabited by strangers and that Pallet Labs, gleaming in the distance above the town’s skyline, lacks its professor.
But the relative quiet is the same, and is particularly soothing after a month in Saffron City. As is the smell of the ocean on the wind, and the distant sound of wingull crying into the open blue skies.
He reaches his destination and packs his bike and pads away, then goes inside, feeling like he’s stepping back in time. It’s only been four months since he was in Pallet Town, but he hasn’t been to Dr. Seward’s office in years. The waiting room hasn’t changed since he was last here, though the office itself has. The carpet is the same dark green, but there’s a new couch, and the paintings have changed.
Dr. Seward herself is apparently unchanged, however, and her smile is warm as he sits down. “Hello, Red. Glad you could finally make it in person.”
“Me too.” He sinks into the couch and is gratified by how comfortable it is. He’s a little sweaty from the ride, or else he’d lie down.
“You can lie down, if you want.”
Red immediately reinforces his shield, then blinks at her, and smiles. “You know, I’ve been living in a building full of psychics for a month now, and I’ve nearly forgotten how effective simple deduction can be.”
Her eyes glint merrily. “Well, I’m happy to remind you how effective simple observations can be. Plus you always did enjoy lying down. Despite the stereotype, you were my only client young enough to actually do it.”
Red grins, and decides to follow her suggestion. He lets his shoes dangle over the side of the couch and uses the pillows to give his head something to rest against.
“Better?”
“Yeah.” He lets out a breath, feeling himself relax as he stares at the ceiling, her face still in his periphery. After a moment he thinks of the attention he’s still keeping automatically to maintaining his shield. “Do you mind if I bring my mental shield down too?”
“Why would I mind that?”
“I sort of detect minds by reflex, now. It takes concentration not to.”
“Ah.” His therapist considers that. “It’s just the detection of a mind? Not a way to identify people or read thoughts?”
Red hesitates, considering it. “Well, I can’t identify people just by detecting their mind, no. But if I ever detect the same mind elsewhere, I might recognize the feel of it.”
“Might? How reliable is that?”
“The more time I spend with them, the more reliable it is. Ummm…” He thinks back to past experiences. “A couple hours would help me identify someone with something like… 80% accuracy, if I focus on their mental signature?”
“Hmmm.” She taps her fingers on her desk. “You’ll only be here for an hour, so I suppose that’s alright. And thoughts?”
“What? Oh, no. Surface impressions only.”
“Meaning?”
Red shifts, considering an example. “Again, familiarity helps a lot, but eventually I’d be able to recognize if someone is happy or sad or angry with enough exposure. I’m not good enough to tell for total strangers right away.”
Dr. Seward nods. “Alright, I don’t think that would violate any privacy. Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Red lets his shield relax, and is immediately aware of the minds around him. Dr. Seward’s, two people in the room his feet are pointing at, a handful scattered below and above them, and a couple more moving outside around the building.
“So, how has your visit been so far?”
“Good. This is only my second stop, then I’m heading back.”
“Ah. The lab was the other, I take it? Good to see familiar faces?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t want to talk about how empty it seemed without the Professor, then remembers where he is and lets a breath out. “Missed one, though.”
She nods, and Red notices her mind shift in a way that he finds easy to interpret as concern. “How’s Sam doing? Have you seen him recently?”
“Not since last week. But Daisy says he’s doing better. Walking again, with some help.” Red’s stomach twists briefly at the memory of the Professor lying in the hospital bed. He’s still there at the doctor’s orders instead of at home, because they knew if he was discharged he wouldn’t rest.
“Glad to hear it.” Dr. Seward watches him a moment, and something in her bearing changes. “So. Our first session since the attack on Vermilion, and you wanted it to be in person. I can’t really imagine what you went through, but I’ve been worried about you.”
Red nods, gaze down. “I appreciate it. I just… wasn’t really up to talking about anything, yet.”
“I understand. I’m sure there are a dozen things we could spend the session processing or working on, and I don’t blame you for needing time to process a lot of it on your own.”
Red thinks of that night. The fear from the Pressure and the fights, the grief and frustration over those they couldn’t save, and of course the guilt about not being able to stop Aiko. And the days and nights leading up to it, on the cruise with Leaf. And the aftermath, with her and Blue. “A couple dozen, yeah,” he says as he focuses on his breathing until the twisted knot of pain and anger and sadness and regret slowly fade.
She nods. “How’s the survivor’s guilt?” She says it so matter of factly, and he knows that it must be the most common thing for people who’ve been through a Tier 3 incident.
“Not as bad as it could be, all things considered.”
“Nightmares?”
“Very few, actually.”
“Good. Are you missing Blue and Leaf?”
Anger flashes through him, but also regret, and not just about Leaf. “Some. But there’s nothing I can do about that.” He’d shared basic details of the attack’s aftermath over email, but it was sparse on detail and didn’t include his feelings for Leaf.
“Nothing?”
“We’re all where we need to be, right now. Leaf’s at the Sakai ranch, helping Aiko’s dad and working on a project.”
A project she won’t talk about, for some reason,
and there’s pain with that thought too.
“And Blue?”
They haven’t spoken since after the funeral, and the only plus side to the “conversation” was Leaf has since stopped trying to get them to talk. At this point, the only thing he wants to hear from Blue is an apology. “Doing gym stuff.”
“I see.” Her mental impression shifts again, though Red lacks the context to understand how. Her face just keeps radiating patient concern. “Not to press too much, but even if it seems like things can’t get better, you might just be too close to the situation to see how. Or maybe just processing how you feel about it can help.”
Red sighs and closes his eyes. “Maybe. I get that there’s probably something to unpack in all that, but like I said, we’re all where we need to be right now. And honestly, there’s something more important on my mind.”
“Ah. By all means, then, what can I help you with?”
“My psychic apprenticeship. There are seven of us right now, and Leader Sabrina is a big believer in the idea that people learn best through teaching. So all her students spend most of our time giving lessons to each other or gym members.”
“Not exactly what you expected, I take it?”
Red smiles. “I don’t mind that part, actually. I like teaching. But because we’re all at such different levels and have different specialties, and her time is so limited, she decides on individual lessons based on our progress to make sure she’s not going to just be teaching something that someone else can.”
“Ah. I think I see. You haven’t been getting many private lessons from her?”
“Only one, so far,” Red says, voice glum. “There’s always at least another more advanced student around, which means the focus is rarely on what I’m interested in most. I’m learning a lot more control and finesse, and a few new techniques, but mostly I want help improving my connection with pokemon. I decided to practice fully inhabiting every psychic pokemon I can get my hands on to better understand the different psychic experiences, but I’m a long way from the seamless merge that Sabrina can do with her pokemon. I know it’s only been a month, but I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon at this rate.”
Dr. Seward leans back in her seat. “So you need to impress her. Not just once, I’m guessing, but enough to let her know it’s worthwhile to teach you more individually, and more often.”
“Yeah, and the main thing that’s holding me back so far is that I can only spend so much time practicing before the grief shows up. So that’s what I want to focus on.”
His therapist stares at him a moment. “Can I ask, how that feels, internally?”
“How what feels?”
“That decision process, of wanting to deal with your grief because it’s getting in the way of an ambition.”
Red shrugs. “It’s… it just feels—”
“Wait. Not off the cuff. Give it a minute. Really look.”
“Right.” He breathes in and closes his eyes. At first it feels like nothing in particular, but when he imagines things from her perspective, and he recognizes her concern; it’s a bit of a cold-blooded reason to want to get over grief.
But isn’t that right? To want to get over grief as quickly as you can? It’s not like he’s trying to get rid of memories of Aiko or his dad (he knows how to do that, now, though not with much skill yet), he just wants to get over the
pain
of it. “It just feels pragmatic. I know I don’t have the willpower to just… open myself up to dealing with it for its own sake. The world won’t stop for me. I learned that after Dad. So it’s not an intrinsic motivation, but if I need to get it done anyway, an extrinsic motivation will have to do.”
Dr. Seward nods slowly. “Understandable. But I do remember you mentioning that you’re worried about the way so many psychics seem to be socially hard to interact with. How worried are you that you might become more like that, now that you’ll be entrenched in that life and culture?”
Red had noticed it a few times since he moved to Saffron, but he hadn’t thought of how it might affect him for a while. “Well, I guess I’m worried about it now. Is that something you can keep an eye out for?”
“I’m happy to share observations if any come to mind, but we don’t interact in a day to day setting. Do you think you can ask someone else you see more often?”
“…You mean like the other psychics I’m trying not to become like?”
“Hm. I didn’t realize that would be everyone you interact with. Maybe Leaf?”
Red shifts.
Hey Leaf, let me know if I’m acting too cold and aloof, but not because of all the awkwardness about Aiko dying or you siding with Blue.
“Sure.”
Her brow rises. “And will you?”
Red sighs, smiling. “Yeah, I will. Promise.”
“Good. Alright, then. Why don’t we start by clarifying how the grief has changed, since your friend died.”
Red shifts, smile fading. The pain of thinking about Aiko in the past tense is a muted thing, both for the month that passed and his partition, but it still makes it hard to think clearly for a moment. He remembers being here after his dad died and having to struggle to even speak through the weight in his chest, the grey curtain dividing him from the world. “I had a dream last week.”
“You don’t normally mention dreams. I assume it’s relevant?”
“I think it might be, yeah…”
“
Ten minutes.”
A long table in an empty white room, its wood top bare of covers or sheets, its chairs simple and abstract.
To the left sat Red. His hair was wet, clothes dirty and torn. An extra pokebelt hung loose around his stomach, some balls missing from both. His gaze was long, though it ended at the tabletop just in front of him.
Across from him sat Red, looking a few years older and wearing a white lab coat. He looked frustrated, and his leg bounced with nervous energy beneath the table as his arms stayed rigidly locked across his chest.
Between them sat Red, looking more or less as his current self, attention on Past Red.
“
Ten minutes?”
“
That’s about how long Aiko kept the Second waiting. About how long his people were in the hospital before we got there. If we were with them, would we have made the same decision 10 minutes earlier?”
“
We can’t know the answer to that,” Future Red said. “And we shouldn’t even be talking about this to avoid projection or anchoring bias.”
Red shook his head, trying to avoid a fight that he can sense coming. “No one’s asking you to precommit to anything.”
“
You don’t have to
ask
me to do it, but I’ll still feel pressured to if we decide ahead of time that we should be more heroic because we’re guilty about Aiko.”
“
Aren’t we?” Past Red asked, looking up at the other two.
“
I don’t think so,” Present Red said.
“
I don’t think so,” Future Red said, more confidently. “But that might change, and if it does I’ll worry about that. Until then, don’t make decisions that might limit my ability to accurately assess a situation.”
“
You don’t know that you’re able to accurately assess a situation now,” Past Red insisted. “As long as the partition is up, you’re just a faulty model of our future self, and if you assume it’s going to stay up then you’re self-sabotaging.”
Future Red rolled his eyes. “All I care about is what’s best for us long term. If you want to bring down the partition and drown us in misery, if you think that’s what we need to do, then do it, and I’ll change. But you might not like what I turn into.”
“
We all want what’s best for you,” Red said, holding a hand up toward both of them. “But I don’t want to be drowned in misery, right now. Working with Sabrina is too rare an opportunity to risk to depression. What other suggestions do you have?”
Past Red shrugged, looking too tired to put up much of a fight. “I can only tell you what has and hasn’t worked. Keeping everything locked away wasn’t our choice, but it seemed to work out okay… unless it didn’t. If Blue is right, then we made the decision not to go in because we were scared of dying. Yes, it turned out we were right not to go in that time. But we’re not architects, or firefighters. We didn’t draw on any expertise when we made that decision, that it was too dangerous. Just an intuition, a gut feeling that said it was too dangerous, or it was just tired of rolling the dice after putting ourselves in danger too much already.”
“
This is backwards,” Future Red said. “You’re supposed to be the conservative one, the one that sticks to what works. Why are you second-guessing what kept us alive?”
Past Red shook his head. “I’m the one that cares what lessons we learned. I’m the one that cares that what I went through wasn’t for nothing, that the best comes from it, so that you each will know the same when it’s your time to be me.
Would
we have gone in when it was less hopeless?”
“
Yes,” Present Red said, looking uncertain.
“
Yes,” Future Red said, and frowned. “I’m only saying that because it’s what we hope is true, given that this worked out well for us. If it hadn’t, I would be saying the opposite… if I was around to say anything at all.”
“
And if it didn’t work out well in another way?” Past Red asked, looking between them. “What if Blue is right in another way? What if no one trusts us in any life or death situations any more?”
“
Do we want them to?” Future Red asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Is that something we still want?” A pokebelt appeared around his waist, then disappeared, then reappeared.
“The journey was fun.” Past Red sighed. “But…”
“We can help others in other ways,” Red said. “At least…”
“Until we have more to offer,” Future Red finished, and the belt disappeared. “Something more unique. So stop fixating on what Blue said, and on what happened to Aiko.”
“
And what about Leaf?” Past Red asked. “Do we still care about what she thinks of us?”
“
Yes,” Red and Future Red said together.
“
Then shouldn’t we make sure what we did was right?”
Future Red shakes his head. “Or we find a better way to convince her it was.”
“
Which we can’t do,” Red said, and closed his eyes. “Not as long as we’re not sure ourselves.”
The office is silent a moment as Red finishes recounting the dream. He shifts on the couch, turning a little as to get a better look at Dr. Seward’s reaction.
“Yes, I can see why that might be a clue of sorts,” she says at last, face thoughtful.
“I paraphrased a lot of it,” Red adds. “But it was very coherent, for a dream, and hasn’t been fading like most.”
“Was it lucid?”
“Partially? No control, just… awareness that I was seeing something unreal.”
“I see. Earlier you said the survivor’s guilt wasn’t as bad as it could be, but that sounds like some part of you internalized Blue blaming you.”
“It’s less about guilt for surviving, more about… the decision process itself. But I don’t feel that way now, it’s only when the partition is down that Past Red is more in control.”
Dr. Seward blinks. “Was that a poetic use of language, or…”
Red sighs. “Not really.”
“Then I think it’s time you explain how your partition works, exactly.”
Red nods and shifts so he can take his notebook out, then begins reading from his notes. “Okay, so first basic assumption is that all thoughts and emotions are just certain neurons activating in certain orders, right? Different sequences and patterns of neurons correspond to certain memories or experiences, so you basically have a ‘map’ of neurons that have to do with a strong memory, and it lights up again each time you think of that memory, and another map for, like, the way you feel when you listen to a certain song.” Red grows more animated as he talks, and shifts on the couch so his neck is more comfortable. “Basically the partition seems to keep certain maps or patterns from firing, but preserves them.”
Dr. Seward is frowning slightly. “Can this be mapped by fMRI or EEG?”
Red smiles. There’s more than one reason he likes Dr. Seward. “Yeah, that’s something I checked just a couple days ago.”
Dr. Seward makes a humming noise, then simply says, “That’s pretty wild.”
He grins. “I know, right? So to use a metaphor, picture your thoughts like a river.”
“This seems familiar,” she says with a wry smile. “Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting. River, done.”
“The main channel is most of what you think and feel day to day, right? It’s what has the most current and carries you in it like a fish. There are streams that feed the river from ‘outside,’ so if you think of something new or are made aware of something it can shift the river’s flow. A partition was like a dam, holding part of the river in check. When it leaked or burst from me using my powers, it altered the whole current.”
“I think I understand. But you’re speaking in past tense?”
“Well, yeah, that’s how it used to be. Now it feels like there’s a separate me behind that partition, and when it weakens enough, he takes over.”
If Dr. Seward is surprised, it doesn’t show on her face or mental impression. He wonders if that’s a trained therapist thing, or just part of the personality type that drew her to the profession. “So you’re really being literal, when you describe it that way.”
Red shrugs. “Like 70%, rounding down to adjust for overconfidence? It really does feel like I become someone else, not just me-but-sad. I have thoughts I don’t normally have, make decisions that I wouldn’t normally make, think about the future totally differently…” Dr. Seward’s lips purse a moment, and he remembers it as her way of hiding a smile, or trying to think of a way to phrase something. “Yes, I know that sounds like the sorts of things that applies to most people when they get sad, but trust me, it’s different.”
“I have no reason to distrust you,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I understand what you mean, when you say different. To an outside observer, how would they be able to tell it was different?”
Red considers that a moment, then shrugs, embarrassed. “I guess I would be crying more.”
“Well, that sounds…” She stops herself. “I’m sorry, I was about to say that sounds like an improvement. But it probably doesn’t feel like it, I bet?”
Red shakes his head. “It’s not what really bothers me, to be honest. The sadness I’m used to, but it’s like there’s a blizzard of emptiness and confusion around it, now.”
“Alright. So the depression has shifted from primarily sadness to anhedonia?”
“Yeah. But it’s not just that, either.” Red struggles to put it into words, flipping through his notebook before he realizes another thing. “So before, I would also notice how I was feeling and wish the feelings would go away, right? Now…”
“…you get some value from experiencing them?” Dr. Seward guesses, not sounding surprised.
“No, I mean now when it happens I don’t want it to stop, don’t want the partition to come back up. Because it feels like being locked away again, or… worse.”
He was about to be more specific, but Dr. Seward looks concerned, which makes
Red
feel more concerned.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like being locked away; sometimes it feels like dying. And sometimes the emotion that goes along with that is relief.
It’s such an alien feeling, for him. He’s never wanted to die before, not even at his lowest point after his dad did. He’s been trying not to freak out about this, but seeing his otherwise stoic therapist’s worry says a lot about how weird it all might be.
“So you’re saying you feel like there really is another you, who would lose themself when you return.”
“Yeah.”
“Alright. Give me a moment to think.”
Red nods, trying to ignore his growing nervousness. It was hard to decide to share this with Dr. Seward. What if she judges that he’s just “crazy,” now? What if she’s right?
Eventually he can’t help but reach out for a quick merge to check her mental state, but the emotion that comes over him isn’t what he’d expect if she thought it was something serious. All he feels from her is curiosity, and concern.
“My first reaction,” she finally says, causing him to withdraw, “Is that I feel unsure of how to help address grief the way you experience it. It seems to have shifted from bereavement, however complex, to something similar to dissociative identity disorder. I’ve read up some on the phenomenon of partitions since we began again, and your explanation and analogy felt helpful, but if it’s possible for things like this to happen, it’s clear I don’t really understand it at all.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t change much from this side of things,” Red says, forcing a wry smile. The fact that it’s not called “multiple personality disorder” anymore doesn’t make it feel much less like she is, in fact, suggesting that his brain might be broken.
“I imagine you’ve already looked into it more than I have. Has there ever been an incident like this before, that you’ve found?”
“Sort of? There’s very little research on it, and what’s there is confusing.” Red sighs. “I also don’t understand enough about how brains work to follow most of it myself.” He hates taking what research says second hand from someone else, no matter how well regarded or credible. “But there are studies that showed that someone without the part of the brain that connects their left and right hemispheres—”
“Corpus callosum.”
“Yeah, that, they end up acting like they have two distinct brains, only one of which can talk, and each of which control a different hand, to the point where their hands reach for different things at once.”
Dr. Seward’s brow rises. “Really?”
“Yeah, it gets weirder. If you show something to only their right hemisphere, and ask them what they saw, they’ll say they didn’t see anything… but their right hemisphere will still use its hand to follow directions it’s shown.”
“Hmmm. I’ve never heard of this. You’re usually fairly skeptical, so I’m assuming it was well supported?””
Red smiles. “There’s videos of it, and a number of experiments.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s all nonsense, but… it seemed like it might be relevant.”
“Yes, I can see why. You haven’t noticed yourself doing anything you don’t understand, when the partition is down?”
“Nope.”
“And no lost time, either?”
There’s a scary thought. “No, nothing like that. It doesn’t feel like a break in consciousness, just a transition.”
“Alright. Normally I would say such things belong in fiction, but I feel a little out of my depth, and want to make sure we’re being thorough.” Her fingers drum on the desk a moment, then stop. “Then my main question, at this point, is whether it’s possible a psychic therapist would better serve you, at this point?”
Red blinks. A new therapist? “No, you already know me, my history. And I trust you.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Red, but it’s not just about rapport.”
“You’re also way cheaper than a psychic therapist.”
Dr. Seward can’t hide her smile this time. “A serious answer, please? Part of my job is to recognize when I’m out of my depth, and I don’t know if I have the expertise to effectively help you.”
So Red spends a moment thinking it over, imagining going to another therapist who could work with him psychically, deal with his partition and the emotions behind it in some more direct way… what had Psychic Narud said?
Like doing heart surgery with my fingers.
Something like that, and none of the psychics Red has spoken to about it since have made it seem any easier.
And… “I don’t want to treat it as a psychic phenomenon, yet. I know it’s probably being affected by my powers, but… I think it’s still just grief and sadness, at the end of the day. And you’ve helped me a lot, so far, with that. If we hit a wall and stay there a few weeks, I’ll consider seeing someone new, but for now I’d like to continue if you would.”
Dr. Seward considers this, then nods. “That’s fair. And yes, I would. Alright then.” She leans back in her seat, fingers steepling. “There’s a type of therapy called Internal Family Systems. Have you heard of it?”
“No, but the name is pretty evocative.” Red shifts. “It’s not going to be, like… talking to an imagined version of my dad, is it?”
“No, not unless you’d find that helpful. It’s just a frame to help understand our feelings, and better interface with them. Most people find it useful to break the psyche down into subparts, and traditionally this has been things like the ‘id, ego, and superego,’ or ‘conscious and subconscious,’ or just personifying our emotions. Whenever we experience internal conflict in a way that can be described in terms of external conflicts, that’s where Internal Family Systems can be especially helpful. We would use conflict resolution techniques and apply them to the internal parts of ourselves.”
Red blinks. “Um. I might already do that?”
She smiles. “Yes, which is why I mentioned this. Often times, the ‘family’ is literal… people identify parts of themselves that are like an internal child, playful but easily frightened, or a teenager, full of will but often resentful, or a father, protective but judgemental, or a mother, comforting but stressed. These are stereotypes, of course, just labels we put on our internal drives and aspects. But it doesn’t have to be a family, some people imagine friends of theirs or fictional characters, and in your case it seems the ideas of a Past, Present and Future Red are already discrete and… lively.”
“Yeah, no kidding. So, what, you’re going to teach me to be a therapist for my inner selves?”
“That’s one way to do it. But before we go looking for solutions, we need to better understand these parts of yourself. You described them physically, from your dream, but what about their attributes? What do you think they represent, if anything?”
Red considers a minute. His Present self often feels like the Id, but then again it’s also often the Superego… maybe it helps to think of which of them are the most like his inner child? Definitely not his Past self, currently. No, wait, maybe it is, a bit…
No, he’s thinking about this wrong. He can’t just map them onto other ideas, he has to treat each as some emergent part of himself. What do they
want?
Or maybe to start off, what do they not want?
“Present me is always pain avoidant,” Red says, brow furrowed. “I mean all three are, but Present me is driven by avoiding unpleasant things. It’s the main thing that the others try to negotiate me into. Past me is very… uncertain. He doesn’t like feeling judged, but he’s also self-critical. Future me is the most ambitious. He can be kind of demanding, and he hates reneging on agreements the most.”
“Alright. That’s a good start, I think. So it’s fair to say they have a lot to argue about?”
“Yeah.” Red frowns. “Actually… I’m not sure this works? Those other frames make sense to me, I can understand having different parts that make you up, like a part of you that wants to spend more time with friends and another that wants to do more research, but for Past, Present and Future me… all three of us shift over time. I
was
Past Red. At some point Future Red will
be
me. When I talk about my Future self having a different desire, I’m just talking about
me
at a future time, but that self won’t necessarily have that same desire. How does it make sense to say they have fixed attributes that are distinct from each other? “
“Maybe it doesn’t.” Dr. Seward shrugs. “The only reason to use this frame is if it’s helpful. But now that you’ve recognized and said all that, do you feel like that internal conflict is resolved?”
“…Not really, no.”
She spreads her hands, and Red nods, thinking about it for another minute.
“Okay, so I’m thinking about what they want, now, and Past Red is the part of me that’s focused on making sure I learn from my mistakes. That seems obvious enough. Future Red is the part of me that’s unsure about the future, so he wants security. Plans that are set and detailed and followed. But I don’t know what Present Red represents? It just feels like he desires… all the things I desire.”
“Perhaps Present Red is an arbiter then, serving a similar function to the classic frame of the Ego. It’s for you, as the Present Red in any given moment, to ensure that you understand your past and are prepared for your future. You are the rope being tugged on from both ends. Does that feel like it fits?”
Red feels it out, checking to see if anything seems wrong with that, then slowly nods. “Yeah. That description, of feeling tugged in two different directions, it actually resonated a lot.”
“Alright then. Past you wants you to learn from your mistakes, Future you wants you to plan well and follow through on commitments. It sounds like you’re all on the same side.”
“You’d think that, yeah.”
“But you still feel conflicted?”
“Right now? No, the partition is up.”
“Ah, yes. Would it be alright for you to bring it down and check?”
Red hesitates, then nods and closes his eyes.
It’s not hard, these days. Instead of having to over-exert his mental abilities, he can now feel the partition itself as it suppresses parts of his mental state, keeps certain neurons from firing. One of Sabrina’s students taught him how to notice the shape of it in his mind, the negative space where thoughts should go but don’t.
The fact that he knows what’s missing is what makes it possible to find those faded paths, feel along the edges where they should be. If he wants to give himself amnesia, all he has to do is use his abilities to quarantine a particular memory, then quarantine the memory of doing so to ensure it can’t be accidentally stumbled upon.
It’s a really fascinating set of abilities that he’d love to spend more time experimenting with and studying, but he can’t safely do it himself yet, and he’s still the lowest on the totem pole for determining what he should be taught next… which is why he’s here, so why is he stalling?
Because it’s unpleasant. Because even if it’s necessary and what’s best for Future Red, it’s still painful to go through it each time. But if he can’t live with the consequences to himself of letting Aiko go into that building alone… then maybe Blue was right.
Red lets out his breath, then brings the partition down…
…and is transported into another world.
“Red? Is everything alright?”
“No.” His voice sounds flat and dull to his own ears.
“What’s wr-… ah. Is this… Past Red?”
Red opens his eyes and turns to her, and he can sense her flinch even as her face stays placid and calm. “There is no Past Red. I was just being stupid and melodramatic. This is me.”
“I see. So what would you describe as the difference between how you are now, and how you were just a minute ago?”
Red closes his eyes again and lets out a heavy breath. “I don’t know. Naivety?”
“Hm. Well, I can tell you that from an outside perspective, it seemed like you grew more tense. Your breathing changed. Even lying down, the difference in energy level is notable; you’re completely still now, instead of shifting your feet or fidgeting, And your expression is far less animated. So if I’m able to observe all those things, from the outside, I can’t help but think that maybe there are corresponding changes with how you feel.”
Red almost shakes his head, but it’s too much effort. He realizes that sort of demonstrates her point, but it doesn’t really matter. “It’s not me that’s changed. It’s reality.”
“…Could you clarify that?”
Red sighs again. “Before I was focused on what I need to get over what happened. To move past it. I was living in a reality where it’s that simple, to ignore how much I miss my dad and how guilty I feel about A…” His throat hitches, and he feels heat spread up his throat and behind his eyes.
“I see. I’m sorry, if asking this of you was too much.”
“It’s fine,” Red whispers, and clears his throat. He keeps his eyes closed until he’s sure he won’t cry. “They’re dead, it’s the least I can do to acknowledge that, instead of ignoring it like a… a coward…” The word comes out twisted as his face contorts. The tears are closer to the surface now, and as a sob shakes him they spill down his cheeks.
Red vaguely makes out the sound of Dr. Seward moving the tissue box closer to him, and reaches out blindly for it. There’s a feeling of strong deja vu as he remembers the times he cried in this room over his dad, and as he wipes his face and tries to control his breathing he feels ashamed anew at his earlier selfishness. He hadn’t been afraid to cry over Dad, when he was younger. Now it’s just so
inconvenient
…
“Can I ask how you feel about what we were talking about, before? If you feel up to it.”
Red clears his throat, then wipes at his eyes again. “Sorry, what was the question?”
“Just… do you feel conflicted? How do you relate to your Past and Future selves, now?”
“Conflicted. Yeah.” Dr. Seward is quiet, and after a moment Red realizes she asked about more than that. “It’s just hard to stop thinking about what happened. I know the smart thing to do is just accept that death is part of life, that it’s a risk my dad accepted every day he was working, that Aiko knew she was risking it when she left with us. When she… went into the building.” He swallows, takes a breath. “I know that. But… I can’t.”
Dr. Seward stays quiet again after he stops talking, and Red considers brushing her mind to see what she’s feeling before losing interest. “That all makes perfect sense, to me,” she finally says. “Of course you’re going to keep thinking about it. Of course you’re going to have trouble accepting their loss. That’s a natural part of the grieving process. No matter how inevitable or uncertain, no matter how little the risks were understood or how much, no matter how responsible people were or weren’t, millions of people feel the same things you do right now, Red. As unique as everyone’s grieving process is, at its core it’s based on the same pain and guilt and fear. You shouldn’t expect yourself to just… put it all aside and keep going, if you’re having trouble doing so.”
“Blue can,” Red whispers. “Leaf can. Even Mr. Sakai…” The tears burn again, and he covers his face as the memory sweeps through him.
“You think Mr. Sakai was able to put it aside?”
Red nods, feeling the hot tears soak through the tissues.
“Can you… tell me what makes you think that? Take your time.”
Red focuses on his breaths until they stop hitching, and when he speaks, it’s in a watery whisper. “I went to Saffron the day after Sabrina agreed to teach me. Leaf was stuck in the hospital, and the ranch was close, and he still didn’t know… so I went to tell him.” He swallows the lump in his throat and sighs. “It was the least I could do…”
When Red saw Mr. Sakai, he was moving from pen to pen to feed each pokemon. The sun was hot as it began its downward swing toward the horizon, but at the sight of Aiko’s father, Red felt like there was a chunk of ice in his stomach.
He didn’t want to do it. Selfishly, he wished Leaf would have told him not to come alone. To wait for her. But they both recognized that Mr. Sakai had gone long enough without knowing, and it wouldn’t get any easier with time.
Thankfully, he had his abilities to fall back on. With them he at least could deliver the news without breaking down in tears.
Unfortunately that didn’t help with the other side of things. Any other parent would have called one of them to check where Aiko was. Would have seen about the Stormbringer attack on the news. Would have known, upon seeing Red, unannounced and with a solemn expression, that something was wrong.
Instead Mr. Sakai greeted him warmly, and told him how well the pokemon have been doing, lately, and how he thought the people coming to see them for therapy has been good for them, still moving from pen to pen to withdraw each pokemon and put their ball in the bag he carried with him.
“
Mr. Sakai,” Red tried, voice steady. “I need to talk to you about Aiko.”
“
Oh, Aiko’s not here right now. She’s usually back by night, if you want to stick around…”
Red’s throat felt locked, and despite the disconnect he felt from the grief, he had to force the words out, past some other emotion. “No, Mr. Sakai, she’s not coming tonight. Could we… talk inside?”
“
Oh, but the pokemon need to be fed,” he responded, still moving from pen to pen with a sack of feed in one hand and a scoop in the other. “Aiko’s late sometimes, but she’ll be back soon… she’s a good girl, you know, always takes care of the pokemon…”
Red followed him to the next pen, then the next, trying to talk past Mr. Sakai’s circuitous pattern of speech and thinking, until he lost his patience and simply grabbed Mr. Sakai’s arm before he could move on to the next pen.
Aiko’s father looked down at his hand, and Red removed it, feeling ashamed. But he kept his gaze on Mr. Sakai’s face, and when his eyes met his, Red could see it. He didn’t know what his own face looked like, but he knew what it felt like. His frustration had vanished, and all that he felt was… empty.
“
No,” Aiko’s father said. Just that one word, but it was enough to batter at Red’s control, enough to take the air from his lungs, so that the next part was even harder than he expected it would be.
“
She’s dead, Mr. Sakai,” Red whispered, trying to use the opening as best he could, his carefully rehearsed lines forgotten. “Died in Zapdos’s attack on the city. I’m so sorry.”
He stopped there, couldn’t say anything more. He should have been talking about what a hero she was. He’d confirmed it with a tearful Elaine, both for that night and their journey underground. He’d wanted to be able to answer any questions Mr. Sakai might ask, to be able to provide some solace, and on top of that felt like a shield in his mind, one he could raise before him if Mr. Sakai grew angry, cursed him for taking her away in the first place.
But as he watched Mr. Sakai’s puzzled gaze fill at last with understanding, then despair, Red knew it was a paper shield, one that he would toss aside if needed. He wouldn’t accept the blame from Blue, but if a grieving father needed someone to blame…
The older man crumpled backwards to sit on the grass, head hanging as a moan of grief escaped him. Red felt his own rising despite his efforts, and almost cut off all emotion completely.
Instead he sat beside Mr. Sakai as he rocked back and forth and sobbed into his hands. “No, Aiko, not my good girl, my sweet baby… I’m sorry, Ema, I’ve lost her… I’m so sorry…”
Red wept beside him as quietly as he could as he felt his heart rend, unsure of whether he should reach out or not, if his comfort would be welcome. He felt some need to fill the silence, to explain what happened, apologize for not stopping her. But as his insecurity held him back, he realized it was what he needed, not what Mr. Sakai needed, and so he kept quiet.
They were beside an oddish pen, and a small gathering of the oddish and bellsprout within it came up to the wires to stare at their caretaker as he cried before wandering away. Red missed Pikachu badly, and wished he had more pokemon useful for comforting others, like Joy.
After over half an hour, Aiko’s father’s sobs began to trail off into sniffles, and the occasional groan. Red dried his face and braced himself, thinking the questions would come any moment.
Instead Mr. Sakai turned to him and smiled. It was a weak smile, one ready to dissolve back into tears at any moment… but he reached out and took Red’s hand, ignoring his shocked look.
“
Thank you, Red.” Mr. Sakai’s voice was hoarse, but present. “Thank you for taking my daughter with you. She… wanted to be a trainer so much…” His face contorted, straightened. “Are Blue and Leaf… alright?”
“
Y-yeah.” Red felt something like horror at the idea of Mr. Sakai thanking him without knowing what happened… but he couldn’t bring it up himself. “Yeah, they’re okay. Leaf is in the hospital, and Blue is helping with the city. I’m sure they’ll come soon.”
“
Good.” He squeezed Red’s hand, then slowly began to push himself to his feet. “You’re all welcome… anytime…”
Red stared at him, then rose shakily to his feet as well. “Are you…” He cut himself off. How many times was he asked that same absurd question, after Dad died?
“
Would you please… tell her aunt? I don’t know how long I’ll be able to… ” Mr. Sakai trailed off as he picked up the feed bag. “Excuse me, please. Some pokemon still haven’t eaten.”
And with that he continued walking from pen to pen, feeding the pokemon as tears streamed down his face.
Red wipes his face as he finishes his recount. Dr. Seward stood and walked to the water cooler, then returned with a paper cup for him.
“Thanks,” Red whispers, and drinks the soothing water down before setting the empty cup aside. “Do you mind if I bring Pikachu out?”
“For comfort?”
“Yeah. He won’t shock anything, I promise.”
“Then by all means.”
Red sits up and unclips his pokemon’s ball, then aims it at the empty space beside the couch, bracing his arm. The ball rejects the target area until he aims it at just the right spot and with a flash of light his pokemon is there.
Pikachu looks around the unfamiliar room, back to Red and Dr. Seward until Red reaches out with his thoughts. His pokemon turns to him and leaps onto the couch, then his lap and curls up into a warm twist. Red feels his mood lift slightly as he runs his fingers through his pokemon’s fur. He can feel the scar where the kingler severed his lower spine. It took a week for the pokemon center to heal him, and they said he was lucky to regain full functionality.
“So,” Dr. Seward says as she settles back in her seat. “That was quite an intense experience, so soon after losing your friend. And I don’t mean to dismiss your observations. But from what you told me of Aiko’s father, why are you using him as a normative model of mental health?”
“I thought you might ask that.” Red shrugs, feeling weary. “Not pretending I know what’s in his heart… he cried again at the funeral. But Leaf says he’s carrying on as though it never happened. Like she’s just off on some trip. And whether that’s ‘normal’ or not, he’s still doing better than I am, without my partition. And like I said, Blue and Leaf seem to be fine too.”
His therapist is quiet a moment, then shrugs. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you really are the only one having trouble with her death. There are at least three good reasons I can think of why that’s the case, and I’m sure you can come up with more. But before we do that, you should check to make sure your model of reality is actually true. You haven’t seen Blue in weeks, and Leaf you see, what, twice a week when you go to help at the ranch for a few hours? People are capable of holding themselves together for far longer than that, Red. Don’t be so sure that everything is fine with someone just because they can put up a front. Leaf may be in a lot more pain than you think.”
Red closes his eyes, fingers still in Pikachu’s fur. “That… just makes me feel worse.”
“Why?”
“Because she hasn’t told me. Which means that she doesn’t trust me anymore, or want to talk about Aiko because she blames me, or—”
“What happened to not pretending you know what’s in people’s hearts?” Dr. Seward asks with a raised brow. “Or are you recounting mental impressions you’ve picked up from her.”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
She blinks, then rallies. “But you haven’t spoken to her about it.”
Red sighs. “No.”
“Then that’s your homework assignment. You know that what people feel is often complex, and you’re not in an unbiased frame of mind. You’re grieving your lost friend. You miss your other two friends, both of whom you feel betrayed by on some level. And you’re struggling with the guilt of the decision not to follow Aiko in, or not doing more to stop her.”
“It’s not…” Red sighs. “Nevermind. Yeah, alright.”
Dr. Seward’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry, maybe I misunderstood something. It’s not…?”
“It’s fine. Guilt is close enough.”
She looks like she’s about to argue, then just looks thoughtful a moment before saying, “Are you going to put your partition back up before you go?”
Red’s fingers slow. “You think I’ll tell you if it’s up?”
“Oh, no. I was just curious.”
Red merges with her briefly, and doesn’t sense any guilt or guile. “I wasn’t planning on it, no. Putting it back up is a weakness, a way to hide from reality.”
“Perhaps. It also might be a natural defense mechanism, a coping skill that your powers developed for you. Do you want to die?”
She asks the question so casually that Red answers before he can think about it. “No.”
She nods. “Just checking. What keeps you in this state, normally? You said earlier that you’d… not want the partition to go back up, once it’s down.”
“The partition being up is still my natural state. I’ll lose focus eventually and it’ll come back, or it’ll happen when I sleep next.” Red sighs. “And then I’ll go back to being oblivious to all this and just focused on the future, like a robot.”
“I see. And if I asked you to bring it back up before we end the session, and then you’d bring it back down before leaving, would that be okay?”
Red strokes Pikachu, gaze down. He feels like this is a trick, like she’s trying to talk to the more cheerful and focused version of him, instead of this sad and whiny one. Not that he blames her.
And in truth, there’s some part of him that feels the partition’s minor but constant tug at his attention as a siren song. A call toward peace, where he doesn’t have to think about such painful things. He resists because he knows it’s a lie, because it’s exchanging what he feels for who he is.
But he doesn’t want to subject Dr. Seward to something that makes her feel uncomfortable, or like he’s wasting her time. “Yeah, I guess I could do that.”
“Would it help to make an agreement with your Future self?”
“…I think it would. Thanks.” He closes his eyes.
Hey Future Red. I’m only putting the partition back up because she asked me to. You’d better bring it back down before we leave, or I’m going to consider that a defection and keep it in mind for the future.
Ugh. Fine. But we’ve got shit to do today, so if you spend it all moping in bed then I’m going to keep that in mind the next time we’re here.
Whatever.
He hesitates a moment longer, then mentally relaxes his grip on the partition, feeling it slide back into place and rearrange his thoughts and emotions…
…until he lets out a breath of relief and opens his eyes. “Ugh. Thank you.” He scratches Pikachu between the ears, smiling down at his pokemon as he yawns. “That was unpleasant.”
Dr. Seward is watching him closely. “Can you explain how all that felt, to you?”
Red thinks about it a moment. “Kind of like someone took over my brain for a bit? Except it was a version of me where reality was way darker than it really is, lacking perspective on things or the ability to focus on the future.”
“Fascinating. It really was like talking to a different person, he seemed adamant that you were the fake version, and him the real one.”
Red nods. “It’s been a philosophical question I’ve been grappling with on and off for the past few weeks. If I wasn’t a psychic, then the partition wouldn’t exist, and Past Red would definitely be the ‘real’ me, assuming nothing else about the powers influenced things. But
with
my powers, this is my default state, so I’m clearly the ‘real’ me that’s not being inundated by negative emotions.”
“He was certainly more willful than I expected, given that, and your account of how he came off during the dream.” She frowns. “It feels strange talking about him as if he’s a different person, and also a bit rude. Particularly since he’s… or you’re… going to remember this once the partition is back down. I’m sorry, I’m going to try to keep that straight so as not to offend either of you, if that’s possible.” She rubs her forehead. “This has certainly been the strangest session I’ve had in quite a few years.”
Red smiles briefly “No problem here, do what you’ve got to do.” He considers telling her that Past Red was probing her mental state for her intentions, then decides against it. She’s been on the level the whole time, and he doesn’t want to make her start thinking in that way and bias things. Also he’s done the same thing once or twice. “Oh, in case you’re wondering, the thing that he almost said before was that it’s not about the guilt itself. We don’t want to be anchored by that feeling without first determining if we actually did the right thing or not. On that, we’re in agreement.”
“And as for how to figure that out…?”
“Yeah, we’re still struggling with that.”
“I see.” Dr. Seward takes a moment to collect her thoughts, then straightens in her seat. “Right. So I’ve got more research to do, apparently, but in the meantime, do try to talk to Leaf soon?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I understand that she probably doesn’t actually blame me as much as he thinks she does.”
“Yes, but the fact that you don’t believe it with the partition down is the problem.”
Red frowns, but nods. “Alright.”
“I understand that it will likely be an uncomfortable conversation, but I think it’s necessary. Whether you have it with the partition up or down is up to you.” She checks the time. “My next appointment should be outside. Same time next week?”
Red nods and nudges Pikachu off his lap and onto his shoulder, then stands. “Thank you, Doctor. I feel a lot more optimistic about all this already.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Have a good week, Red. And don’t forget to take the partition down before you go.”
She says the words lightly, but Red’s hand was already reaching for the doorknob, and he stops. “Right…” He sighs, considers just pretending to do it and being mopey as he leaves, but not seriously. Breaking that commitment might have long reaching consequences that he doesn’t really want to consider now.
It takes just a moment for him to bring the partition back down, and then he’s back in reality. “Bye,” he mutters, and shuffles out of the office and into a day that’s not bright enough to chase away the shadow of death that covers the world.
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When Red teleports to the Sakai Ranch, the sun is approaching its zenith, and he takes a moment to enjoy its warmth on his skin. He’s not sure he’ll ever consider himself an “outdoorsy person,” but since moving to Saffron he’s come to appreciate being outdoors more than he can ever remember being before. He knows getting more sun sometimes helps with depression, but by the time he’s back to being Past Red it’s usually evening. In the week since he saw Dr. Seward, he has yet to make any meaningful progress with his other self… mostly because he hasn’t really tried.
Red finally feels like his skin has absorbed enough of the sun’s warmth and makes his way toward the ranch house, spotting Mr. Sakai as he emerges. “Hello, sir.”
“Hello, Red. So good of you to visit. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” The rancher starts walking along the hexagonal perimeter of the nearby caterpie pen without waiting for an answer, throwing food into it from one of the sacks hanging at his waist. Red watches him go, conflicted emotions churning through him, then heads inside to get his own bags.
With Leaf living on the ranch and the RAWP therapy group coming by every few days, it rarely needs extra help. But Red still comes once in a while. Partly to help Leaf and Mr. Sakai, partly as an ongoing tribute to Aiko, a more practical equivalent to putting flowers on her grave. Even with his partition up, he still gets a little teary as he straps the feed bags around his waist, thinking of that first day they arrived here together. How nervous she was. How hopeful.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs makes him quickly wipe his eyes before he turns.
Leaf is as pretty as ever in a plain shirt and jeans, her waist conspicuously absent of a pokebelt. He wonders if she feels strange without it. She smiles upon seeing Red, and he smiles back. Maybe there’s a part of him with selfish motive for coming too.
“Hey Red! I thought you couldn’t get a free afternoon this week?” she asks as Raff and Joy gambol down the stairs after her. Raff has gotten big, practically filling the stairway, and Red is happy to see Joy bouncing happily around the room without issue, apparently having finally gotten used to having just one eye.
“Saw my therapist last week, decided to shift some stuff around. How’s it going with you?”
She lifts a hand and rocks it side to side as she sits beside the door and starts pulling her shoes on. “The bad days are pretty bad, but they’re getting outnumbered little by little.” She finishes tying one set of laces, and he watches her brush her hair off her shoulder before she starts the second. “How’s The List? Cross anything off yet?”
On his first week in Saffron City, Red wrote up a list of the things he wanted to accomplish from his time with Sabrina, after which he would re-evaluate whether it was time to move on and do something else:
Resolve partition until it no longer limits psychic ability use.
Develop ability to meld with pokemon enough to freely teleport with abra.
Learn telekinesis (or at least try everything advised before giving up)
Find an aspect of psychic phenomena confusing enough for major experiment.
It was tempting to keep adding more, and he had to remind himself multiple times that it wasn’t a list of all the things he wants to master about his powers, just what could reasonably be expected to be done in a few years and would make the most out of having such exclusive tutelage.
“Making progress. Particularly thanks to Aiko’s drowzee.”
It was a shock when Leaf called a couple weeks ago to explain that Aiko registered a will just a few days before Zapdos hit Vermilion, a coincidence that had his thoughts turn briefly superstitious before sanity reasserted itself. It was a short document, the gist of which was that Leaf got first pick of her pokemon, with the exception of any that would help with Red’s research, and Blue would have whatever was left.
It was simple, but made sense. Aiko didn’t know when she would need her will to be executed, what pokemon she might still have, and which of the other three might even still be alive. In essence she just placed her trust in the trio to get along and work out something fair, with just a few suggestions to make it clear that she was thinking of them.
The one exception was her eevee, who specifically went to Blue, then Leaf, then Red. The reason why was obvious, but it still hurt a little, considering he was the one who diagnosed Eevee so she could be healthy. Still, since his first thought
was
what a waste it would be to train the shiny eevee rather than trade it for far more powerful pokemon, Red can’t even say she chose wrong. He wondered if Leaf felt the same, but didn’t ask.
The only pokemon he’d taken for his research was her venonat, one of the magnemite she caught the night of the storm, and a drowzee from the same.
“Drowzee? Why?” Leaf asks as she straps on her own feed bags and heads outside. “Does it have a particularly large nose?”
Red smiles and follows her, summoning Pikachu and Nidoran from their balls. He’d bring Charmeleon out too, but with all these wooden pens around he doesn’t want to constantly be watching in case his pokemon’s tail bobs too close to one. “You know, I haven’t checked. But no, it’s… well, since two of my goals, maybe three, can be developed by getting better at melding with psychic pokemon, I’ve been spending most of my free time at the gym.”
“Well, that’s just ironic.” Leaf and Red split up to walk along the opposite side of a path with pens on either side for them to feed. She carefully measures food out for each pokemon while he uses his powers to sense how hungry each one is. “I don’t know if Blue would be happy or pissed,” Leaf says as she throws food in different directions for a group of rattata, making the whole pen run after each piece until all but two are busy nibbling. She has to tell them “Eat!” before they accept the food.
“Not for battling,” Red explains, ignoring the usual attempt to get him to talk about or to Blue.
Yeah, because that’s healthy.
Shut up, your idea of healthy is moping around all day.
“For what, then?”
“Being linked with pokemon as they use their abilities and practice maneuvers teaches me a lot more than sitting in my room with them.”
“But isn’t that what you did with your abra?”
“Yeah.” Red grimaces. “And as it turns out, abra are pretty boring.”
Leaf giggles. “I guess they do just sort of sit there. Or float, sometimes. They’re not social creatures, so I guess their inner world is just, what, looking for threats?”
Red nods. “And their next meal. Pikachu and Charmeleon are both constantly aware of their surroundings too, but they don’t automatically categorize everything as either a threat or food. There’s enough… confidence, in their ability to defend themselves, and enough expectation of safety, that there’s room for other things, like play.”
“But abra don’t really have a concept of ‘safe.'”
“Not naturally, no. I read that the pokeball simulations took a lot of work in the early days to repress their urge to teleport away all the time, and without that hypervigilance, there’s very little left of their minute to minute experience that’s particularly interesting.” Red shrugs. “So once I got used to their ridiculous hearing and having a tail, there wasn’t much to do other than spend the time strengthening the bond, which went slowly.” He frowns at her. “What?”
She’s giggling again. “Sorry, I just pictured you with a tail. What about telekinesis?”
He sighs and throws a handful of nuts and berries at a pair of maimed nidoran, one that’s missing a back leg, the other a front one. “Eat! Tried it. I could feel them doing
something
as they moved stuff around, but I can’t seem to activate the same part of my brain. Maybe because their brain structure is too different, or maybe because my telekinesis is just too weak.”
“Sorry. So the drowzee…?”
“Right. It’s only been a couple days, but I already feel more in tune with her than either of my abra. She pays a lot more attention to the nuance of others’ mental states, rather than just scanning for friend or foe.”
Leaf is quiet a moment as she moves on to the next pen. “Makes sense. I read up on them, and despite looking so goofy, they’re predators. They hunt in packs to overwhelm enemies that are wide awake, but for a single one it’s unreliable. So they probably need to be able to check how sleepy their opponents are.”
“Exactly. Since I noticed that, I’ve practiced paying attention to the same things in my own reading of others.” He casually tosses another handful of food out and orders the pokemon to eat it too. “So. Long night?”
“Red!” He feels a berry bounce off the back of his head, and turns with a grin to see Leaf glaring at him. “You said you wouldn’t!”
“Just a guess, promise!”
Her glare fades to suspicion. “Okay. Sorry I threw the berry at you even though you sort of deserved it.” She smiles as she sees Pikachu sniffing at it.
“You’re forgiven. Pikachu, eat.” His pokemon electrifies the berry with a crackling sound until it’s steaming, then eats it in a quick gulp. “So what kept you up? The usual secretive project?”
“Yes,” she says as she moves to the next pen and scoops seeds over it for the three flightless pidgey hopping around in it. “Oh, also a Tier 1 went off nearby just after midnight.”
Red stops and turns to her, eyes wide. “What? I didn’t hear about that! Were you involved in any of the fighting?”
“No, by the time I was dressed and halfway there, it was already over. Guess it didn’t make major news.”
“Ah.” Red turns back to his work, wondering if she considered calling him to come help. Wondering if she didn’t because of Aiko.
Of course she doesn’t trust us. It’s only natural for her to-
“Speaking of my secret project,” Leaf says. “I want to talk to you about it.”
Or not.
“Really? That’s great! What’s changed?”
“I may need your help. I’ll tell you more after lunch. How are you and Laura getting along?”
He sighs. “Still encouraging me to talk to Blue. Don’t you start, too.”
“I wasn’t going to.” She’s quiet for a moment. “So, not well?”
“It’s not… terrible.” They did a lot of talking after the storm, once she got over her shock that he purposefully went into it, summarized what happened, and eventually described his ultimate decision.
She cried, which would have made him feel pretty wretched if she didn’t start hugging him too, which made
him
start crying too. She was the first person he met to wholeheartedly make him feel like she was glad he didn’t go into the building; she didn’t even bring his father up, perhaps remembering their talk after the Viridian Fire.
If they’d left it there, they might be on good terms. But then she insisted that she would talk to Blue, and he insisted that she shouldn’t, and then they had a new thing to argue about and carefully dance around. In the meantime, she’s gotten better about updating him on what she’s been working on, including catching him up on things that she was being quiet about, such as what happened to her in Celadon thanks to the kindly old President Silph, which led into her current investigations, which she still hasn’t revealed to him or Leaf, but keeps promising she will soon.
They finish feeding the pokemon while talking about why the Silph Company might have wanted to kill a Renegade on Mt. Moon, then return to the house to have lunch. The meatless spread doesn’t bother Red nearly as much as it did last time he was here, since he’s been keeping to his promise on the SS Anne with Leaf and not buying meat since he got back. It’s Mr. Sakai who has most of his attention through the meal. The older man seems more than ever like he’s just going through the motions of life, and it makes Red’s heart ache just being around him. He’s not sure how Leaf handles it day after day, but her courage gives him the strength to participate in small talk with him and act like everything is okay.
Once they’re done eating, they help him with the dishes, then Red follows Leaf into Aiko’s room, withdrawing all their pokemon except Raff and Pikachu. It’s largely the same it was a couple months ago, with just a couple changes to reflect the new inhabitants, one of which is Raff’s indoor soil to sleep on, which he goes to curl up in while Pikachu sniffs at the electronics until Red picks him up and pulls him onto his lap as he sits on the bed.
“So, what’s the big secret? What have you been working on?”
Leaf sits beside him and takes a breath as if to brace herself, then says, “The
sakki
program.”
Whatever Red was expecting, it wasn’t that. “You’re… did I hear you right?
Sakki
, as in killing intent? Not some program for Mr. Sakai?”
“Right.”
“I notice that I’m confused.”
Leaf smiles. “Well, I’m not a hallucination.”
“Then why…?”
“The Zapdos attack made me realize some things,” Leaf says gaze distant as she leans back in her chair and looks up the ceiling. “About the real scope of the problem I’ve been trying to face.”
Red slowly nods. “I’ve been reading your articles. They’re good, lots of receptive responses, particularly for the ones on that coordinator college site…”
“And lots of pushback.” She sighs. “Most of which seemed pretty intractable.”
“Stupid, too,” Red mutters, and her smile warms him. He doesn’t agree with a lot of Leaf’s positions, obviously, but he still spent more time than he probably should have trading insults with the most offensive of the poorly thought out comments on her articles. He wonders if she saw those. “But you knew you weren’t going to change the world in just a few months.”
“When Aiko and I talked about this, we spoke in years. But Red, I don’t think I can do it in a few
decades
. There are too many voices out there, and too many other causes, and… Every major incident is a recurring reason to keep to the status quo. Maybe I’ll eventually have enough influence to make some measurable difference, but it would be a fight of generations to really see the societal changes, and meanwhile, millions of more pokemon and humans suffer.”
Red shrugs, wanting to cheer her up but not sure how. “What else can you do? In a way I think you picked the hardest goal of all three of us. And what does any of this have to do with
sakki?
“
She reaches into her pocket and holds a piece of pokepuff out to Pikachu’s nose. Red’s pokemon sniffs it, ears twitching, but doesn’t eat it. “He doesn’t cook pokepuffs, right?”
“Right.”
“So how long will he stay like this?”
“Haven’t checked in a while.” He counts to two minutes while Pikachu sniffs at the puff, looks away, looks back, sniffs it again… but keeps his mouth closed.
Leaf is smiling. “You trained him well. Would you mind using
sakki
on him, just for a moment?”
Red blinks at her, wondering what changed how scared of it she was before… then puts the pieces together.
“Killing intent” is what they called it, but only because its most obvious and immediate purpose was combat. But all it really does is give pokemon a mental state that removes restrictions of what’s “allowed.” Earlier when they were feeding the pokemon, many of them needed an explicit command to eat. Programming tech can expand the context of commands that are needed, but it can’t remove the need for them, once conditioned.
Red merges with Pikachu, acclimating to his pokemon’s mood in less than a second as his perception of the world doubles. The pokepuff smells
delicious,
and Red feels his own mouth watering. He starts to project the feeling of
sakki,
paying close attention to Pikachu’s impulses.
Once the feeling of release is complete, his pokemon darts forward to snatch the pokepuff from Leaf’s fingers. Red is already stopping the projection, and they watch as Pikachu happily chews his treat. Even without an initial command, his self-control isn’t
that
good that he’d stop after retroactively regaining the conditioning.
“So Aiko wanted to use a
sakki
program to remove the blocks from the ranch pokemon’s natural behaviors,” Red says. “Or at least the ones that haven’t been maimed, so they can be released back into the wild. But how does that help reduce wild pokemon suffering?”
Leaf just watches him, waiting with the calm patience of someone waiting for the inevitable. Whatever it is, she’s sure he’ll get it. Which reminds him to start at the basic assumptions.
There are generally just two parts to any belief someone holds: information and values. If she thinks he can figure it out on his own, she must believe that he has the information he needs to understand what her idea is based on. If that’s true, but he’s still not getting it, it’s because he’s not seeing the world enough from her perspective, through the lens of her values, to figure out what she’s thinking.
So he thinks back to those moments on the cruise, when their minds merged, and he saw the world from her perspective. Once he remembers how she feels about pokemon, and how much she values their wellbeing compared to other things he would normally rank much higher, it becomes obvious.
“You want to do it with
all
caught pokemon…” he says, slowly smiling as excitement grows in him. “But let them keep their non-aggression conditioning.” He has to remind himself not to get carried away before hearing more details, but… “Leaf, that’s genius.”
Leaf is grinning back, and blushing slightly. “Not genius enough. I checked online, people have occasionally brought it up as an idea, but always like a park, or your Safari Zone. I talked to Bill about it-“
Red feels a flare of envy. The inventor was upset with them for leaving the cruise, but after seeing their notes seemed mollified. Still, he hasn’t reached out to Red since, or responded to basic queries. Maybe he needs to just keep pestering the absent-minded inventor…
“-and he said that the technological barrier has two major elements. First to remove any type of conditioning we don’t want, second to maintain specific conditioning.”
“One interferes with the other,” Red guesses, stroking Pikachu’s back.
“Right. So from a programming angle, the hardest, but most direct way to do this would be to have individual programs for each pokemon to retrain them on how to live in the wild. The easiest way would be to just write a whole new and much simpler training program that only puts in restrictions on their aggressive behaviors, while keeping everything else the same… but that has additional complications.”
“Like how would it be distributed? With anti-tampering as strong as it is…”
“Right, it would mean entirely new balls specifically for this, which is economically a difficult sell.”
Red frowns, nodding. Even if existing pokeball software could be replaced, it would be a lot of work to safely wipe and download each one in a supervised environment. “Okay. So that’s a hurdle. But if people understand what it would mean…”
“I reached out to the Ranger General too. Well, to Ranger Matthew, who asked his captain, who passed it along before it came back to me. The concept itself isn’t totally strange, but using balls with a unique program for it is also a big disadvantage in the field. The ability to catch a pokemon, heal it, and use it right after without visiting a pokemon center first is often life saving.”
Red thinks of the spearow he caught on the way to Mt. Moon, then used against the paras swarm. The others probably had similar situations. “So we really do need a program to remove most conditioning, if this is going to catch on.”
“Yeah.”
Red runs a hand through his hair, displacing his hat as he considers the world she’s imagining and thinks of failure modes. “Babies?”
She shrugs. “Maintaining this would still be a fraction of current resources used for wild threats, but there are ideas to make even that easier, like adding in training that would designate breeding areas or seasons so that it’s easy to go through an area at certain times and catch babies as soon as they hatch.”
“Man, that would be… would the Rangers really be okay with something that affects wild pokemon behavior so much?”
Leaf sighs. “They would be one of the main groups needing convincing, yeah. The Ranger General said if a program like that existed, he might try picking a small and secluded area as a test zone and send a dozen ranger teams combing through it to catch every pokemon they find, recondition them to be able to live in the wild again, then keep moving on until the entire area has pokemon in it that can survive in the wild, but won’t attack humans. But they would want to wait for years afterward to make sure there’s no hidden effects on the pokemon’s life cycles or ecosystem, and he absolutely refused the idea of normal trainers getting involved.”
“I bet. There would be tons of people who’d want to help just to keep any rare pokemon they catch. But if you can develop the tech and convince governments to keep it to Rangers and maybe gyms…” He trails off, a subtle worry blooming as he finishes fully understanding what she’s trying to accomplish. The natural world of pokemon would be forever changed into something that better serves human interests. Pokemon interests too, but it’s not like there would be a way to stop human on pokemon aggression, other than laws.
Leaf is eyeing him warily. “What?”
“Nothing. Just… would
you
really be okay with it? You asked me not to use
sakki
anymore during the cruise, and even if that changed when we fought the magneton, this still feels like a… bigger change. If your idea works, we’d be forever altering the behavior of a significant portion of wild pokemon.” He watches her. “None of that bothers you?”
“Of course it does, Red.” She sighs. “You didn’t say it, but we also talked about mind control, and yes, to a part of me, that’s what this feels like. But what happened in Vermilion…”
Her gaze drops, and Red watches her cautiously. They’ve never talked in detail about what they went through, either alone or together. It’s easy to guess at what might have changed her mind, assuming he was there for it. The conflicted fear and sorrow that filled her voice when she told him to use
sakki.
The people they left behind at the burning building. The nidoqueen almost killing her…
“I can see why you became the way you are,” Leaf says. “Why everyone did. I was pretty privileged, growing up. Not just because of who mom and grandpa were, but because I was always on the move. Because I never lost anyone, the way most people did, that night.”
“Oh.” He feels like he should be objecting to “the way you are,” and he hears Past Red quietly murmuring about their decision about Aiko, but he doesn’t think that’s what she meant, and he ignores him. “I wish you still hadn’t.”
“Yeah.” Leaf looks around the room, smile watery, and takes a deep breath as she rubs her eyes, just once each. “That would have been nice.”
Red’s gaze drops, examining his hands. “I did wonder, at some point, whether you might change your mind on pokemon battling,” he says, voice quiet. “If you went through something bad enough. But it sounds like you’ve skipped ahead of the rest of us. Guess I just wanted to make sure you’re not feeling conflicted about it, or… that it’s not coming from a bad place, if that makes sense.”
“It does.” Leaf shrugs. “Humans do what we have to. I get it. But even if I grow the stomach to accept trainer battles, the real problem we all face… it’s not something that’s going to ever be solved by it. A thousand years from now, no matter how good technology gets, no matter how much society evolves, no matter how many Elite level trainers there are, even if every single legendary pokemon is caught, the wilderness will still be a hostile place, and people will still need to train pokemon to fight to defend ourselves. And that’s just…”
She lets out a breath, and shakes her head, face hard and gaze distant. “It’s unacceptable.”
Red is smiling, the iron resolve in her voice making something flutter in his chest. “Well. You don’t dream small, do you?”
Leaf’s gaze jumps to his, and she slowly grins before echoing back, “Where’s the fun in that?”
“None at all.”
“So, you’ll help?”
“Of course!”
Leaf beams at him in a way that warms him all the way to his heart, and Future Red suddenly pipes up.
Hey, don’t we maybe want to talk about a commitment this big? What about all those other goals we’ve got?
We’ll figure something out. It’s the right thing to do.
And also the way she’s smiling at us feels really good.
And that, yes.
“I can already see some problems, though,” he cautions.
Leaf snorts, still smiling as she starts ticking points off with her fingers. “Poachers will be a much bigger problem if people can just stroll through any area and capture whatever they want, flying pokemon are probably never going to be fully domesticated, nor pokemon that live underground, nor water pokemon…”
“Ghosts,” Red adds, and she sticks up her pinky before raising her other hand. “And pokemon that appear by abiogenesis…”
“And this won’t help with the frontiers… yeah.” She drops her hands. “It’s not as amazing a plan as it first sounds.”
“It’s not,” Red agrees. “But it’s still amazing.” She grins at him again, and he feels his neck flush, hoping he doesn’t end up disappointing her. “What can I do, though? I’m not a programmer, or particularly influential.”
She gives him a look he can’t interpret before saying, “Well, the
sakki
is probably the most important thing we have to help develop the un-conditioning program. I was confused at first about how Aiko made so much progress mimicking it virtually, until I realized what must have happened.”
She’s still watching Red, as if expecting him to guess… no, as if expecting him to admit to something. “Uh. What?”
“You used
sakki
on one of her pokemon before she withdrew it, right? So she could analyze the changes it would have in a virtual environment?”
Red blinks. “What? No! I wouldn’t do that!”
Something shifts in her gaze, moving through doubt and into hope. “Really?”
“Yes, really! She never even asked.”
“Huh.” Leaf bites her lower lip. “Was there… any time when you used it on one of her pokemon?”
Red opens his mouth. Closes it. Shifts in his seat.
She sighs. “Red…”
“I mean, she was there when I did tests to make sure the state doesn’t persist after a pokemon comes back out, and tried maintaining it on more than one pokemon at a time… oh.”
She leans an arm on the desk and rests her chin in one hand, brow raised. He fleetingly wishes he could take a picture. “Oh?”
Red shifts again, heat creeping up his neck in embarrassment this time. “Okay, so what had happened was, the failsafe in that case was that she’d just withdraw her pokemon if she seemed worried about it. We already knew that once released the pokemon would have undergone their conditioning again and be safe, so I didn’t think of it, but… if she didn’t release and return it again after that, her ball had a record of its capture state.”
Leaf rubs her face. “And did this happen with anyone else?”
“…yes. But Aiko’s the only one that was trying to understand and replicate
sakki,
so I doubt any of them saved that mental state.”
“Mmhm. That sneaky, brilliant bitch.” She sighs, ignoring Red’s shocked face. “Well, I guess it could be worse. Who knows, maybe someone else will figure it out and save me the trouble.”
Red’s phone chimes, and he checks the message to see one from Sabrina. It’s requesting a meeting of all her students as soon as possible. “Damn it. I have to go sooner than I thought.”
“That’s alright. We can talk more later.” Leaf stands. “I’ll walk you out.”
They head outside, and Red goes down the porch steps while Leaf stays on it. He summons Saffron (once Cerulean, then Vermilion), wishing she would hug him goodbye. It’s something he feels she would have initiated, before. But now there’s a cautious distance in their friendship that feels fragile, and he supposes a hug might feel risky, to her. Or maybe he’s just coming off as less friendly now, without realizing it…
Red pauses to look back at Leaf. “Oh, I almost forgot. Did I seem okay to you, today?”
Leaf’s brow rises, then draws down in concern. “Uh. Yeah, I think so. Is something wrong?”
“Nah, I’ve just been spending a lot of time with psychics lately, and thought I should just check to make sure I’m still… myself.”
She smiles. “That’s a very Red thing to be concerned about. Who else would you be?”
He thinks of telling her about Past Red, but that would be a much longer conversation. “Someone who doesn’t care about his friends,” is what comes out instead, and it isn’t until after he says it that he realizes how much it hurts to think that it might be true.
And now Leaf is walking toward him, arms going around his shoulders as she pulls him into a hug.
“You care, Red,” she murmurs as heat flushes through him… and tears prick at his eyes as he hugs her back. “No matter what may have happened, or will happen, I know that.”
Red teleports back to the roof of the small apartment building where Sabrina and her students live, the feel of Leaf’s concern still lingering on his body and heart. He barely sees his surroundings as he makes his way down, feet taking him through his now-familiar new home without conscious thought.
Most of the building has been refitted for use as class and training rooms, as well as a floor dedicated to experimentation. Red was amazed and humbled by it his first couple of weeks, and it still has some effect on him, shaking him out of his thoughts as he goes to his room to change, then hurries out of the building and toward the nearby Gym, where Sabrina called the meeting for some reason. He wonders if whatever they’re being assembled to speak about will involve gym business, and worries briefly about an incident that might have occured nearby.
“Hey Verres, catch!”
Red’s arm darts up before he even spots the object, pivoting in the direction of the voice and stopping the crumpled up fast food bag an inch from his face.
In the brief moment after his hand grips it, he feels its momentum continue, pushing his hand back enough that his knuckle grazes his nose. Then it becomes inert, and he lowers his hand to see Daniel walking toward him.
Red is both the youngest of Sabrina’s students and the newest, but before last month, that second attribute would have gone to Daniel. The lanky blonde has been in Saffron for just a year, but at 16 he’s one of the best psychics in a city known for its psychics, with an intricate understanding of how his abilities work that keep allowing him to push the envelope. He’s dressed in a simple white shirt with a purple hakama that flows around his legs, attire that’s different enough to mark him as a psychic without quite fitting into any particular school or tradition.
Red eyes Daniel warily as he tosses the bag in a nearby trash can, not pausing in his walk. “Hello, Daniel.” The continued force behind the relatively weightless object made it clear that it was telekinetically propelled and guided.
The older boy shakes his head as he falls into step with Red, the two making their way toward the gym together. “You didn’t even try, Verres. How do you expect to awaken your kinesis like this?”
“I’ve been practicing it on and off for months,” Red says, voice flat. “I don’t think it’s going to randomly start working now.”
“You’re the one that said pokemon abilities are the key to understanding psychic powers, right? That kids do stuff by accident all the time, just by willpower or sudden need? Maybe once you’ve unlearned those trainer instincts, it’ll come to you.”
Red sighs. The argument had been about whether psychic pokemon could really even be considered “psychics,” since none are sapient enough to actually understand what they’re doing, and so many of their abilities have been observed in non-psychic pokemon. This seems to be Daniel’s way of proving his point that real psychic abilities are tied to a deeper understanding of what you’re doing, rather than just relying on instincts like pokemon. “And in the meantime, I should just let myself be hit in the face.”
Daniel shrugs. “It’s your theory. But it would be a small sacrifice if it ends up working, right?”
Red eyes the blonde, but says nothing. He can never get a read on him, psychically or otherwise. The first time he’d thrown something at Red it had been a pencil, aimed at his chest, shortly after finding out that he had seemingly no ability to use telekinesis at all. Since then he’s done it half a dozen times, never in a way that presented any real danger to Red, so Red might just look immature if he complains to Sabrina.
He doesn’t
know
that she’d think that, but even if she acknowledges it as bullying, she’s the kind of Leader and teacher who tends to expect people to at least try to work out their problems alone before coming to her.
Besides, Red’s pretty sure that even if his mind were read, Daniel would be able to honestly say that he was just trying to see if Red’s telekinesis would awaken. For all Red knows that
is
his only motivation; like most of Sabrina’s students, he’s even more obsessed with psychic phenomenon and advancement than Red.
Daniel was raised in a small superstitious town with no other psychics in it. He somehow managed to teach himself enough about his powers in secret that, after pretending he wanted to become a trainer, he used the money his parents gave him to apply for the license and buy equipment to travel to Saffron and get close enough to Sabrina to impress her with his mental powers.
It’s a story that would impress Red enough to want to befriend the older boy, if his perspective wasn’t so… bizarre.
“Any idea why we’re meeting at the gym?” Red asks.
“Got the same message you did. Maybe she wants us to work with some of the trainers there again.” He doesn’t bother disguising the distaste in his voice, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Like I’ve got time to teach normals.”
It’s a common word, among the psychics who dislike the term “gifted” and “ungifted,” and find “non-psychic” too burdensome. But coming from Daniel, the word has an unpleasant edge to it.
“There are psychic trainers there too,” Red reminds him. “And like I said, I’ve been learning a lot from merging with psychic pokemon.”
“Still no telekinesis though. Seems like it should be a pretty straightforward test.”
Before Red can reply they enter the gym, and see another of Sabrina’s students waiting at the elevator. The three exchange simple nods for greeting as they wait for the elevator. Tatsumaki is almost as short as Red despite being in her mid-twenties, with curly green hair and a simple black collared dress. She’s widely considered the best telekinetic in Kanto, though she’ll quickly insist that she’s only the “strongest,” and that Sabrina is close behind while also being more “versatile.”
Red once asked her what the difference is, and she went on for twenty minutes about the distinction between raw telekinetic strength and the actual ability to manipulate and affect objects with it. He sort of got part of it, something like the difference between not just how much muscle you have but how good you are at using your whole body to lift a heavy box, compared to how well you intrinsically understand the weight distribution and shifting of the objects in the box and can balance it as you maneuver on the fly. But a lot of the phrases and concepts apparently had to be experienced to be fully understood, and most of it went over his head.
Once she finally stopped to ask about his telekinetic ability and he admitted his lack of any, she lost interest in the conversation, and seemed annoyed with him ever since, as if he wasted her time.
The elevator ride up is quiet too, and they move together to Sabrina’s office once they arrive at the top floor. The rest of the students are inside already, and Leader Sabrina is at her desk, with her Second and Third, Tetsuo and Keiji, standing at her sides.
Who died?
Red thinks with sudden foreboding. Whatever this is, it’s something serious. He drops his mental shield for a moment to do a quick probe around, and feels a few others probing around as a general mood of anticipation and worry permeates.
Tatsumaki and he are the only two of Sabrina’s students in what Red would consider “normal” clothes. Satori Komeiji, the second youngest student at 15, is dressed in a flowing blue blouse and a flared skirt that goes from white to pink toward the edges, matching her hair and making her look like a big flower. Despite her youth, she’s one of the best mind readers in Kanto, and bonds incredibly well with pokemon… which is possibly why she barely ever talks to people.
Rowan Donkerk, a pale young man in his early twenties, wears the same white overcoat over black shirt and pants that Psychic Narud did, with the same words warning against the idea of a set fate written on the sleeves. He specializes in partitions and memory manipulation, and is apparently from an absurdly wealthy family in another region who came specifically to train with Sabrina, while also being initiated into the same sect as Narud.
Jason Grey is a lanky older teen wearing religious vestments, the oversized clothes hanging in huge folds around his body as his fingers spin the prayer beads around his neck. Red doesn’t know much about him except that he’s a trainer too; his starter was apparently a gastly that he tamed without even using a pokeball, earning him both Elite Agatha and Leader Sabrina’s attention. He was only a year into his journey before he accepted apprenticeship with Sabrina, and has been here for a couple years now. He always seems nervous, and barely talks to anyone more than he has to.
And finally there’s Rei, Sabrina’s most senior student in both senses of the word. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a severe bun, and her kimono looks like it’s worth a fortune, back ramrod straight as she watches their teacher and waits for the meeting to begin. If she has a specialty, Red hasn’t learned it; she just seems to be good at everything, and a general genius besides.
Sabrina herself cuts an imposing figure in a simple red turtleneck and black jeans. Like most Leaders, even while sitting quietly her presence seems to fill the room, likely due to some combination of his own expectations and subtle charisma on her part. Tetsuo and Keiji wear their personalized Gym uniforms, hands clasped behind their backs.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Sabrina says, hands folded on her desk. “I’ll keep this brief. An emergency has come up, and I’m going to be unreachable for an unknown period of time of at least a few days, possibly more than a week.”
Red’s eyes widen, and he senses the shock bounce around the room full of psychics. It’s not unusual for Sabrina to go radio silent for hours at a time, and with her ability to teleport to so many places on a whim she still manages to have nearly as busy a schedule as most Gym Leaders. But disappearing for days at a time is a first.
“Tetsuo and Keiji will run the gym in my absence, but I’ll be relying on the rest of you to not only continue your classes, but assist them however you’re needed. None of you are in the gym’s chain of command, but they are both your seniors in psychic knowledge and experience, and can teach you things even I can’t. See this as an opportunity to branch out. No, Jason,” Sabrina says, looking at her student, who had barely twitched. “Not with that, it will have to wait until I return. But you will all have another assignment while I’m gone, and it has primary importance after the smooth operation of the gym, and your own classes.”
They all sit up straight as her gaze sweeps over them once before she finally takes a breath and says it: “I’ve come to suspect that someone has managed to fully partition their mind, to the point where their exposed surface thoughts and emotions are independent from their true inner ones, though still within their control. A perfect mental shield.”
The room is deathly silent. Even Tetsuo and Keiji are staring at the Leader with wide eyes, apparently not having been filled in on the reason for her sudden absence separately. This must really be fresh news.
What Red feels isn’t shock so much as dread. What Sabrina’s describing is someone who can act as the perfect liar. Not just able to hide their thoughts and emotions, but able to do so while they make people, that is to say, psychics, believe they aren’t. The difference between how they would be treated compared to someone who’s Dark or a Psychic using a mental shield would be night and day.
And just the rumor of such an ability would drastically lower trust in psychics everywhere, both those who might be using it and the ability of psychics to act as lie detectors.
“How sure are you of this, Leader?” Satori asks.
“Let’s say at least 70%. Enough to act on it decisively, and ask you all to as well. This is your assignment; try to do the same thing yourselves. Prove that it’s possible, if you can. If not, document all the things you try. Yes, Rowan?”
“Are both minds independent?” her student asks, brow drawn. “Does their behavior ever seem erratic, or at odds with themself?”
“A good question, but not noticeably. He almost always appears to be in total control of his emotional state, and the few exceptions don’t point to such a dichotomy of self.”
Red has taken his notebook out and started scribbling the questions and answers. A few of the others glance at him, but Sabrina ignores it. She knows him well enough by now. As he scribbles out the answers she’s giving to people’s questions, he also starts listing the things that he’s known have developed new abilities in him.
Unique circumstances
Mimicking other mental states
Forced to work around limits
Experiencing others using abilities
“The psychic,” he says, and everyone turns to him. “Do people know if he spent a lot of time with other psychics, or pokemon?”
Sabrina’s gaze holds his, and he reinforces his shield automatically, though he feels no attempt to breach it. “Yes,” she says after a moment’s thought. “He spent a lot of time merged with all sorts of people, not just psychics, and has explicitly merged with lots of psychic pokemon as they used abilities.”
Red’s face falls as he notes that down, and it’s Rei that beats him to the punch: “Then it’s possible more than one person, or even pokemon, is capable of this.”
The room is quiet again as people glance at her, until Sabrina finally says, “Operate as though that’s not true, for now. It’s possible he learned how to do this by mimicking someone or something else, but that still leaves the question of how
they
did it. I believe that he pieced it together from disparate insights and abilities, or just worked it out himself. That’s why I need you all to work together on this. You’re some of the most gifted and brilliant psychics in the world. I’m counting on you.”
They all stand at attention and bow, and Sabrina bows back. Red feels dread as he considers the upcoming days. He’s the newest among the group, and the youngest, and the weakest, and the least experienced. More than any of that, none of his peers seem to particularly like him. But then, how much effort has he really put into that, so distracted by the newness of all this, and his own issues and goals? Optimistically this could be an opportunity to show them his worth, but if they don’t take him seriously or work with him…
“Good luck, everyone.” Sabrina strides for the door.
“Leader,” Red calls out before he can stop himself, still used to referring to her by that title despite not being a trainer anymore.
She turns and gives him a passive expression that still somehow communicates impatience. “Yes?”
“Can we work with others, if we don’t tell them what it’s for?”
Sabrina considers this a moment, fingers tapping against her leg in an oddly uncontrolled gesture, for her. “There’s a saying, that three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” The room chuckles (a little nervously, in Red’s case), and Sabrina smiles. “I’ve already told all of you, and am planning no murders, which means I can only blame myself if this gets out sooner than I’d like. I took you all on not just because of your abilities and drive, but because I trust you not to do anything that will reflect poorly on me or my Gym. Use your judgement… but for now, only psychics, and preferably gym members. Understood?”
Red bows and murmurs, “Yes, Leader,” along with everyone else’s mixed honorifics. It makes sense; a psychic will have as much of an incentive to let an expert manage the release of a secret like this, and of course none of Sabrina’s gym members will want to go against her wishes.
“Then good luck to you all.” The door slides open, then closes behind her.
Tetsuo steps forward. “Okay, so that was a shock to everyone. Feel free to use gym facilities to work on this, and call on us if you need assistance.”
“Or if you plan on pulling in any other gym members,” Keiji says, gaze on Red. He nods to show he understands.
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with our gym duties, we’ll be happy to help,” Tetsuo says, and the two leave the room. As soon as the door closes, Daniel speaks.
“We should pair up,” he says, glancing at Tatsumaki. Red suspects that he likes her, and it’s clear he has his partner picked out. “We might be more productive, with someone to discuss our ideas with.”
“Or we can all discuss together,” Satori says, voice dry. “Since that would lead to
more
discussions. I would prefer to consider this alone, for now at least.”
“Shouldn’t we at least discuss it?” Jason asks. “We all have different focuses and perspectives. Perhaps one of us has some insight to share?”
Rowan shrugs, bemused. “I highly doubt that, unless one of you has been secretly working on this yourselves. I for one have other commitments tonight, and agree that it would be a waste of time to try and talk about it yet.”
Rei steps to where Sabrina was standing and turns, drawing all their attention to her.
“We’ve been charged by our teacher to do something no one else has,” she says, calm and confident. “It is a great honor, and likely of vital importance. I propose we all take the day to prepare and consider the problem on our own, and meet tomorrow to discuss potential solutions and plans.”
“Seconded,” Red quickly says. “It’s good practice to avoid cross-contamination of ideas, and keeps us from discussing solutions before we’ve fully considered the problem.”
“Agreed,” Satori adds, voice distant. “Like Rowan, I have other projects I must put to rest first, so I may put my whole attention on this.”
“Fine with me,” Tatsumaki adds, and the others nod or shrug.
“Good,” Rei says. “We’ll meet for lunch tomorrow in our cafeteria.”
“Should we ask them to join us?” Jason asks, pointing a thumb at the door where Tetsuo and Keiji exited.
“No. Let’s not bother them until we have something specific to test or need advice on.” She heads for the door herself. “Remember, don’t speak with each other about this for the rest of the day. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Red walks back home, notebook in one hand and gaze distant. He could have just teleported back, as some of the others did, and saved himself a five minute walk, but he’s so physically inactive these days that even short walks have some value, and he doesn’t want to get too lazy. Besides, once he gets to his room he’d just be sitting and thinking anyway.
His mind keeps wanting to shift away from useful pursuits to social worries about his relationship with Sabrina’s other students. On the one hand he knows it’s important to be able to work together, as situations like this show. And as Blue and Leaf convinced him, being respected is important if he wants his ideas to be taken seriously and spread.
But on the other, all of that feels like excuses to the simpler truth: he wants to be liked. Even Daniel, who rubs Red the wrong way, is powerful and clever, and as immature as it is to care what he thinks of Red on a personal level, he can’t help it.
Maybe it’s just because he spent months with people who he had a good relationship with, and he’s forgotten how to make friends. He tries to think of the last person who he actually had trouble getting along with for any significant amount of time besides Blue, and can’t think of any since leaving Pallet.
Is this helpful?
Future Red wonders.
You’re supposed to be thinking of the perfect mental shield.
Maybe it is. Maybe I’m stuck on it for good reason, and should deal with it before trying to just move on.
Red reaches the apartment building and presses his notebook against the wall of the elevator as he rides it up to his floor, flipping to the page after the possible causes of the perfect shield.
Identify relative advantages. What do I bring to the table?
Formulate at least one hypothesis worth testing. Test it if possible.
Determine which students may be befriended. Try to do so before meeting.
Determine which gym members can be worked with. Meet them.
He reaches his floor and goes to his apartment, then sits at his desk and tries to think of something else. When a couple minutes pass without anything new, he tackles the first one.
What
does
he bring to the table? What’s special about him, his power, or the way he thinks?
Rei is probably at least as smart as him. Rowan is better at manipulating and creating partitions. Satori is a more experienced trainer and merger. Jason has a more unique outlook, or abilities, or whatever it is that lets certain psychics specialize with ghost pokemon. And aside from anything else, Daniel and Tatsumaki are just more experienced, which applies to the others.
What are his remaining strengths? No, first list the things that are unique, figure out what’s a strength or useful after.
His background in science. Being raised by a reporter and a ranger. His social connections with Professor Oak and Bill. His mind-state mimicking. His screwed up trauma reaction…
Red blinks. Rowan asked whether the psychic ever seemed to be at odds with themself, and Sabrina said no, so Red dismissed the idea that his alternate-mental-state-that-feels-like-a-different-person, which he calls Past Red, might be related.
But if he and Past Red were to come to an agreement, they wouldn’t be at odds anymore. Maybe the psychic that developed the perfect shield does have their own alternate-mental-state-that-feels-like-a-different-person, which acts as the buffer mind for the hidden one.
(He definitely needs to come up with another name for it, and he refuses to call it an alternate personality.)
He hasn’t spent the whole week putting off talking with Past Red. That would be lazy and childish. He’s just spent it preparing himself for the ways he might actually do it, to ensure he has a good plan. A foolproof method that wouldn’t risk him spending the rest of his day and night lying in bed depressed.
He flips to a fresh sheet of paper and starts writing.
Hey Past Red. I’m about to let the partition down. If you don’t respond to this and put it back up, I’m never purposefully doing this again. We both have something the other wants. Let’s talk.
He looks at the paper, then he lets his breath out. As he tries to think of anything else he can do to prepare, maybe a gesture of goodwill, he realizes he should summon Pikachu, and returns to his chair with the yellow mouse curled up in his lap. Finally, with a reluctance that takes a minute to overcome, he closes his eyes and starts to bring his partition down.
When Red opens his eyes again, he sighs at the silly paper in front of him. Of all the changes the partition causes in his personality when it’s up, the fact that he treats himself like a separate person is the most worrying. He doesn’t need a piece of paper to “communicate,” he can remember writing the words himself perfectly fine.
But he clearly does get pretty irrational with the partition up, and he supposes it’s a useful framing device that Dr. Seward would approve of that might help interface with that irrationality. Red scratches behind Pikachu’s ear with one hand as the other picks up the pencil.
Dear Future Red (I’m not calling you Present Red, because I’m Present Red, obviously),
You’re an idiot.
Love, Present Red
He puts the pencil down and stares at the paper for a moment, fighting the urge to just tear it up and forget this nonsense before passing on the idea as too much effort. His thoughts are already drifting to Aiko, today’s trip to the ranch having unearthed memories that drag at him. He needs to figure out the underlying reasoning behind what he did, understand if he made the right decision for the right reasons, before something like it happens again. It could happen any day, and he’s done nothing to prepare.
But if he doesn’t bring the partition back up, he’d lose future moments of clarity like this. Red grimaces at the idea of being a hostage to his own self, and lets the partition go back up.
It immediately feels like he just sucked in a breath of fresh air. He sighs it out, looking down at the paper. Past Red’s thought process is fresh on his mind; they can’t both exist at the same time, so this is a dead end path to go down. Red shakes his head, scowling at how defeatist he is with the partition down, and starts writing again.
Dear Mopey Red,
Your attitude sucks. If you
Red stops, then slowly erases what he wrote. It’s a symbolic gesture, since he’ll remember having written it anyway, but this isn’t going to work as long as they’re insulting each other.
Look. I know you feel like I’m just you on happy-pills or something, but if having most of my grief locked away is interfering with my thinking, then being flooded by it is probably interfering with yours too. I’m doing this because I can’t model you as clearly as you can model me, and because I think we can actually learn something from what’s going on with us. Even if I’m wrong, we should be working on resolving whatever this is anyway, right?
He reads it over, checking to make sure he wasn’t too rude, adds
Thanks for putting the partition back up
at the beginning, then brings it back down.
The transition is so abrupt this time that Red practically feels his thoughts changing, mood plummeting as his eyes scan over what he’d just written. It’s not
impossible
that learning more about this partition would be helpful in a number of ways, and he does need to resolve it. But
how
is the important part. While it’s up, he feels like he would happily just delete all these feelings if he could, or lock them away permanently, which feels like self-mutilation.
We can’t “resolve” it if you push off working on it and leave the partition up,
he writes to his future self.
The only reason it was brought down was because of Sabrina’s task. Don’t pretend that you’ll be motivated to bring it down voluntarily again after this is all over.
He brings the partition back up, and sighs. His past self is right.
So what do you want in assurances? We should be able to find an arrangement that works.
Well first off I want you to stop treating this like a negotiation. You’re trying to barter with your own mental health.
I’m trying to make sure my mental health doesn’t put my life on hold.
That’s not how it works, and you know it. Plenty of people have already told you that this would take work. If you’re not willing to do it, then admit that to yourself.
What do you call this?
I call it bad priorities. How about you
just do the right thing
.
Red puts the pencil down and stares at the sheet, anger pushing through the haze of numbness and grief. Treating his changed personality like a different self feels like giving into pathology, but… Dr. Seward did suggest it. Maybe it will help him take what happened more seriously even with the partition up, if he can just convince himself that he might be ignoring a real problem he needs to fix.
Meanwhile, he should just leave the partition down as long as he can. It’s rare that it’s down this early, usually by the time he’s used enough psychic ability for it to come down he doesn’t usually have the energy to do more than just lay in bed. He could spend a few hours working out his decisions, maybe go back to Aiko’s ranch…
Red sighs, eyes closed, and rubs his face. He can’t blame his partitioned self that much, if he can barely muster the energy to confront such depressing thoughts himself. Pikachu stretches on his lap and walks over to his hand, nudging it for more scratches. He complies automatically, still thinking over what to do.
If he keeps the partition down, he’d be burning goodwill with his “other self.” And part of him
is
interested in figuring out what Sabrina discovered, though it’s distant.
“Whatever,” he mutters, and lets go, bringing the partition back up.
Red lets out a breath. That had been close. His gaze lingers on the words,
Do the right thing,
and something twists in his stomach. He remembers what it felt like, writing it. There was an undertone of bitterness and challenge, there.
“Whatever,” Red echoes, and turns the page. Time to form some hypotheses, then make some friends.
If you have found a spelling error, please, notify me by selecting that text and pressing
Ctrl+Enter
. Thank you!
It takes ten minutes for Red to notice he’s going about things all wrong.
What’s more concerning is that after realizing that, he can’t get himself to stop.
His foot bounces against the floor as his thoughts keep jumping to solutions. Hypotheses to suggest, experiments to run, ideas to research, crosscheck, pare down. It’s not until he’s pacing around his room that he realizes he needs to calm himself, and meditates to take a step back from his thoughts and examine them as they stream by, breath by breath.
The pressure to solve this feels immense. It wouldn’t just be an (almost) novel and groundbreaking discovery, it would also give him the credibility he needs to have more time with Sabrina, and to set more lesson goals with everyone.
But he’s not going to do that by just mass guessing, and that’s really all he’s done so far. Giovanni often points out on his blog that people shouldn’t commit all their resources to finding solutions until they have reason to be confident they understand the problem, and that’s something Red completely lacks.
If a non-psychic were to ask him to explain why it’s such a big deal that someone could have part of their mind think/feel something while the rest doesn’t, he’s not sure he could do it. He
feels like
he understands why it’s so bizarre, but “feels like” isn’t good enough, it’s following intuition, not knowledge, and while intuition can be valuable, it can also be misleading when not trained on good data. He doesn’t actually
know
why it’s so impossible, it just seems like it should be because that’s what he’s used to expecting from minds; a singular intention or thought process, with any internal conflict being apparent to psychic senses as internal conflict or dissonance.
He could do more research on the topic now, try to better understand brains and thoughts and minds and partitions (no, maybe not partitions, that would still be jumping to conclusions), but he feels too antsy to do something that passive.
As he continues to focus on his breathing, continues to examine the thoughts that come by and let them go with his exhalations, he starts to notice a pattern in what he’s worried about. It’s not just that he wants to solve the problem; what he keeps imagining are the others not listening to his ideas, or outright dismissing his feedback or participation. He knows it’s likely exaggerated, but he can see how the pressure to get this right comes in part from his social concerns.
Well, he did decide to focus on those too, didn’t he? Maybe he should try that first.
Red opens his eyes, then rises and goes to slip his feet into some sandals at the door before he makes his way to Rei’s apartment, gaze down. He isn’t used to being in a group with a hierarchy, and the more he thinks about it the more he dislikes it. He didn’t mind so much back at Pallet Labs, because it was clear there that he was subordinate and why. He wanted the adults to like him, but it was easy to get their approval and friendship; he just did whatever menial tasks they needed help on, happy to absorb all the knowledge he could along the way.
Compared to having to worry about and navigate the social politics among the other students, Red finds himself missing the equal footing he was on with Blue and Leaf, even if the memories with Blue are bittersweet. He knows Blue’s new traveling group will have a hierarchy, he felt it in those days when he went to train with them at the gym; those with more badges had more status, with Blue at the top despite only having two, and Red somehow just below him despite having none. Even with his privileged position it had felt strange, and he’s glad to be out of it, even if he can admit to himself that he sometimes misses the battling and camaraderie.
For Sabrina’s students, the hierarchy is less clear. Rei and Rowan seem the most respected, but they don’t seem to get along, and Daniel is often at odds with Satori and Jason, who Red feels are the most distant from everyone but Rei, including each other. And Tatsumaki is just… there, fairly respected but not interested in anyone. As for Red, he feels like he might have the best chance befriending Rowan or Daniel, but he doesn’t particularly
like
Daniel, and the most valuable friend he could make would likely be Rei. It makes him feel slimy, thinking of things that way, but he reminds himself that this doesn’t mean he’s not going to try befriending the others too, and he’s definitely not going to pretend to like her if he has no reason to.
Red steps in front of her door and takes a breath, patting down his hair and checking his clothes one last time, then drops his mental shields and knocks.
The probe comes immediately. Rei tests his mental presence, and upon finding it unprotected, merges for a moment to fully sample his mood before withdrawing.
“Enter.”
Red opens the door to Rei’s apartment, which is sparsely furnished but comfortable looking, with a pair of huge beanbags taking center stage. Rei is on one of them, sitting lotus position in what looks like silk shirt and pants that seem much more comfortable than her kimono, but still elegant and expensive, with a stylized xatu embroidered on them.
“Yes?”
“Hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you’d have a moment to talk?”
“I hope this isn’t related to Sensei’s assignment.”
“No, nothing like that. Well, a little related, but we agreed not to discuss the issue itself.”
She nods, then gestures with an open palm. “Please, sit.”
Red walks over to the beanbag across from her, and sinks into its warm cover. “Thank you.”
“What’s on your mind?”
As if she hadn’t just checked. Red has gotten good enough at controlling his thoughts and purposefully redirecting them that he no longer worries about others reading secrets he has, which means that on occasion he’s willing to engage in “open communication,” where psychics leave their shields down so their conversation partner can sense whatever genuine emotions they want to show or thoughts they want to share. It’s occasionally broken up by shields coming up, or sudden flashes to a meticulously remembered image or song, but this is understood as an integral part of retaining some privacy, and the social norm is to not assume that the person is being dishonest in those moments.
It’s almost like learning a second language, but not one that’s mutually exclusive. Any non-psychic listening would think they’re just talking in unown, but would miss all the mental communication overlaying the spoken words and threading the silences between.
Normally it would be hard to voice what’s on Red’s mind without him worrying about sounding antagonistic, or petulant, or paranoid. But with his mind unshielded, he trusts that Rei can “hear” more than the words he speaks. “I’ve only been here about a month and a half,” he says, letting his emotions of uncertainty and curiosity and good intentions stay clear at the surface of his thoughts. “And I’ve never been in a setting like this before. So I know I might be jumping to conclusions. But I just thought I’d check whether you dislike me, in case I did something wrong?”
A hint of fear and hurt at the end makes it hard to keep his gaze on hers, and his shields down. He sees her own surprise, quickly schooled, and feels the tentative touch of her mind become more firm, reading both his anxiety and sincerity.
She takes a breath, then slowly lets it out. “I did not intend to be rude, and apologize if I have been,” she says with such careful tact that Red’s worry doesn’t decrease. “But I suppose it’s fair to say that I don’t particularly have an interest in speaking to you, or spending time with you.”
Despite having suspected as much, Red still feels hurt by hearing her say it, and has to remind himself that he’s being stupid, and obviously she has no particular reason to feel friendly or interested in him. “Oh. Okay.”
“But that’s not what you asked,” she continues, still meeting Red’s gaze and sending out a brief projection of apology. “Not wishing to befriend someone is different from disliking them, and it’s also fair to say that I disrespect you.”
Red blinks at her, says “Oh,” and then just sits there a moment, absorbing that. He’d planned for her to say something about him that bothers her, but it still feels disorienting hearing her put it so bluntly. He realizes that despite considering it as a possibility, he hadn’t actually
expected
it, and he struggles not to hide his sudden inner turmoil behind a shield. “Why?” he finally asks.
“You feel fake,” Rei says, voice and face still calm. “It’s hard to trust those who use a partition to lock away a part of themselves. It’s like talking to someone wearing a mask, except the mask is real, and they may have any number of them they can put on at any time. I do not believe Leader Sabrina was referring to you or Rowan when she mentioned a psychic who could evince false emotions, but I cannot completely dismiss the possibility.”
Red’s throat is dry. “I don’t… I didn’t choose this,” he whispers, stung by the unfairness of it even as part of him feels guilty. Past Red is definitely going to throw this in his face the next time they “chat.”
“Intention has little to do with it.” Rei shrugs, and he senses her regret. “Perhaps my opinion of you will change, when you have more control. In any case, it isn’t personal. As I indicated, I feel similarly about Rowan, who molds his mind intentionally.”
Red hesitates a moment. “I can bring my partition down, if you want to talk to…” He can’t say the real me. It doesn’t feel true, and would just be confirming Past Red’s perspective. “Me without it.”
“I see little point in that,” she says, apologetic. “Since you would not keep it down. It would be like speaking with someone else entirely.”
Red resists the urge to slump in his beanbag, knowing he’s radiating disappointment and closing himself off as he sighs and nods. “Well. Thank you for your honesty.”
“Of course. I do hope you resolve the issue soon.” Rei tilts her head slightly, considering him. “If I may ask… why do you want to be my friend?”
Red blinks. He hadn’t expected her to ask that, and he’s glad his shield is up so that none of the immediate thoughts come to mind. But he can’t keep it up while he answers if he wants to be taken fully honestly…
He thinks it over a moment, everything he knows about her as compared to the other psychics, and to his surprise actually thinks of something genuine. He lets his shield drop. “Other than the social benefits, you read Giovanni’s blog, and are one of the few others I know who actually tries to put the ideas there into practice. It would be nice to talk about it with someone…”
again.
His shield comes up as his thoughts turn suddenly to Aiko.
Rei smiles slightly. “Well, that seems a reasonable request. Perhaps we could, after Sabrina’s assignment.”
Red takes it as the dismissal it is, and says goodbye. He walks down the hall without really thinking for a bit, replaying what happened in his mind and wondering if there was something else he should have said. Eventually he’s back at his door, and only then remembers he planned to visit the others.
Tatsumaki and Daniel aren’t home when he knocks, so he goes down a floor to see Satori. There’s silence for a moment after he knocks, and once again he feels his peer mentally touch his thoughts before the door opens. Satori is dressed as she was at the meeting, her torracat padding around her skirt, its tail brushing her waist. Both look at him inquisitively, their heads cocked to the side at the same angle.
He quickly redirects his thoughts from the disquiet of the image.
“Hey!” She’s not inviting him in like Rei was. Maybe he should just cut to the chase. “So I was thinking, if we’re all going to be working together on this project, maybe we should get to know each other better? I don’t feel like I’ve got many friends here, and I would like more. Do you want to hang out a bit? I’m happy to do anything, or just chat while you go about your business, if it’s not private.”
Saying the words makes him feel anxious, and he does nothing to hide that feeling. He’s used to feeling excluded from the other kids at school, to feeling different, but it was easy not to let that bother him while he had Blue to hang out with. This is the first time he can remember that he’s actually come out and asked someone to be his friend. It makes him feel like a kid again, and he’s sure he appears even younger to Satori, whose closeness in age feels all the more significant suddenly.
Satori shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to finish a project with my pokemon, and find other people distracting.” She closes the door before he can respond, and without lowering her shield to express any regret or other emotional signal.
Red sighs, then moves on. He supposes it’s nice that she even answered, considering how much she generally keeps to herself and sensed his intentions through the door…
When he knocks on Rowan’s door and gets a muffled “Busy!” in response, he moves on without much regret. Rowan seems nice enough, but he often feels slightly off, making Red question his memory of who he interacted with before meeting the “new” Rowan, and
ah yep that’s what Rei meant…
Red tries to think of something to talk about on the way to Jason’s, something they wouldn’t normally talk about during their lessons, since that clearly hasn’t helped. So far Jason has been trying to learn to mimic different mental states while Red attempts to get as good at detecting and deciphering emotions as Jason, and so far they haven’t had much success.
Or any, really. Their sessions have all ended in quiet frustration for both as they seem to keep talking past each other while trying to explain what they did in their own terms. Red tried being as precise and clear as he could, like “imagine that mental state and anchor it in your memory through what your body feels,” while Jason spoke through metaphor and symbolism, such as “follow the echo my emotions are leaving in the astral realm” which didn’t really mean anything to Red, no matter how much he tried to pin down what an “echo” is or feels like, or what the “astral realm” is. He’s wanted to ask the others if they find their lessons with Jason more productive, but worried he would seem incompetent or like he’s badmouthing his peer.
So clearly he needs another topic to focus on, and after a moment he finds one. Like Satori, Jason is a pokemon trainer in addition to a psychic. Maybe they could discuss that. He specializes in ghost pokemon, which Red thinks he would find interesting enough to talk about.
When he knocks on the door he doesn’t sense any mental probe from Jason, and the medium answers his door with a cautious look on his face, dressed in the same clothes as earlier in the day. “Hello. Did you come about our assignment?”
“No.” Red smiles, trying not to let his earlier failure color his attitude. “I was just hoping to talk for a bit, if you’re free.”
“I was just finishing a cleansing ritual.”
“Oh.” Red only has a vague idea of what that is; some spiritual practice to ensure an environment or person is free of negativity? He’s not sure if Jason is saying that the ritual is already finished, or if Red had interrupted. “I can come back later?”
He steps back, preparing to leave, but Jason’s frown stops him. “Are you projecting your emotions on purpose?”
Red blinks, then checks. His mind still isn’t shielded, but… “I don’t think I’m projecting them at all?”
“Ah.” Jason’s hand finds his prayer beads and moves over them as he sighs. “I suppose the ritual wasn’t working anyway, then.”
Red is about to ask how he would know if it had, then stops himself and focuses on his curiosity. “What do you sense?” he asks instead.
“It feels like you’re hurt and anxious,” Jason says matter-of-factly. “It confused me because you were smiling when I opened the door, so I thought you were trying to project those feelings to alert me that you need help.”
“Huh.” Red detected no mental merger at all, but this isn’t the first time Jason has shown that he can pick up complex and deep emotions from simple proximity, just the first time Jason is treating it as something out of his control.
He was hoping to avoid any discussion too similar to those in their lessons, but this doesn’t feel like something he can just ignore, and… maybe in a more casual setting like this, if he just stays open minded and curious, he can learn more about Jason’s perspective. “And your cleansing ritual is supposed to help keep you from feeling that?”
Jason nods. “It doesn’t always work, of course. Sometimes I do it wrong, or my spirit is too open to others. I’ll have to try again.”
“Can I… is it okay if I observe it?” He keeps his thoughts focused on his curiosity and interest in learning more about Jason’s views (and abilities, but he believes the two are linked so same thing (he wonders briefly if Jason feels any dissonance in him over that bit of rationalization, then focuses on the curiosity again)).
Jason looks surprised, and fidgets in place for so long that Red is about to apologize when he opens the door and steps back. Red enters to find a simple apartment much like his own, though with a strong smell of jasmine incense coming from a small shrine in the corner. The plumbing must have been done special, because beside it there’s a basin of running water flowing from the mouth of a small stone gyarados.
The whole thing is small as a bathroom sink, and Jason folds his legs beneath him to sit in front of it while Red sits on the floor to the side to observe.
“So,” Red says, as he watches Jason take the long wooden ladle in his right hand and dip it in the water. “I just came to talk because I realized we haven’t really spoken much outside of classes. I guess I got the impression you didn’t like me, and wanted to make sure that wasn’t just my insecurity speaking.”
Jason doesn’t respond, and simply pours the water over his left hand, then switches the ladle to it and pours some over his right, then switches again and pours into his cupped left. He brings the water up to his lips, then lifts the ladle so the remaining water pours down the handle and into the basin, and sets it face-down.
Red realizes he should probably have waited for the ritual to finish before saying anything, and just stays silent as Jason lifts a censer and moves it around himself. One hand stays on his prayerbeads, fingers moving from one to the next, and the other brings the censer first over his stomach, then his heart, then his throat, then his forehead, taking a deep breath of the incense each time. On the last exhale he puts the censer down and sits in stillness, eyes closed.
Red watches the medium’s face, the only motion of his body the steady rise and fall of his chest, and wonders what’s going on in his head. He knows better than to check in the middle of something like this, but the curiosity itches at him.
He never felt particularly comfortable with religious practices, but ever since he started learning to use his powers, and particularly practicing meditation, he began to see them differently. Even without any spiritual component, his own “rituals” to ground himself, or reflect on his internal state, or to execute a particular mental motion, are all useful to him, and result in real, tangible differences. And he knows how powerful placebos can be; maybe a lot of what Jason is capable of that Red isn’t genuinely comes from his different beliefs, or the meaning he ascribes to things like his clothing and prayers.
Red would like to think that any thoughts someone can have, however they have them, can be reasoned through and understood and shared by others. He would like to think that this applies to psychic powers too; that is why they’re all here teaching each other, after all, despite the fairly strong evidence of hard limits to what different psychics are capable of. But within those limits, he feels wistful regret at the idea that his method of thinking, as useful as it is to him, may forever keep him locked out of the kinds of insights and abilities that those like Jason have.
Until he remembers that he can just copy Jason’s mental state while he’s engaging in spiritual practice, if he really wants to understand it.
Red feels a creeping unease, and quickly brings his shield up. He’s never tried copying a mental state that was so fundamentally other. The closest thing was Leaf’s views on pokemon, and from what he remembers of the feeling, it was transformative. He can’t even say for sure that it didn’t permanently affect his views, though part of that is likely just entangled with his feelings for Leaf.
Still, does he want to risk some permanent change to his thinking that’s so… superstitious? What if some of it stays with him?
He tries to convince himself that it’s a silly concern, and that believing something temporarily, no matter how wrong it may turn out, doesn’t lead to bad epistemics. Hell, that happens all the time to him and his epistemics are great! Mostly, anyway.
But what if it’s more fundamental? What if it leads to the growth of certain neuron patterns that will make faith-based beliefs feel more justified?
Red shakes the thought away. He needs to talk to others before trying it, obviously. His ability to copy mental states isn’t entirely unique, there have been others with somewhat similar abilities that might be able to indicate probable outcomes. Maybe he can-
Jason’s eyes open, and he stretches slightly, rotating his shoulders with a sigh. “You’re shielding, right?”
“Yes.”
“Would it be okay to bring it down?”
Red takes a moment to refocus his thoughts, then does so. “Done.”
Jason closes his eyes, then opens them and nods. “Thank you. It worked.” He stands. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I’m f… actually, black tea would be good, if you have it?”
“I do.”
A few minutes later they’re facing each other on the couch, tea in one cup and juice in the other. Jason looks calm, but there’s something about his body language that makes Red feel like he’s nervous. One hand keeps twitching up from his cup, then returning to it, as if aborting impulses to touch his prayer beads.
Red tries to think of how to fill a silence that quickly feels awkward. He’s just about to repeat what he said earlier when Jason clears his throat.
“I do not think it was just insecurity,” Jason says, gaze down. “But I wouldn’t say I dislike you. It’s just that your way of thinking often feels painful for me.”
Red blinks, opens his mouth, closes it. He hadn’t expected that. “Painful as in… physically, or emotionally, or…?”
Jason shrugs. “To be honest, I don’t always understand the difference. When people say physical pain, they seem to mean the result of being physically harmed. But if you describe emotional pain, there’s often a physical component, isn’t there?”
Red considers that, and feels an ache in his chest as he thinks of Aiko, or how much he wants to spend more time with Leaf, or the painful mix of anger and… something, that comes from thinking of Blue.
“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “I can see that. So… there’s a physical component to it, but it’s also tied to some emotional reaction?”
“That’s the closest I can come to explaining it.” Jason sips his juice. “It’s not just you though, I feel this way pretty often. I’ve been told it’s part of being a medium.” He shrugs. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
Red shifts in his seat. “Do you have any specific examples of what I’ve thought that felt harmful to your psychic senses?”
“They were not often thoughts themselves, more the underlying… perspective. And I don’t know that they are actually ‘psychic’ senses,” Jason says. “Elite Agatha said that what I do—what we do—it’s related to what psychics do, but distinct.”
“In what way?”
Jason gives him an appraising look, as if deciding how candid to be. “My connection is to the soul, not just the mind. But you don’t believe in souls.”
Jason still hasn’t uncovered his own emotions during the conversation, so Red isn’t sure how to take the statement, and he feels himself struggling not to respond in a challenging way. Is Jason trying to bait him into an argument, or just expecting one? He came here to be friendly, dammit!
“No, I don’t,” he finally says, speaking slowly. “I haven’t seen any evidence of it that can’t be explained by other things.” He’d resolved to stay curious, so that’s what he focuses on. “But I’ve never talked about it with a medium before. What makes you so sure?”
Jason blinks, gaze meeting Red’s for a moment before dropping again as he sips his drink. “Have you interacted with any Ghost pokemon?”
“No, but I was hit with a Ghost attack from a spinarak, once.” Even after all this time Red still occasionally feels a shadow of the pain and disorientation, though it’s not enough to really distract him.
Jason is shaking his head. “You need to be in their presence to understand.”
“You’re talking about surrealism.”
“I am. What do you know about it?”
Red recalls his research in Viridian Forest, after he caught his spinarak. “People often compare it to Pressure, though that just seems confusing, since it’s not as personalized or powerful, and only really affects you if you’re interacting with ghosts in some way rather than being around them.” And having recently experienced Pressure for himself, it’s hard not to dismiss anything else for not being as bad. “Common symptoms are headaches, disorientation, distrust of senses, all of which quickly goes away once their thoughts aren’t focused on the ghost anymore. It’s part of what makes it harder for non-psychic trainers to deal with ghosts, since it doesn’t seem to be worse for psychics and we’re already used to directing and focusing our thoughts and attention.”
Jason smiles slightly. “It sounds so simple, put like that. As I said, you need to experience it yourself to understand, which is another reason people often compare it to Pressure. But what do you make of surrealism, even having never experienced it? Doesn’t it mark such pokemon as different, in some way?”
Red shrugs. “Sure, and I think it’s significant.” It’s one of the main reasons he categorized Ghost as a substance over descriptive type: there’s clearly something fundamentally different about them. “But significant in what way is the question. It’s something we don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean we should jump to conclusions about its origin, or what it means about reality itself.”
“Hmm.” Jason slowly turns his cup in his hands, then sips from it. “I agree.”
Red blinks. “You do?”
“Yes. It makes sense, from your perspective, to be skeptical. I don’t believe as I do because I have answers to all the questions you’re carefully not asking. But my experiences are enough to point me along the way, and my faith acts as a bridge for the rest, to explain those experiences and overcome that skepticism.”
It sounds like the medium is using “faith” to mean the same thing Red would call a “theory.” It’s the first time he’s heard someone frame it that way… but scientific theories can be falsified, they contain specific claims about cause and effect that could be proven wrong. They’re not just an explanation that makes sense of phenomena, they allow people to make predictions about future ones.
He has to remind himself again that he’s not here to argue epistemics, but just learn more about his peer’s perspective. “By experiences, you mean your connection to Ghost pokemon,” Red guesses. “Did you really train one without a pokeball?”
“I didn’t train it,” Jason says, seeming a bit embarrassed by the myth of himself. “Only established a mental connection, without it attacking me. We formed what I would call a familiarity, if not a friendship.”
“That’s amazing. I mean with any wild pokemon, but with a Ghost in particular. How did you do it?”
Jason drinks as he considers the question, though surely he’s been asked it many times before. “I came to Kanto when I was about your age. I always wanted to be a trainer, but I already knew I was gifted, and my family considered that a stronger trait to explore, a more meaningful path. They hired a mentor for me to explore my gift, but I was still fascinated by pokemon, in understanding their thoughts and feelings. Lavender Town is a small, spiritual community, not particularly known for its trainers. I couldn’t find one to teach me, and while I could buy a pokeball and dex, there was no safe place I could reliably find pokemon that I would be able to travel to alone.”
“Except Lavender Tower,” Red says, smiling slightly.
“Except Lavender Tower,” Jason agrees. “The Rangers there ensure no wild Ghosts harm visitors or escape into the town proper, but there are often a few lurking somewhere inside, and it was easy to find them with my inner eye. After I experienced surreality for myself, sensed their strange minds, I became obsessed with Ghost pokemon in specific. There seemed a depth of mystery and meaning in their ‘otherness’ that I wanted to understand. I spent months being frustrated as they resisted my attempts to interact with them in a meaningful way, and even my psychic training did not help. Eventually I realized that perhaps I was the problem. That all of us are, that our view of them is what causes the tension in us, the disorientation, the pain. After all, they seem unharmed by interacting with us. Who was I to impose my flawed, human perceptions on them?”
Red slowly nods. “So you played with different perspectives until you found one that helped.”
Jason raises his brow. “No. I began studying religious beliefs, read the accounts of those like Elite Agatha and Leader Matsuba, and began practicing rituals to better connect with the spiritual world. And eventually I was able to look upon them without difficulty, and merge with them without tainting my spirit.”
“Huh.” Red drinks his tea and tries to accept the statements at face value, the mildly bitter flavor somehow calming. “But not everyone can do that, right? It’s also related to your abilities as a medium?”
“Ah, yes, I’m not claiming any unique piety or spiritual virtue. My gift enabled the connection in the first place.”
Red nods. Ultimately, there are three probabilities that he finds most likely. The first is that what Jason can do is semi-unique to him, whether it’s because of his connection to the “spirit world” or because he has a unique element in his psychic powers. The second is that the changes Jason underwent in his spiritual journey, the wisdom he gained, are just a perspective shift that could be learned, a lens to see the world through that could be put on and taken off. And the third is that his connection to Ghost pokemon and/or ability to sense deep emotions is something that operates on a level beyond intellectual understanding, something fundamental to the way he forms beliefs.
Maybe his own perspective would shed some light on it. “And what advice would you give, then, about Ghosts for those that don’t have your gift or faith?”
“The same as what I believe for myself. That we must resist our attempts to rationally understand them.” Jason shrugs. “More generally, that the very belief that we can truly understand anything is an illusion, though a useful one for our time in the material plane. But Ghosts are windows into something beyond the material, and so it is
not
useful to try and decipher them rationally.”
Red’s mouth twists to the side, torn between the multiple strong objections that rise up. And though it brings with it a flash of anger and sadness, Blue’s voice is clear in his head;
Who cares if it sounds logical? If it works, it works.
And of course he’s right. Understanding the actual mechanism at work is important so he doesn’t believe extraneous things that are wrong, but if there’s a link between Jason’s epistemics and the outcome, Red has to be able to include that evidence in his theories, no matter how much it clashes with his own epistemics. It could be as simple as Leaf’s pure love of pokemon keeping abra from fleeing, but if it’s something deeper…
“I would like to learn more about your beliefs,” Red says. “And maybe even try to mimic your perspective psychically, eventually, if that’s alright with you.”
“You believe it’s my perspective, then, as Leader Sabrina does, and not my gift?”
“Maybe it’s both,” Red admits. “But it’s worth a try, and we’ve been having trouble during our lessons anyway, so I think better understanding your perspective could help with that too. Or at least, I’ve felt like we’ve had trouble?”
Jason nods, and finally brings his shield down for a moment, just long enough to signal a mirror of Red’s relief that it hadn’t just been him. “Alright. How would you like to begin?”
Red shrugs. “You’re the expert here. I’ll do whatever you think is best.”
“I would never claim to be an expert.”
“Relative to me, I mean.”
“Still, the word has… baggage. As I said before, it was not through understanding but the release of the need to understand that I finally found connection.”
Red is about to argue that it’s just a semantic point, and that all “expertise” means in this context is the person who has accomplished the thing being discussed, but then he imagines someone calling him an expert on mirroring mental states and kind of gets Jason’s point. “You’re right, word choice can influence perspectives. So as we are both seeking humility together, what would be the first step toward recognizing the need to be humbled at all?” He hopes that made sense.
Jason spins his cup again, face thoughtful, then brings it to his lips and tilts it back, draining it and standing. “Experiences are more important than words. If you’ve never encountered a Ghost before, then experiencing surrealism for the first time might be best. We can go to the roof, and I’ll summon my pokemon there.”
Red swallows his sudden nervousness along with a mouthful of tea. The things he’s read about surreality don’t seem quite as harmless as a moment ago. But it wasn’t so long ago that he overcame fear of a different pokemon on a different roof, and this wouldn’t be worse than what Donovan’s skarmory could have done to him.
Red remembers the discomfort of the spinarak’s attack again, and feels a thread of fear.
Probably.
“Yeah, alright.”
The medium goes to put his cup in the sink, then slips his sandals on while Red finishes his tea. Once Jason retrieves his pokebelt and ties it on, they make their way to the rooftop, which is fairly small but only has a small number of spots taken up for registered teleportation, namely those of the students and Sabrina.
The sun is setting, but there’s still enough light to illuminate the city.
The
city, as far as most Kantonians see it; the biggest and most populous, home to both its most prestigious pokemon contest hall as well as the world famous Silph Corporation. It’s a culturally powerful place that he’s just starting to consider a “home” of sorts, and he draws some strength from the sight of it in the day’s last golden light, like nothing truly bad can happen to him while he’s standing here atop the shining city.
He recognizes how silly that feeling is, especially since he was just worrying about downloading superstitious wetware from Jason, and has to check his rationale for doing this again before he turns to his fellow psychic and nods. “Ready when you are.”
“Alright. I’m going to summon a gastly. Pull back your mental senses.”
And now he feels less ready. “Okay. Uh. I could also go downstairs and get my gas mask, or should I stay upwind of it, or…?”
“No, there isn’t enough wind to affect it, and as long as you can’t smell it you won’t be harmed. Just stay at least an arm’s length from the visible parts.” With that, the medium braces his arm and says, “Go, Gastly.”
The pokeball snaps open and a blinding flash of light leaps forth… but unlike with most pokemon, it doesn’t coalesce into a sensible shape. Instead the afterimage behind Red’s lids when he blinks appear to be a wide, irregular cloud.
What takes its place a millisecond later is about half as big, at least as far as he can see; a purple discoloration in the air that hangs about six feet above the rooftop. Only the center of it is opaque enough that he can’t see through it, and from within that purple mass he sees a dark orb with—
—two gleaming white voids—
—the glint of… fangs(?)—
—Red blinks, then blinks again, trying to get used to what he’s seeing. In videos, gastly appear to just be a black ball surrounded by thick purple gas, with wide, solid white and somewhat disembodied “eyes” over a pink pocket that holds what looks like two sharp canines, just floating in the blackness of the orb. But without the abstraction of simple images, his mind is struggling to make sense of what’s in front of him, which is… very much not that.
Except what else could it be? He closes his eyes, imagining the slightly cartoonish mental image of a gastly that he has in his memory, then opens them to see… something else, something that he can only vaguely recognize as having the same features as the mental image he was holding onto a moment ago. If he hadn’t known what they’re “supposed” to look like, he wonders if he would even make this much sense out of it.
After a handful of heartbeats, his gaze flinches away, the disorientation fading once he’s not looking directly at it. He has to swallow, throat dry, before he says, “All ghost pokemon are like this?” He reminds himself to be on the lookout for a headache or any other symptoms.
“In their own ways,” Jason says, pokeball still in hand. “The ones that possess some physical object are easier to perceive, but those with the gift can still see through to what they really are.”
“And what is that?” Red asks. He glances back at the gastly and feels a chill go down his spine. From the corner of his eye it had seemed like the black sphere’s “eyes” were staring aimlessly into the distance, but as soon as he looked at it, its gaze locked with his. Is that the surrealism? Has it already started?
“The spirits of pokemon.” Jason says as Red starts to shift his head from side to side, experimenting. Its “eyes” (he can’t even think of them with that word without a sense of skepticism) stay locked on his perfectly as he moves and when he looks away, its features return to vague impressions. “Instead of moving beyond our world after death, a ghost is a spirit that has imprinted onto things in it, such as a candle or doll, or in gastly’s case, the decomposing gasses emitted by corpses.”
Unfalsifiable
, Red immediately thinks. Spontaneous pokemon genesis occurs in other places, labeling the ones that appear near dead bodies ‘Ghosts’ does nothing to distinguish whether that’s true from a world where their origin is any different from something like a magnemite.
But he’s here to learn about Jason’s perspective, not argue against it. It takes Red a moment to word his response through how unnerved he is by the gastly, even after looking away. “I’ve heard that hypothesis,” Red says. “But I don’t understand what differentiates it from one you’d consider false.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I’ve actually thought a lot about pokemon origins,” Red says, glancing at the gastly again, then away. It’s difficult, like the dark sphere is a black hole whose gravity is pulling at his attention, but not physically, just from simple fascination, or maybe a mix of fascination and fear, like leaning over the edge of a building despite knowing the sight will scare you. The call of the void, he’s heard it called, and that’s what the gastly looks like, a void in the world—
“Red?”
Red blinks. “Sorry, I… what was I saying?”
“Pokemon origins. Do you want me to withdraw it?”
“No, I’m fine.” He turns his body solidly toward Jason. “Right. So… if I’m understanding your beliefs correctly, magnemite could be spirits of pokemon that attach themselves to metal objects too, right? But they’re not Ghost pokemon.”
Jason shrugs. “There are many potential answers. I am a spiritualist, but find no religious doctrine more convincing than all others. I have heard that everything has a spirit, even inanimate objects, and some things may attain enough spiritual energy to become living things. Perhaps the gods are still active in the world and decide by their own whims, or perhaps there are rules they have written to guide such events in their absence that we may one day deduce. But the unnatural sensation evoked by surrealism makes it clear that only Ghost pokemon are the spirits of the already departed, rather than new souls like any others we encounter.”
“I feel like you’re…” Red stops himself. “Sorry. I’m confused. My brain is insisting that maybe it’s the substance that’s inhabited that matters. Like… imagine a world where ‘Ghost pokemon are spirits of dead pokemon’ wasn’t true. What would you expect to see different in that world, that couldn’t be explained by the ‘spirit of candles’ or ‘poison gas’ also attaining enough energy to become living beings, for example?”
Jason is quiet a moment, and Red lets him think, looking back at the gastly for a minute to try to get a handle on the way it looks. He wants to try using his powers on it to see what its mind is like, but he’s still having trouble getting his mind to see its parts as distinct things, and he should probably do that first.
Suddenly Red sees the Gastly’s “mouth” open, and calling the slimy, squirming thing that briefly comes out a “tongue” doesn’t even occur to him until after it’s back inside the sphere and he can retroactively process what he saw. He raises a hand to wipe some sweat from his forehead, even though it’s rather cool outside with fall well underway. He knows it’s from exposure to the gastly, which…
…is it getting closer?
Red suddenly realizes he can smell it, a sickly sweet, cloying scent, and panic blooms in his chest as he quickly takes a step back—
“Red, look at me,” a voice demands, and Red snaps his gaze around to Jason, who has stepped to the side so that Red can’t see the gastly in his peripheral. The medium looks calm despite suddenly sounding like an entirely different person, his whole stance feels different as he holds Red’s gaze with his own. But it’s nothing overt; Jason’s hands are folded in front of him, his shoulders are relaxed. It’s Red’s perception that has changed, his need for something stable and reassuring.
“Everything is fine,” Jason says, calm but firm, like he’s talking to a skittish ponyta. “You’re experiencing the first stage of surreality. Just focus on me, and breathe.”
Red does as he instructs, despite his confusion. The literature said that surreality would manifest as something minor at first, like a headache or increased pulse or sweating… right, he was sweating. How did he forget that symptom? No, he didn’t forget it, he recognized it as it was happening, but then the panic hit and he couldn’t connect the dots.
“Better?” Jason asks after a moment, watching him steadily.
Red nods. He feels back in control of his thoughts, though there’s a part of him that’s still thinking about the gastly, hovering just out of sight, and wondering if it’s creeping closer. “Yes, thanks. Even expecting it, it’s like it went straight to my automatic reflexes.” He steels himself, then turns his head to look at the gastly. Still far away.
“I’m not sure what I would see different,” Jason says, drawing Red’s attention back to him. Not sure what…? Oh, right, about different worlds. “I guess if it weren’t true, then I would expect there to be nothing uniform between the different Ghost pokemon compared to other pokemon that are not Ghost types. A candle and a cloud of gas have no similarity to justify belief that both should evoke surrealism.”
“But that uniqueness is what we use to classify Ghosts,” Red says. “It feels tautological to say that because they have this unique attribute, they must share this unique origin that we identify through this attribute. Especially when we don’t even know what the origin of other pokemon without that attribute is.”
“Then what is your answer? What would you expect to see in a world where Ghost pokemon are borne of dead spirits, rather than by the same process as other pokemon?”
“Weeeell,” Red says, dragging the word out as he organizes his thoughts. “First off, wouldn’t we see an infinite variety of Ghost pokemon? And wouldn’t their different species be more widespread? We don’t have any phantump here in Kanto, but we have plenty of woods and forests. If we just put a pile of screws and magnets around some pokemon graveyards, what would you expect to eventually see? Ghost magnemite, or ‘regular’ ones?”
The medium is quiet again as he thinks, and Red resists the urge to look at the gastly again. “I believe I see your point,” Jason finally says, speaking slowly. “Perhaps… magnemite are the spirits of pokemon as well, and their natures have been changed by the objects they bound to. Rotom at least are examples of ghost pokemon whose nature changes while inhabiting different ‘bodies.’ Though…” Jason frowns. “It’s not a strong example, given that even though they can leave those bodies behind and inhabit new ones, we have never seen any other Ghost pokemon do such a thing, and of course Rotom are limited to electronic device that do not mimic any other known electric pokemon.”
Huh. Red hadn’t expected the medium to refute his own argument so well. He begins to grow hopeful about the conversation. “Right, as you pointed out, there’s no consistent pattern between what Ghost pokemon are embodied as. Cloth, candles, gas, plants, clay, metal… they’re all different substances, and there are also pokemon like jellicent and oricorio and decidueye that seem to be living creatures. Or do those pokemon not feel the same to be around?” If they don’t cause surrealism, they probably shouldn’t qualify as Ghost pokemon in the first place…
“No, they do, though it’s even less strong than Ghosts that inhabit objects,” Jason says. “Here, let me show you one of those… Gastly, return!” The beam of light spreads not from the gastly’s dark core, but from somewhere on the edge of the visible cloud around it, pulling it away in a mass of red light. “Go, Lampent!”
The sky is starting to darken, but Red can still make out the twisted black lantern that appears a few feet above the ground, its core illuminated by a bright blue flame. Red prepares himself for more surrealism, but… it looks totally normal.
Except for the fact that it’s clearly suspended in midair for no reason. Red knows it’s a pokemon, intellectually, but the way it looks like a simple object makes it hard to square with the fact that it’s definitely not supposed to be doing that. And then there are the yellow glowing eyes on the round, clear “glass” of its body, but those are only unsettling if he looks at them too long.
“Huh. Yeah, this is less extreme. Instead of doubting my whole perception of it there’s just this one thing I’m fixating on. Which is weird, since there are other pokemon that float that don’t make me feel like this…” He walks a few steps to the side, then back, gaze on the lampent. The effect is a little worse as he changes his reference frame and the lantern stays suspended exactly where it is, making it seem slightly unreal, like a hologram or computer graphic overlaid onto reality…
“Oh, there’s the headache.” He quickly looks back at Jason and the pressure at his temples starts to fade. “So you were right, it’s hard to understand how different Ghosts are without experiencing surrealism for myself. But the degree is different enough that I feel like this could be a different thing entirely, if I didn’t know already to start out thinking both are Ghosts.”
Jason nods. “Your mundane senses are more easily fooled. Use your inner eye.”
Red scratches his neck, curiosity more than a match for his nervousness. “That would be okay?”
“Just don’t merge. You’ll understand why.”
Red nods and closes his eyes, wanting to focus as much as possible on what his “inner eye” senses. His range and precision have expanded over the past weeks, and he immediately becomes aware of not just the gale of emotions in front of him, but also Jason’s watchful and expectant mind, and Rei’s unshielded focus, and Rowan’s shifting mood as he sets up and brings down partitions in some exercise or experiment, and Satori’s mind as it interacts with both her swellow and torracat at the same time, and the less Red focuses on that disorienting jumble the better…
Good thing he has a gale of emotions in front of him to focus on.
It’s like standing in a crowded room, except it’s all coming from one single mind. The lampent feels unlike any other pokemon or human Red has encountered, its emotions more alien than even Bug pokemon.
Red is still relatively new to deciphering emotions without a merge, but he recognizes
desire
burning off the lampent like a bonfire sheds heat. There’s no question in Red’s mind of what he’s feeling, it wants something, and it wants it badly. He’s never felt anything so strong coming from a pokemon, the closest were fear from abra and when he was merged with Charmeleon and projected
sakki
…
“It’s hungry,” Red says, opening his eyes and taking an involuntary step back as he withdraws his mind again. As soon as he says the word, he identifies the feeling in himself, or at least as close an equivalent as he can understand. He feels his stomach rumble and twist. Is it projecting onto him? “No,
starving
… why…”
“It had a caterpie recently,” Jason says. “But it’s never enough.”
Red expects the hunger to fade once he brings his shield up, but it doesn’t. Both arms are pressed over his stomach now, and he sucks in a breath, tries to meditate on the feeling, dissolve it, but it feels
real
, like he needs to find food
now
or his limbs will start to shake…
Then Jason is in front of him, wooden beads looped around the fingers of one hand as he passes it over Red’s head. Red feels the medium’s mind brushing his through his shield, Jason doesn’t try to merge. Instead the feeling of hunger starts to dwindle in time with the scrubbing motion of his hand around Red’s chest, until he abruptly feels fine.
It all took place in the space of a few heartbeats, and Red slowly straightens. “You felt things like that?” Red asks, letting out a shuddering breath as he eases his arms down and looks back at the lampent. “For months?”
“I had some help. My psychic teacher knew, of course, from the emotional residue that would be left on me, which you experienced. She taught me how to manage it, as all gifted trainers of Ghost pokemon must, but it wasn’t until I began walking a more spiritual path that truly cleansing it became a possibility.” He tucks the wooden beads away in a pocket. “And by enduring it more, I found my own ability to detect emotions improving, though…” He shrugs. “It was no longer always intentional, or always accurate.”
“Then maybe that’s what happened,” Red says, pulse finally slowing down as he breathes in and out. “Everyone talks about how Ghosts twist our powers and turn them against us, maybe yours have changed permanently to better sync with them.”
“Perhaps,” Jason says. “But I don’t believe all mediums have gone through the same things. If that’s a viable path, would you try it?”
Red frowns, considering a moment. “Not sure. I’d have to know more about the side effects. But in the meantime, I still want to try adopting your perspective.”
Jason nods and withdraws the lampent, which relaxes something in Red he hadn’t realized was tense. “My perspective is to simply remind myself of what I do not understand. It is a genuine humility that only feels forced insofar as it fights natural instinct to create explanations for things, to grasp at facts we have heard and knowledge we believe we have. Knowledge that, upon further examination, is revealed to be just symbols between minds to imperfectly share disparate shards of reality.”
Uh oh. They’re back at deep sounding phrases that Red can’t quite parse. “Alright… so what should I do to help fight those instincts?”
Jason shrugs. “Remind yourself of what you do not know. Do not accept your mind’s attempts to insist otherwise. When you truly realize how complex all this is,” he opens his hands out to the sides, “It seems trivial to not also realize how impossible understanding it is.”
Red frowns slightly as he grapples with such a fundamentally different ideology. Sure, the world is complex, from the mind boggling vastness of space to the alien world of subatomic particles, but impossible to understand? No. There’s humility, and then there’s surrendering to ignorance, and he can’t accept that. It’s not a conscious choice; he just knows it, as surely as he knows his name.
But a scientist should be willing to embrace uncertainty, so maybe he can reach some understanding of the same “fundamental humility,” with effort.
“I’ll consider that,” Red says after a moment, and bows. “Thank you for your time, and patience with me.”
Jason bows back. “Thank you for your vulnerability, and your trust.”
Red stays on the roof after and watches the sun set over Mt. Silver, thinking about what he experienced and the goal he set out to accomplish. He isn’t sure if he made a friend, but it feels like progress at least. Now he should try talking to Rowan too, or get to work on Sabrina’s assignment.
Instead his mind keeps turning back to what Jason said. The medium seemed so certain that they can’t understand anything, and it bothers him the more he thinks of it.
Part of him wants to go back down to his apartment and knock on Jason’s door, show him, like, a simple algebra equation, or do some basic physics experiment.
He doesn’t understand why it’s so important to him that Jason see the flaw in his perspective, as stated at least. Maybe it’s more nuanced in his head, but Red can’t help feeling that the older boy is wrong and needs to know
why
, even if in the meantime…
…in the meantime, he can interact with Ghost pokemon without surrealism while Red can’t. And he was able to argue against his own ideas, so he’s clearly not lacking basic reasoning abilities either. So whose perspective is actually more useful? Or maybe both are useful in their own ways…
Remind yourself of what you do not know. Do not accept your mind’s attempts to insist otherwise…
He sees the wisdom in that, so maybe it’s not as far a step from recognizing the value of humility to what Jason has accomplished, without quite swinging as far on the actual epistemics.
Red watches the last sliver of gold light fade behind the mountain, and twilight cloaks the city. He shivers at the sudden chill, and abruptly feels sure that there’s a gastly behind him. Floating toward him, ready to envelop his head, ready to open its mouth and bring out that “tongue”—
Red spins and sees nothing but the empty rooftop, and lets out his breath in something more than a sigh. Great, now he’s going to be jumpy about that for a while too…
“Red?”
Red yelps as he spins to find Tatsumaki on the roof with an abra. She withdraws her pokemon and steps off the teleporting platform, frowning at him. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” he says, breathing deep to slow his racing heart. “I just… met my first Ghost pokemon and… I guess it left an impression.”
“Yeah, they’ll do that.” She looks around. “It wasn’t a wild was it?”
“No, Jason’s. I wanted to know what it was like.”
“Good to get it out of the way in a safe way I guess.” She sticks her hands in the pockets of her collared dress. “So, got any ideas about sensei’s assignment yet?”
Red hesitates. “We’re not supposed to discuss it yet…”
“Whatever,” she says with a roll of her eyes, and heads for the door.
Red stares after her a moment, then blinks. “Wait! If you want, we can talk about other things—”
“Nope,” she says, and mentally opens the door ahead of her, then swings it shut after passing through.
Red sighs and heads for the door himself. He doesn’t know if he should have just said yes, but he’ll have to have something better before he tries befriending her again.
A quick check confirms that Rowan is still messing with his partitions. Red is fairly confident Rowan will have one of the more promising ideas in the meeting tomorrow. He wonders if Rowan himself feels any pressure over that expectation.
Daniel still isn’t back, so Red goes to his room, sits at his desk, and takes out his notebook so he can try to decipher the problem again.
Brains. Minds. Hiding thoughts and emotions under others.
How?
Red stares at the paper, rapidly tapping both ends of his pencil against the desk as he shifts it between his fingers.
Don’t spend resources searching for an answer until you’re justifiably confident you understand the question.
It seems trivial to not also realize how impossible understanding it is.
Red wonders what Jason would say to Leader Giovanni. What the Leader would say to
him
. When it comes to the mind, it’s true enough that currently there’s no real understanding it. Red isn’t going to solve the question of consciousness in (he checks the time) five hours. But he could at least check how confident he should be that he understands the question.
Red’s pencil moves to the page. He’ll start with what he knows…
Thoughts are patterns of neurons firing in a specific order and shape. Feelings are experiences… of physical sensation…
His pencil slows as he frowns. What are emotions, really? He could write something down, something that sounds right, like
emotions are certain neurotransmitters and the felt effects they have on the body
, but is that a useful definition? How does psychic power hide or sense neurotransmitters, let alone the feelings associated with particularly complex emotions?
He realizes that if he’s satisfied with that answer, he would just be “accepting his mind’s attempt to insist he understands something he doesn’t,” and decides to drill down to basics.
What is a brain? A collection of billions of neurons, tens of billions, which encode sensory experiences and process thoughts and send commands through the nervous system by chemicals and electrical impulses.
Where do the impulses come from?
He doesn’t know.
Are all emotions from neurotransmitters, or are some purely in the brain, if that even makes sense?
Maybe it doesn’t. Especially since he just thought of another problem, maybe more fundamental…
What is a mind? A self-reflective emergent property of the processes of the brain, which experiences feelings and memories and desires as fuzzy, indistinct things that are somehow independent of the absoluteness of the brain. (Why are minds so fuzzy?) There’s some inherent disconnect between what the mind is aware of and what the brain does and stores. Optical illusions are strong examples of this, as is the idea of a subconscious, or waking from a dream with just an emotional reaction but no memory of what happened… Self-awareness likely comes somewhere between the top-down predictions that are being made constantly but that we’re unaware of and the bottom-up observations of reality…
Red stops and puts his pencil down, staring at the sheet a moment.
Sure, brains are probably the most complex thing in the universe, and may be the only thing literally impossible to understand given that the thing it’s trying to fully understand is itself, and if it were good enough to do that it would just become even more complex.
But Red would have guessed he could have answered more about brains if asked. Now all he can think of are irrelevant factors that don’t actually explain how it works…
…and he suddenly feels an inkling of something different, in his mind. A new track being laid, maybe even the start of a new perspective. He’d thought of space as mind bogglingly vast before, but really, everything is so complex that it boggles his mind to think about them in sufficient detail.
Is this what Jason meant? Is he touching the same frame of mind, at least a little?
Red flips to a new page and decides to try testing what he really understands about something basic. Not math basic, but… well, maybe, actually, especially if even basic things are mysteries to him when he looks deep enough.
What’s a comparison to what Sabrina’s asked them to do that’s not about psychic phenomena? Some other “impossible” problem, like… if someone told him there was a plant that grows without water, and asked him to figure out how, would he be able to? He’s not even sure how bizarre that might be compared to the perfect shield, but whatever, he’ll try it.
What does he actually know about what plants need to grow? He could say “photosynthesis” and haltingly describe how light contains energy (is energy) and certain wavelengths can be harnessed by certain plant cells, all wavelengths but green, actually… wait, do flower petals do photosynthesis? Doesn’t matter, so without nutrients from water, plants get some from light… wait, nutrients? Is that right? How would light have nutrients in it, nutrients are just a word that means the useful molecules and atoms for a certain life form. That stuff must be gotten from soil… but there are some plants that grow in water and off sunlight… is there carbon in water? No wait, duh, the air, they get carbon from the air… somehow… okay he just realized he has no idea how plants breathe, and again, what’s the light for? Energy? Instead of using sugar, their cells absorb energy from lightwaves and use it to extract and repurpose the nutrients (useful molecules) they need from the air, water, and maybe ground?
That… sounds right. So a plant that grows without water must be getting enough of the nutrients they need from the air and maybe ground. If there are absolutely fundamental nutrients in water, then maybe there’s a lot of moisture in the air and that’s how they get it. If the question is specifying there’s no moisture around at all then he would say that… the plant must somehow be able to build itself from other materials besides the ones normal plants need from water.
After a minute of thought, he nods. That would be his hypothesis. Maybe it wouldn’t even
be
a plant, anatomically, maybe it would just look like one, or be some unique cross between a plant and fungus, or something. Of course, his understanding of how plants work could be flawed in some way. It’s been a while since he learned plant biology, and if he’s wrong in any single belief, then the whole hypothesis could be way off, might not even make any sense.
He realizes that the moment before has passed. He’s no longer as uncertain about what he knows, and the idea of the world itself as bizarre and unknowable has faded somewhat as he feels more like, as little as he understands, there’s still a way to understand, a path that he could follow.
But maybe that’s an illusion too, of sorts, if he keeps “boggling” at things enough to get down to the atomic and subatomic level, where reality seems to genuinely stop making sense to brains that evolved on such a different scale.
Red smiles slightly and turns the page to start again with something else. He’s not sure if he’s on the right track to the exact mental state Jason lives in, but he’s glimpsed what might be a lens of his own, and that’s worth pursuing too.
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At first, all he feels is overwhelming hunger in the pit of his stomach, gnawing and burning and growing to encompass his whole being. He feels weakness next, a lethargy that makes him struggle to wake, struggle to open his heavy lids as the temperature grows, heating his skin like he’s a foot away from a bonfire.
He opens his eyes to see his bedroom lit by pale blue flames. The lampent hangs over his prone form, a fixed point in the universe that makes Red feel insubstantial and unreal, an intruder in its dreamworld rather it a part of his.
Because it is a dream, he’s sure of that. It must be, even if he feels his heart pounding, even if his stomach is cramping with hunger, even if his sweat is soaking through his sheets, because the only way this could really happen is if Jason wants to hurt him, and they just started becoming friends, and even terrified and hungry, Red can compare how likely each reality state is and conclude that a dream is more probable.
Or maybe he just wants that to be true, because the alternative would somehow hurt more.
But it’s still a huge relief when Red gasps awake to the chime of his phone receiving a message, his eyes dart around his totally normal room, dimly lit by the warm sunlight streaming in through the shades and the electric glow of his phone..
He rolls over to dry the cold sweat from his face against his pillow, then reaches out and pulls the phone toward him.
The message was Rei letting everyone know to bring their phone or a laptop to their breakfast meeting. Red waits for his heartbeat to slow before he forces himself out of bed to shower. Now that he’s not stuck in the nightmare he can remember that they’re a common symptom of exposure to ghosts too, and he resolves to ask Jason if there’s still some residue from his encounter only if he has another nightmare tomorrow. To keep himself from lingering over it, he focuses on the upcoming meeting.
This is his chance to really push for the idea he came up with last night. He spent almost two hours “boggling” over what minds are and how they work, occasionally stopping to look into some facts and research some theories until he formed a hypothesis that might explain the perfect shield with all the information he has in mind.
The ability to lie without detection could have something to do with partitions or some unique development of mental shields, but when Red followed his confusion down to its central kernel, it led him, as ever, to pokemon biology.
In this case, specifically the way pokemon with multiple brains think and feel and experience the world. Perhaps because of his own internal struggle with Past Red, there’s a sense that understanding that might be the key to both integrating his partitioned self and developing the perfect shield.
All he has to do is convince the others to let him work on it… or better yet, get someone else to help. A difficult task when at least half of the other six students are open about their lack for respect for him.
His moderate success with Jason aside, he can’t help but feel like the lack of regard from his peers is well earned. He doesn’t feel as impressive as them, and he wonders as he turns the shower off and starts to dry himself whether he would have accepted Sabrina’s invitation if he and Blue hadn’t fought. He still remembers what he decided on the SS Anne only to change his mind after his argument with Leaf. Maybe he really did come here too early.
The thought is so depressing that he quickly checks to see if his partition is still up and working. Confirming that it is doesn’t particularly cheer him.
He pulls his clothes on and makes his way down to the building’s third floor, which divides the upper apartments where the students live from the lower ones that serve as public meeting spaces and classrooms, then enters the kitchen to find most of Sabrina’s students already sitting around the large kitchen table or moving among the kitchen counters and cabinets fetching yogurt, cereal, fruit, and other breakfast staples.
He’s briefly distracted by the sight of Tatsumaki floating nuts and berries in an orbit around her head and into her mouth as both hands type on her phone, then goes to one of the fridges and starts pulling out food. They can each buy their own food to stock the cafeteria with, but generic groceries also show up courtesy of the money they make by teaching classes, which is also what covers their rent. This means that, though in some indirect way it is his effort that’s paying for it, he’s not actually purchasing the food that shows up in the fridge, which means Red can eat any unclaimed meat in it (mostly) guilt free.
He’s still layering bacon on his cream cheese, hummus, and guacamole bagel when the last student files in. Satori takes a look around as her torracat walks between her legs, then goes to the fridge to pull out a fruit salad for herself and a can of fish for her pokemon.
“Thank you all for coming,” Rei says as soon as the last of them is sitting at the table. Her own breakfast consists of a fruit smoothie, which she holds in one hand as the other taps at her laptop keyboard. “I hope you’ve all managed to spend some time thinking over the puzzle Sabrina has charged us with solving. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?” She looks around at everyone busy eating. “Great. I’ve prepared a document for us to use to share ideas and suggestions on how to proceed. Please follow the link I’m sending now.”
Red takes a big bite, then pulls his phone out as it vibrates and opens it one handed so he can click through to the shared document as he chews. It already has half a page filled out:
Rei
Hypothesis 1: Sufficient focus on projecting a false emotion or thought while shielding could result in others sensing something that feels real to untrained psychics.
Test 1: Psychic with best projection ability should practice projecting while shielding.
Test 2: Everyone else practices projecting false emotions/thoughts.
Hypothesis 2: Projecting multiple sincere things at once at varying intensity may allow someone to hide emotions and thoughts in plain sight.
Test 1: Everyone should practice expanding their projection abilities to see if others will eventually be unable to process everything they feel.
Hypothesis 3: If others are within range, it’s possible to “relay” something being sensed from someone else in a projection that feels genuine.
Test 1: Chain of 3-4 psychics take turns projecting and reading others at the same time.
Test 2: Psychic being read “assists” psychic projecting.
New words start forming as everyone else begins typing into the common document:
Daniel
With enough understanding of how mental shields or partitions work, the psychic might be able to only let certain emotions or thoughts through. We should
Jason
We don’t know the circumstances, but I’ve wondered before whether an unscrupulous medium could
Satori
Psychic may have unique dark/psychic brain like Inkay line.
A sudden paragraph from Rowan all at once, who clearly already had his thoughts typed out:
Rowan
The psychic may have switched between partitions that split their thoughts entirely from themselves. We don’t know how exactly this was discovered; maybe they induced amnesia to forget something, raised a partition around the emotion of not wanting to forget things, were asked a question about it, answered it honestly, then lowered the partition, which motivated them to remove the amnesia. Did some practice with this, think it may be possible. We should practice doing this and testing what we come up with to see if it would work.
Red has to force himself to stop reading their thoughts and start typing his own. He takes his notebook out and flips it open, then begins summarizing.
Red
Hypothesis: Psychic adapted this ability from a pokemon who has multiple minds.
Plan: Learn more about how pokemon with more than one brain process disparate information and resolve potential disagreements. Separate minds = separate trains of thought? Contradictory thoughts?
“Tatsumaki?” Rei asks, and Red looks up to see Rei watching the green haired girl. Red checks the document and notices she hasn’t written anything yet, despite still being on her phone.
“Got nothing,” the telekinetic says with a shrug, still orbiting food into her mouth every few seconds. “Not where my specialty lies.”
Rei doesn’t seem satisfied with that, but looks back at her screen without comment. He takes another bite of food, savoring the mix of flavors before he goes back to writing.
Test 1) Merge with doduo’s two minds at once, see if multithreading possible.
Red tries to think of what else to write, and gets distracted as one of the nuts floating around Tatsumaki jerks out of orbit and starts bobbing through the air toward Daniel. Tatsumaki frowns in concentration without looking up, and the nut stops and vibrates between them, twitching back and forth, before it suddenly flies at Daniel, only to stop at the last second right in front of his mouth for him to eat.
“Alright, it looks like everyone has written their ideas out,” Rei says, and Red quickly writes out his second test as Rei keeps speaking:
Test 2) Try to merge with separate seeds in exeggcute and figure out how single mind forms?
“…should discuss each, and choose which one to focus our attention on.”
Red feels his heart sink. This is what he was worried would happen; he doesn’t find it too likely that others would agree to work on his idea, but more importantly they shouldn’t all commit themselves to any single idea.
“Satori, would you like to expand on yours first?” Rei asks. Red checks and sees that she had stopped after a single line.
The girl shrugs, not looking up from her bowl as she spears each piece of fruit and chews. “Pretty simple. Think the psychic might be unique. Chimera between dark and psychic parents. Sensei can look into it.”
“What’s a chimera?” Jason asks.
“Mythical pokemon that are combinations of different species,” Red says. “Like, a pyroar’s head on a gogoat’s body with a seviper for a tail.”
“And that’s… possible, for people?”
“Fraternal twins that merge in the uterus,” Satori explains before sticking a piece of melon into her mouth.
Jason blinks, and Red imagines his own expression looks a lot like the medium’s. “What?”
“Wait, back up a step.” Tatsumaki says as she turns to Jason, tone playful. “You know where babies come from, right?”
“I’m a medium, not a monk,” he says, smiling slightly.
“Does that actually happen?” Daniel asks, tone skeptical.
Satori glances up, sees everyone looking at her, and looks down at her fruit again, fidgeting. “Yes. Very rarely.”
“‘When the absorption is incomplete, this results in the child having both complete sets of genes,'” Red reads from his phone, fascinated. “‘Which often results in patches of different colored skin, eyes of two different colors, and if the twins are of different genders…’ Oh.” Red minimizes the page, cheeks flushed.
“So what probability would you assign this particular circumstance?” Rei says, and Red can tell she’s fascinated and skeptical too, even as she tries to regain control of the conversation.
“Low. Dark and Psychic parents are rare, traits are mostly maternal.” Satori shrugs. “Might not be possible. Just an idea.”
“So we probably shouldn’t waste time on it,” Daniel concludes.
“But it
is
a good idea,” Red jumps in, looking at Satori. “It’s just not something we can test. I can do some research on the potential genetics involved, if you want, and we can present the idea to Sabrina when she’s back?”
Satori looks up at him briefly, then nods as she returns to her food.
“Thank you, Red,” Rei says, and types
Red – Research on own time
in red letters beside Satori’s idea. “Next let’s—”
“Hang on,” Red says. “I think… I want to make sure, before we discuss the others, that we’re going about this with the right attitude.”
Rei’s brow rises slightly, but she opens a palm in invitation to continue, and Red nods, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. “My mentor at Pallet Labs, Dr. Madi, liked to tell a story about a group of five biochemists were tasked with creating a solvent for different pokemon webbings,” Red says. “They worked together to come up with hypotheses based on each one’s chemical makeup, from caterpie to galvantula, and tried formulating each solvent along the way. A month later they had found only two of them. One of the researchers was married to an engineer, and they vented their frustration over dinner.”
Everyone is more obviously paying attention now, even Satori’s phone is leaning against the table, and he considers asking them if they can guess what the engineer did before squashing that impulse. Not the time to mimic his teachers. “So the engineer decided to fill dozens of bowls with every liquid they could think of, then put samples in each to see which ones dissolve at all. Once they found one, it became much easier to isolate the chemicals that would have a reaction.”
“So you’re saying everyone should just pursue their own ideas?” Tatsumaki asks.
“Nah,” Daniel says. “He’s saying we should just get to experiments, not spend too much time thinking about what might be true.”
“Kind of both?” Red jumps in. “I think we should all come up with something testable for our ideas, like Rei and I did, and give each a try rather than committing to just one that everyone works on.”
“Not all of these can be proven with a single experiment,” Rowan says.
“They don’t have to be proven,” Red says, and has to resist the urge to explain how science works to a room mostly full of people who either already know or don’t care. He briefly wonders if he would have had the foresight to recognize that a few months ago. “Even something small that might falsify them would be a better filter to narrow down ideas of what to spend more time on. If they show promise, we keep going in that direction, but if not we table that hypothesis and focus on the others.”
Daniel shakes his head. “It would take a lot of time to even give
that
an honest attempt. Just look at your idea; even Satori takes days to fully merge with a pokemon.”
“And some of these ideas require multiple people to test them,” Rei adds. “Your analogy is well taken, Red, but we shouldn’t split our efforts entirely. I’d like to return to considering each idea as a group, and we can at least decide which are worth pursuing to a first stage test?”
Red hesitates, unsure if he should try challenging her again. No one else is speaking up, so after a moment he nods with a sinking feeling.
“Daniel, it looks like your idea is similar to Rowan’s. Do you want to go before him?”
“Sure. I know we’ve already been trying to figure this stuff out, but knowing something is possible changes things. I spent most of last night talking to Tetsuo about shields and how specific he can get with them. If there’s a way to just shield part of your thoughts, a sort of quasi-partition if you will, then that seems like it would do the trick all on its own.”
“Agreed, it makes sense as an avenue to explore.” Rei highlights his idea in the document. “Rowan?”
“Seems pretty self-explanatory. I’m probably the one with the best chance at figuring it out, if this is the way to do it, but if anyone else thinks it’s worth trying, go for it.” He glances at Red.
Red opens his mouth, then closes it. He does actually find Rowan’s idea interesting, but he’s avoided experimenting with new partitions while he’s still having so much trouble with his current one. Explaining that to Rowan led to a similar loss of interest from the older student as Tatsumaki learning that he can’t use telekinesis.
“So long as you don’t need anyone else,” Rei says, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t pursue the idea. But we may need you to test other hypotheses as well.”
The young man shrugs. “Anyone’s welcome to ask, and I’ll help out if I’m free.”
Red sees Tatsumaki roll her eyes and Daniel glance at Rei with a brow raised, but the blonde doesn’t argue the point, merely pursing her lips and writing his name next to his idea. Red wonders if she’s not pushing the matter because she doesn’t think it’s worth the argument or expenditure of social capital, or if she’s just glad for the excuse not to work with him.
“Jason?”
He starts to fiddle with his necklace. “My idea is obvious, given where my skills fall. It’s dependent on certain factors that should be easy enough to check once Leader Sabrina returns, but there are stories of mediums who do not cleanse the influence of Ghosts on the soul, but rather manipulate and channel it.”
“Is that something you’ve tried yourself?” Daniel asks, sounding skeptical.
“No, nor do I intend to.”
It takes a moment for people to understand the implication. Jason bears the surprised looks from around the table with a calm expression, though his fingers continue to move over the prayer beads at his neck.
Red is the first to speak. “Because you consider it wrong, or dangerous?”
“Both.”
Rei is frowning slightly. “Setting aside any modesty, my understanding is that you’re one of the most skilled mediums in the Indigo League. If it’s too dangerous for
you
…”
“We still don’t know who
sensei
was referring to,” Tatsumaki reminds her. “For all we know it was Leader Morty, or—”
“Leader Matsuba is an honorable person,” Jason says, calm but firm. “And I did not mean dangerous in the sense you are thinking. You fear the axe to the tree, not the poisoning of the water.”
There’s another moment as the room absorbs that. “You’re talking about morally dangerous?” Daniel guesses, and Jason’s brow creases, but he doesn’t deny it. “Usually that’s covered under ‘wrong.'”
Red can see the frustration on Jason’s face as he tries to explain. “It is more… spiritually dangerous. An eroding of moral safeguards.” He looks around as if seeking understanding, and Red wishes he could support him, but he doesn’t get it either.
“Seems oddly specific to have a religious tenet against imitating the effects of surrealism to fool a psychic reading their thoughts,” Rowan says, not bothering to hide his skepticism. Daniel covers a snort by clearing his throat. “But if that’s written somewhere, that might indicate some precedence…”
“It is not,” Jason says, still clearly frustrated. “It is a personal belief. I have no intention of learning something that could cause such impure thoughts.”
Red suddenly thinks of the cleansing ritual, and it clicks. “Oh! I think I get it,” he says, and everyone turns to him. “Stealing is morally ‘wrong,’ while learning how to better steal is ‘
dangerous.’
It may not be wrong itself, but it is a moral danger.”
Jason smiles and nods, and Red smiles back. He’s glad he was able to help clear the communication gap, not least of which because it resolved his own frustration. The table is quiet a moment, and eventually Rei says, “But this is what
sensei
tasked us to do. If there is a chance that this is the route to the perfect shield, we must explore it.”
“Plus, if someone out there is doing it, knowing for sure and learning how could help us find a way to pierce it,” Daniel suggests, and Red remembers what Sabrina told him about psychic defense and offense being a continuous arms race.
Jason is quiet a moment, then says, “I can assist others in trying to learn it, if they believe it is necessary. I simply will not perform the experiments myself if it may result in me learning it.” His voice is firm enough that no one attempts to further persuade him, and after a moment Rei starts typing.
“Let’s skip that one for now, then, unless we think of a way one of us can test it.” She finishes typing the note next to his idea, then starts scrolling down the page, and when Red realizes that the two of their ideas are the only ones left his pulse speeds up. He doesn’t spot a trap so much as intuit that there is one; Rei is running this meeting very deliberately, and from last night’s conversation Red knows that she not only doesn’t particularly like or trust him, she thought Sabrina might suspect him as having the perfect shield.
If he were in her position… He would keep him from directing plans or research efforts, thinking that his idea would just waste time. And of course she would want her own ideas to get as much attention as possible, but he can’t tell what her strategy is. There are probably psychological biases at work here, something like anchoring or the peak-end rule, but he doesn’t know enough to tell how robust or applicable the research on them are, or how they might apply to Red’s idea going before or after all of hers.
The best he can figure, Rei has three hypotheses opposed to everyone else’s one, and each is detailed, so if she goes last they would probably end up spending more time on her ideas than everyone else’s put together, plus they would be ending on them, which could make her ideas feel more present when it comes time to decide how to assign them…
“Care to go next, Red?” Rei asks without looking at him.
And there it is. He can’t be sure she’s actually trying to be cunning, but one of the few things Red learned from pokemon battling that might be generalizable is not to let an opponent set the tempo of the match. He doesn’t have to know why she wants something to benefit from not letting her have it.
“Actually, do you mind if I go last?”
Rei meets his gaze for a moment, and Red just looks back, unsure if he would or should need to justify himself. After a moment though she just nods and scrolls back up on her laptop.
“As you wish. My first idea is the most straightforward, and too obvious to ignore. I’ve certainly never tried projecting something through my own shield.” She looks around. “Has anyone else?”
Everyone shakes their heads or stays silent, and Red wonders if others are trying it now, like him. It feels strange, like grabbing his own wrists and pulling in opposite directions, or, no, more like biting into his bagel and trying to convince himself it’s chocolate cake.
“Who’s the strongest projector among us?” Jason asks.
Everyone glances at each other until Daniel shrugs and flips his hand up. “I’ll take that title, I guess. We should probably test it to be sure, but I wouldn’t mind working on that.”
“We’ll see. If you can do it on your own time, you may be needed for another idea.” Rei writes his name next to it, but leaves off on specifying anything further. “The next is about, in essence, practicing double-think. Maybe a better way to put it is to hide signal in noise by holding such a wide scope of emotions and thoughts at once that some are hard to pick up in the mix. Would you take it, Tatsu?”
“Why?” Tatsumaki asks. “Not my specialty, and I don’t think it would work anyway. Hiding an emotion in a projection isn’t like hiding sugar in salt, if it’s there it’s because you feel it, and if you feel it they will too.”
“Don’t know if that analogy works,” Rowan comments. “I could see someone mixing just enough sugar in salt that it changes the taste, but not obviously enough that someone tasting it could identify how.”
She gives him a look. “I meant visually.”
“Then you should’ve said so, shouldn’t you?”
Tatsumaki mentally flicks one of her orbiting berries at him, which he stops midair. Five more quickly follow, and he’s forced to use his hands to block all but one, which bounces off his forehead. As always, Red watches these displays with a mix of wonder and envy. He wonders if either feeling will ever fade, especially if he never develops telekinesis of his own.
“Can we focus, please?” Rei asks, and the wobbling berries (which have been crushed by the opposing forces affecting them) suddenly shoot toward Tatsumaki for a moment before stopping in front of her.
“My deepest apologies,
senpai,
” Tatsumaki says as she guides the crushed berries into her mouth.
Her mocking tone doesn’t seem to bother Rei. “I believe the same multitasking skills that assist in your telekinesis might allow you to hold multiple emotions at once until some become nearly subconscious.” She shrugs. “Of all of us I believe you have the best chance to accomplish this, but if you don’t think it will work then perhaps I should take it.”
“What, you think I won’t give it my all just because I’m skeptical?”
“Yes,” Rei says, serenely unapologetic.
The green haired girl narrows her eyes at Rei, still chewing her berries. “For the record I see what you’re doing, but fine, I’ll take it.”
Rei nods and types Tatsumaki’s name next to her second idea. “My last hypothesis is that it may be possible for a psychic to project other people’s emotions, acting as a sort of mirror redirecting light.” Rei looks around the table. “Has anyone tried this one?”
“Red?” Jason asks, and they all turn to him. “Have you ever attempted to project a mental state you’ve copied to someone else?”
“No,” Red says. “But honestly, I don’t know if that part is necessary.” Part of him is worried that he’s going to be tasked with trying this idea out too, now that he’s set himself up as so helpful, but it
is
a good idea. Theoretically speaking, modeling someone else’s mental state should fool a psychic; it’s part of why he was interested in mimicking the one Leaf used to keep the abra from teleporting away, and he’s embarrassed he didn’t think of it himself. “If the psychic in question can copy mental states well enough themselves, they might not need a co-conspirator to fool someone merged with them.”
“Wouldn’t they need someone who knows what the right mental state would be?” Rei asks.
“Not… really…?” Red frowns, trying to think through the possible circumstances. “It’s hard to tell without knowing more about how the psychic is interacting with other psychics, and how deep the merger is.”
“You mean like if they’re meeting at a pokemon center, they can cover their thoughts by mimicking those of someone standing nearby with an innocuous mental state they can copy,” Daniel says. “But that would only work if the psychic observing them is doing it passively. Like, checking if they plan to rob the place. If they’re asking questions, the mood and thought content would be a blatant mismatch.”
“Maybe it’s possible to just mimic a mood?” Rowan asks “Like partitioning, someone asks you if you’re angry about something, and you copy just the sense of calm from someone nearby as you say you’re not. Even if the psychic is doing a full merge, they might not notice that the mood doesn’t belong to them, and the lie itself might not even spark any dissonance.”
Rei nods. “Does anyone disagree that this is worth pursuing?”
The room is silent, and Red knows what’s coming next… but to his surprise, Rei highlights it without asking him to work on it, and turns to Red expectantly. “Last but not least.”
Red smiles distractedly as he prepares his thoughts. Now is his chance to sell his idea, hopefully even get some of them to help—
“This one seems the least likely,” Daniel says, frowning at his phone screen. “No offense, Red, but even if we assume you can learn actual psychic abilities from pokemon, which need I remind you no one has done before, it would at least have to be something other pokemon could
do.
Are there any pokemon besides Dark types that can hide what they’re thinking or feeling?”
Red blinks, taken off guard by the first preemptive challenge to an idea, then mentally flips to the notebook page where he wrote out the counter arguments to his idea, trying to decide which question to answer first. “Well, for learning abilities from pokemon I’ve been able to tell if people are sleepy or not from merging with my drowzee, and—”
Daniel waves this off. “I mean real abilities, something unique, not things others can learn to do in other ways.”
“But that might be a matter of power,” Red says. “If psychic pokemon are just stronger than us—”
“We’ve talked about this,” Daniel says, like their talk was in any way conclusive. “There are few if any abilities besides
maybe
teleportation that are exclusive to Psychic pokemon, there’s nothing special about their psychic abilities, they’re just another type of pokemon with inhuman powers.”
“You’re drawing an arbitrary distinction between—”
“It’s not arbi—”
“Can I
please
finish a sentence?” Red asks, louder than he intended. Daniel’s brow rises, and he leans back in his chair, holding his hands up as if to say
fine, fine
.
Red takes a moment to calm himself, frustrated and hurt by the older boy’s aggressiveness, and what’s worse, the others’ silence. It’s so unfair, no one reacted like this to anyone else’s ideas, and everyone’s acting like this is normal…
He focuses on the sensation of his breaths, and lets his worry that he’s taking too long go as he breathes out. A second breath to let go of his fear of judgement. A third to… nope, the fear of judgement is back, and so he lets that go again, telling himself that if he comes out of this calmer he’d get more respect than if he’s still agitated. A fourth breath to let his mind wander back to his notebook and what he wrote there when preparing for rebuttals.
“So first, the idea of whether pokemon do things like this…” Red’s glad that his voice only sounds a little off. “Obviously we can’t know if they do or not. Most of our interactions with pokemon are after they’re caught and conditioned to be friendly and follow our commands. Very few people study wild pokemon behavior, and as far as I could tell only two of them were psychics. There’s just no way to know if this is something pokemon are capable of, psychic or otherwise.
“Second, we don’t know if this would even be considered a ‘real ability.’ It might be something like a Light Screen, which even our best telekinetics can’t do, or it might be something like Amnesia, which almost every psychic eventually can.”
“There’s a scary thought,” Jason murmurs, then gives Red an apologetic look. He doesn’t mind the interruption though, it wasn’t a challenge and Jason at least waited until he finished speaking. He holds an open hand out, and Jason shakes his head. “No, sorry, it would derail the conversation. There will be time to talk about implications after we know if it’s even possible.”
“You listed both psychic and non-psychic pokemon,” Rei says. “What makes you think a doduo would be relevant? Does merging with them cause some similar effect?”
“I actually don’t know,” Red admits. “Before last night I was curious, but since they’re not psychic merging with them hasn’t been a priority. I couldn’t merge with both minds when I tried.”
He looks at Satori, curious to see if she has, and one by one the others do too. “It’s possible,” she says, fidgeting at the attention. “Same sensorium, distinct minds.”
“And from what I read, pokeball conditioning reduces disagreements,” Red adds. “But in the wild each mind is even more distinct. I thought that might be useful to study in relation to potential partitions, but since Rowan will be covering that already, I would focus mostly on exeggcute. I looked into it, and we have very little comparative understanding of how their minds work. Each seed has a distinct brain, but is barely sentient on its own, like a magnemite, just reacting to its environment. It only reaches intelligence similar to other pokemon when they each merge with each other, but losing a seed results in a loss of knowledge and memory. Last night I read that the team of neuroscientists and coders that enabled simulations to work on multi-brain pokemon spent more time on exeggcute than every other one put together.” He forwards the article to each of them, causing a series of chimes and buzzes around the table. “What if there’s something about the way the different minds interact and divide up functions that we could mimic?”
The table is quiet a moment, and Red braces himself. He doesn’t have to wait long before Daniel begins as if there hadn’t been any interruption to his earlier challenge.
“Another problem with this idea is that psychics have been merging with pokemon since forever. Wouldn’t we have known about this by now, if that’s what allowed it?”
“Exeggcute are difficult,” Satori says before Red can. “Hivemind. Risk of losing self, or dominating the clutch. It’s why Sabrina rarely uses them.”
“Plus,” Tatsumaki adds,”The whole idea of a perfect liar is that, you know, they
wouldn’t
be found out. We don’t know the circumstances that allowed whoever it was to come under suspicion.”
Red feels a swell of gratitude toward them, even if they’re not directly supporting the hypothesis itself. “Also, there
are
historical rumors of psychics ‘so powerful’ they can lie to other psychics. I don’t put much stock in them, most also get attributed other fantastic feats like speaking with the dead or levitating themselves, but… I mean if a human psychic started flying, those stories would suddenly warrant a bit less skepticism.”
The table is silent for a bit, and Red barely tastes his bagel as he finishes it, waiting for someone else to object. His gaze jumps to Rei as she stirs.
“What you propose sounds like cultivating the formation of another mind,” Rei says, “I’m wary this task would risk mental unhealth.”
Ouch
. He wouldn’t take the implication so personally if she hadn’t already mentioned how much she dislikes his use of partition.
“A valid fear for the ungifted, perhaps,” Rowan says while Red is still considering his own response. “But are we not striving to become masters of our own minds? This sounds like a worthy challenge for those of our ability.”
Rei meets Rowan’s gaze. “I’m trying to be cautious, as anyone should when sailing uncharted waters.”
“If anyone feels uncomfortable attempting it,” Red cuts in. “They wouldn’t be forced to, of course.” It would be difficult working on it alone, but he will if he has to.
The table is silent for nearly a minute as everyone looks around, and finally Rei nods. “With no other comments, I believe we’ve finished what I’ll call our first evaluation round.” To Red’s relief, she highlights his idea. “As it stands, Rowan will be pursuing the use of partitions, Tatsumaki will be trying to drown signal in noise, and Daniel will be trying to project through a shield. That leaves four of us to either work on merging with pokemon that have multiple minds, or attempting to deceive through copied mental states.” She glances at Red. “It seems to me that the optimal division of labor would be for Satori and Jason to work on merging with pokemon, if they agree with that, while you and I work on mental states.”
Red blinks at her, unable to hide his surprise. He had been afraid that no one would want to work with him. Now Rei is offering to, despite what she said the night before…
…and all he has to do is let someone else take over his idea, while he works on hers with her.
It makes sense, and after a moment he realizes that he doesn’t
want
it to make sense. He can feel his brain struggling against the logic, looking for a way to make it not true, to allow himself to work on merging with pokemon and navigating multiple minds. Is it just because he wants to work on his project and better understand the idea of multiple minds? Or is he also struggling against the idea that he was unfairly judging her motives while running the meeting?
Once he realizes how dumb his brain is being, he forces himself to speak. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
Rei nods, and even smiles at him briefly before turning to Jason and Satori. “Objections?”
“No,” Jason says, while Satori shakes her head.
“Great.” Rei starts typing out the last assignments. “Does three days seem like a reasonable amount of time to meet again and see how we’ve progressed along each of our experiments?”
“I would request longer,” Satori says, which takes Red by surprise. After a moment he realizes he hadn’t expected her to care enough about his idea to actually give it a fair shot. She looks at Jason. “Unless three is enough?”
Jason is quiet a moment before saying, “I think I can do it in four.”
“Four, then,” Rei says, and closes her laptop. “Thank you all, and good luck. Red, would you mind staying a minute?”
Red nods as everyone else files out, Jason pausing to grab an orange from the fruit bowl on the way out. “What’s up?” he asks once they’re alone. “Do you want to start now?”
“Yes, but not yet.” She considers him a moment, and he senses one of her blunt statements coming a moment before it does. “I was wondering why you wanted to go last.”
Ah. He supposes they’ll be talking about this after all. He briefly considers making some excuse, like he just wasn’t ready to talk about his idea yet, but she chose to work with him, and he doesn’t want to lie for such a petty reason. “I just thought it might be easier to get people to want to work on my idea if it was last, instead of yours taking up the whole last part of the meeting.”
Her brow furrows briefly, and then she snorts quiet laughter. “I see. And here I was thinking that by saving my ideas for last, people would already be invested in the others.”
Red shifts slightly in his seat. “Ah.” He’s unsure whether that’s what the actual effect would have been, and more importantly, whether she’s being honest about her intentions, but he feels like an ass regardless. “I guess I must come off as pretty selfish…”
“I don’t know if I’d say that.” She folds her hands in a bridge below her chin, watching him. “I realized after your visit last night that the model of you that I had was incorrect. I assumed you were meek and reserved unless in an intellectual debate, but if that were true you would never have tackled a social problem head on like you did. Not particularly gracefully or skillfully, mind you, but with no harm done.”
Red feels his cheeks burning at the semi-compliment. “I have a friend who helped me to push past some social comfort zones, and also helped me realize my, ah… ‘hustle’ isn’t as good as it should be, for what I want to accomplish in life.”
“Well, today you ended up fighting for your own idea without letting your desires get in the way of the optimal strategy. Be sure to give yourself credit for that.” She gives a rare smile that’s full enough to show her teeth. “Do you have anything planned this afternoon?”
He’s still processing her comment, and it takes him a moment to answer. “No, my next class is tonight.”
“Then let’s meet at the cafe across the street so we can begin.”
Red stops at his room to get his shoes, then takes the stairs down to the bottom floor, leaping from the steps halfway down each flight. Yesterday he was worried that he would be largely ignored for this project, but his idea was given just as much consideration as anyone’s. He’d still prefer to be working on it himself, but the fact that the others are actually making an honest effort to test it really drives home how much his earlier worries seem to have been for nothing.
Of course, it’s not just relief that’s fueling his energetic movements. A mix of excitement and nerves sit uneasy with the bagel in his stomach as considers the fact that he’ll be spending extended time working with Sabrina’s most senior student. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself, of course, but he also has to make sure he doesn’t over-exert himself and erode the partition before nightfall. His lesson tonight is pretty basic, just some meditation techniques to novice psychics, but if Mopey Red takes over he might just stay in his room, or half-ass it.
The sun has just barely cleared the skyline to the east as he reaches the cafe and sits across from Rei beneath an umbrella’d table, where she’s typing on her laptop. He can see from the angle he approaches that she has one of those screens covering her monitor that blur anything on them when viewed from an angle. “Hey.”
“Hello. I’ve thought of some initial tests we can run. I’d like to use this opportunity to improve my own ability to mimic mental states in case the perfect shield requires a mix of skills that I can learn, but first let’s test the obvious.”
“Yeah, alright.” Red sits and scoots his chair forward, wiping sweaty palms on his pants. “What’s first?”
“Pick someone to merge with,” she says, throwing a careless hand to the side. “I’ll ask you a question about your mental state or mood, and you report theirs as if it’s yours while I’m merged with you. If it passes as an honest remark, I would consider that mild evidence that this sort of technique could be used to build a perfect shield.”
Red slowly nods, suppressing his discomfort with her cavalier approach to merging with strangers. He should have seen it coming, really, how else would they do this? Instead he just closes his eyes and sorts through the mental impressions his psydar pulses give of those around him, trying to find one that stands out. He eventually identifies a mind with a distinctly restless signature, its attention jumping from one thing to another, and merges with it to feel the man’s nervous impatience.
Red spreads his awareness throughout his body and mind, locking down each part of the mental state and then releasing the merge along with a breath. “Okay… I’ve got impatience. Copying…” He feels the butterfree fill his stomach again as he mimics the experience and makes it his own. “Go ahead.”
He feels Rei’s mind merge with his before she asks, “Are you waiting for something?”
“Yes,” Red says, foot bouncing beneath the table. “I think.”
“Waiting for someone?”
That feels more true. “Yes.”
Rei withdraws her mind, and Red releases the mental state and opens his eyes to see her shaking her head. “Both answers were detectably off. You’ll have to practice getting a better handle on what the specifics of the emotion are.”
Red frowns slightly, unsure that’s relevant but unwilling to argue it after just one test. “Alright.”
“I’ll try now.”
Red waits for her to find a mental state to use, then waits some more as she sits with her eyes closed, probably attempting to mimic it. By the end of their first lesson together it was clear that Rei is better than most at adopting the skill, on par with Sabrina. Daniel is swiftly catching up and may even surpass her soon, but this extra practice will likely keep them neck and neck. There’s a part of Red that worries about his value fading once the others learn his techniques, which in turn drives him to work hard to learn theirs and keep developing his abilities. At least so far no one has made any progress on copying his mental shield.
“Ready,” Rei says, voice a little… brighter, than usual. Red closes his eyes and brushes her mind, then merges with it and immediately shares in her flimsy, fragile joy.
He’s been told that merging with him while he’s imitating a mental state is incredibly difficult to differentiate from when he’s not, but the reverse is certainly not true. To Red, sharing Rei’s emotions while she imitates someone else’s is like looking at a picture of a rainbow with a bright yellow filter over the image. With just a bit of analysis he can recognize all the emotions underneath, and while some are blurred and blended by the false mental state, he can still adjust for that and guess what the confusing mess of feelings are meant to be, for the most part.
“Are you happy?” he asks, trying not to delve too deep into Rei’s real emotions, but he can’t help but feel them too; tension, anticipation, something like calculation, all in minor amounts around her primary sense of DETERMINATION. He doubts he would have been able to recognize so much before his time in Saffron.
“Yes,” Rei says, and a new emotion blends with the others. Not even an emotion, really… more a sense that gets implanted into Red’s awareness as simple as a flashing light in his face, a sense of
falseness
. Of
being
aware of misleading
or
aware of artifice,
and that feeling is connected to another related one that he wasn’t spending much time focusing on, but which now feels highlighted in some way…
And then her shield goes up, booting Red out of the merger. He must have gotten close to something private. Red opens his eyes to see Rei watching him. “No?” she guesses, and Red shakes his head. “How could you tell?”
“Well I could tell it wasn’t your real emotion, but even aside from that, some part of you was just so obviously aware that what you were saying wasn’t the truth. Maybe because I imagine it takes an enormous effort to maintain that overlay.”
Rei raises a brow, but accepts the compliment with a minor nod, perhaps because she recognizes his sincerity. “It does.”
“What about me? How does that feel?”
“It felt like your real emotion to me, but for both responses there was an added, almost contextual emotion of being deceptive.” She’s typing as she speaks, and purses her lips thoughtfully. “That might just be from you being a terrible liar.”
“You have no idea,” Red says, thinking of his attempt to cover up Pikachu’s unexpected evolution on the S.S. Anne.
She gives him a look he can’t quite decipher. “Something to work on, then.”
“You want me to work on becoming a better liar?”
“To solve this puzzle, yes. It’s possible this hypothetical psychic is just so naturally capable of deception that he simply deceives himself in the moment he’s speaking by modeling the mimicked mental state as his own. A lie isn’t a lie if the speaker believes it, after all. Ready to pick another?”
Red is still mulling her words over, and why they feel related to the flash of emotion he detected from her. She’s misleading him in some way. The question is whether it’s for an innocuous reason or not. Maybe he can learn more the next time they merge… “Yeah, one sec.” He closes his eyes and casts his thoughts about until he senses a mind flickering through intense emotions he can’t quite decipher. He merges with her and—
—
roiling anger, paralyzing indecision, beneath it all a twisted pain and self-loathing, despair pounding through him with every heartbeat—
“Red?”
He lets the merger go with a gasp, tears in his eyes as he reflexively looks in the direction of the mind. He sees a young woman with her hands balled up in her lap. She stares down at them with an absolutely desolated expression, and he wonders how she’s not already crying… but he felt that too, the sheer willpower going into her restraint not to lose control in public.
Rei turns to follow his line of sight, and Red suddenly wishes he didn’t look, didn’t reveal the girl to someone else. Rei may even now be merging with her mind to see what he felt, though there’s no physical reaction from her to indicate it if so. Maybe she’s skilled enough to recognize the emotions without a full merger.
This…
His imagination is in overdrive, providing not memories but extrapolated imagined circumstances from the emotional map of what she’s feeling, as if he can’t help but try to figure out what happened to make her feel that way. He’s glad he’s not a better psychic so that all he got were emotions rather than any images or thoughts, but the fact that he now knows this thing about her, incomplete as it is, bothers him…
This is wrong.
It also bothers him that it took this to remind him of that. He told Dr. Seward and Leaf that he’s worried about losing himself, and it’s not hard to imagine what Leaf or Blue or Aiko would think if he was doing this sort of thing regularly on their journey.
“Do you ever feel like this isn’t right?” Red asks, and Rei looks at him with blank curiosity. He waves a hand around. “This, the breach of privacy. If this were an actual scientific experiment, no ethics committee would allow us to do this.”
“Not particularly. People speak in public without knowing whether someone nearby has acute hearing, and everyone is aware that psychics exist in the world.”
“Hearing is passive, more akin to just sensing minds.” Which wasn’t before, of course; he remembers how much effort it used to take. But ever since he developed psydar it’s effectively automatic; he has only to wonder whether people are nearby or what someone is feeling and he’ll get a glimpse, though it still takes concentration to interpret what he senses most of the time. He imagines it’s much the same with other psychics who have been practicing longer. “But merging like this… it used to bother me more, before it got so easy to do myself.” He remembers how significant and important it had seemed when he signed the paper giving permission for Narud, but now that he’s in the world himself he can see the polite fiction for what it was.
“I don’t see what the alternative is,” Rei says, seeming puzzled. “Perhaps one in a hundred people could even notice that a psychic is merging with them, even if everyone is trained to defend against it. Any law that would try to restrict it is utterly unenforceable, and if people were aware of the degree to which we can sense them, and how often we do it…”
“I know.” It wouldn’t be as bad as if it got out that influencing people’s beliefs turns out to be possible, but it would still be pretty bad. “I’m not trying to make some sweeping normative judgement that everyone has to follow.” Mostly. “Just… It makes me uncomfortable, knowing such intimate things about people who have no idea that I know.”
“You’ll never even meet them again.”
“We can’t
know
that, and even still, it feels wrong.”
Rei is frowning at him, and after a moment he feels her mind brush his. He lowers his shield and projects his discomfort, as well as his nervousness for challenging her. Her frown deepens. “You’re not just trying to get out of working on this project?”
Red blinks, letting her feel his honest surprise as he says, “No, not at all! Is it that strange to care about this sort of thing?”
“I suppose I’ve forgotten how new you are to all this,” she says, and withdraws her mind from his before gazing silently off into the distance and leaving him to try and decide whether to take offense or not. “What do you propose, then?” she asks after a moment. “I can’t practice this on my own, and no one’s mimicry is as developed as yours. We may see benefits from practicing consistently using the already established mental states, but eventually we will need to try new ones.”
“I could take mental states from the others, when they’re not busy.”
“But they will know you’re doing it, which will alter their mental state. It will be useful for testing the effectiveness of a willing accomplice, but not for the true hypothesis.”
Red knows she’s right, and sighs down at his hands. “I don’t know what the right answer is yet, but I’ll try to think of something.”
Rei is quiet for long enough that he starts to worry that he’s upset her, but he’s not going to go back on what he says. He’s just starting to think that he should ask if she wants to try with one of the previous mental states when she closes her laptop starts to put it in her bag. “I have a solution.”
“You do?”
“Your main complaint is that they are not consenting, correct?” She gets to her feet and starts walking, and he quickly follows her.
“Uh, yeah, basically.”
“Then we will go somewhere that will require implicit consent.”
It takes Red a few steps to get it. “The gym? Why would that require implicit consent?”
“Because we will put a sign up that makes it so. Over the cafeteria, for example, so that there is no disruption of the gym’s main functions.”
Red isn’t sure forcing people who want to eat to subject themselves to mental merger is justified, but he’s already made enough trouble for further objection, and just silently matches her quick stride. He supposes it’s a fair enough compromise, and he really should have thought of this before agreeing to help. He’s still grateful that she wants to work with him at all, considering what she said last night about…
…not trusting him.
Red regards the blonde from the corner of his eye as they walk. The sense he got from her before, of her seeming to be hiding something from him, and the way she dropped her shield to check whether he was just making an excuse, make it clear she still has reservations about him, which makes sense… But then why work with him at all?
Unless she just wants to keep an eye on him.
As Saffron Gym comes into sight, he decides to just ask, knowing that she’ll detect something in his feelings the next time they merge anyway. “Is this all a test for you to ensure I’m not actually the psychic Sabrina was talking about?”
“Partially,” she says without pause or hesitation. Because of course she knew that he sensed it in her, and was just waiting for him to piece things together. “If your technique is the key to unlocking the perfect shield, I want to be there to notice the transition when it develops.”
A ball of dread and hurt forms in his stomach, heavy enough to slow his steps. She doesn’t slow with him, and Red forces himself to speed up again. “What about Rowan?” Red asks, then realizes before she can answer. “Nevermind. He wouldn’t let you in anyway, and I’m also capable of manipulating partitions, and…” He feels like such an idiot. “…you don’t know if he’s already capable of it from his practice last night, or even before that, but there’s still time to learn if I am.”
“You also happen to be the best suited for this particular experiment,” she says, tone only mildly conciliatory. “I’m not
just
using you to ensure that Sabrina is aware of potential perfect shields among her students.”
Red stops entirely, then watches her continue to walk without him. For a moment it seems she will just continue on and enter the gym alone, but then she slows, looks back, and stops as well.
What she said makes sense, but he doesn’t believe her. What he felt from her wasn’t an urge to protect, or serve, or even just curiosity. It was goal oriented toward her own benefit… and now that he knows she’s not being honest, he would be an idiot to take her words at face value.
They must look strange to the people passing by, a young boy and an elegantly dressed woman over twice his age, just staring at each other. Eventually he feels her mind brush against his. After he doesn’t shield, she merges with him, and he focuses on his feelings of indignation and challenge and skepticism and resolution.
He knows he’s the youngest of Sabrina’s students, and likely the weakest. But whether by accident or effort or some combination, he has unique abilities that she’s already admitted she finds valuable. Not to mention that he’s survived a pikachu swarm, helped stop a paras migration, and saved multiple lives from a Stormbringer. At his core, arrogantly or otherwise, he feels capable of at least being Rei’s equal, and if he was willing to leave his journey with Blue and Leaf after Blue stopped treating him as one, he’s not going to let Rei treat him as a subordinate, let alone a potential enemy.
After nearly a minute he feels Rei’s mind leave his and merges with hers instead so he can contemplate her own mental state, which he finds unshielded.
Rei finally brings her shield back up, and Red walks toward her until they’re standing an arm’s length apart. “What are you so scared of?” he asks, eyes shifting between hers.
Rei glances away, or rather just around them, checking that no one is in hearing distance, and when she speaks her voice is low. “Sabrina has a secret, and I want to find out what it is.”
Red’s brow rises. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t that; Rei has always seemed so loyal to the Leader. “The place she disappears to?”
“Yes. She’s been doing it for years, before she was even Gym Leader. I respected it for a long time, thinking she would eventually share it, but if she does it’s with none of her students except perhaps Rowan, or her gym Second and Third. Perhaps not even them.”
Red is frowning now. “What does this have to do with me, or the assignment?”
“I think every student Sabrina takes on has some specific purpose. She is expanding her skills to build toward something, I just don’t understand what. I thought when you arrived that your partition was a way for you to hide something relevant from the rest of us.” Her gaze is steady on his. “I can’t quite square all your behavior from last night and today with this hypothesis, and your emotional state and thoughts.”
Red feels… well, he doesn’t know how he feels. Uncomfortable to be talking about Sabrina behind her back like this. Worried that Rei is plotting something harmful… or worse, that Sabrina is. It’s all too much for him to quite process right now, and he glances at the gym behind her. “So you want to go to the gym because… what, you think there’s evidence there or something?”
“No, it’s a reasonable solution to your moral quandary. But the cafeteria is within my psychic range of the administrative offices where Tetsuo and Keiji are, and it will be a good excuse to study their shields.”
Red’s sense of worry inches toward panic, and he resists the urge to take a step back from her. “Why are you telling me this? If they or Sabrina merge with me—Wait. How do
you
manage not to give some sense of this away?”
“I have built a narrative around myself of being obsessive and curious about anything related to Sabrina. It was not difficult, since it’s true. The line between suspicion and curiosity is blurry enough that as long as they do not ask me direct questions about it, all is well.”
“Hang on, just… give me a moment.” Red’s heart is pounding, and he closes his eyes as he tries to take in this flip of circumstances and perspective. It takes a few deep breaths, and concentrating on the feel of the sun on his face and sound of the city around him, before his thoughts slow enough for him to realize his most important thing to update on is that Rei has revealed herself twice in the past few minutes to be someone who readily hides multiple purposes and motivations into her actions, and that she is telling him all this.
“You haven’t been checking my mental state,” Red says, opening his eyes. “What if I go tell Sabrina all this now?”
“I suspect I’ll be released as her student.” Rei shrugs. “My tutelage with her has hit large diminishing returns, and I was ready to leave months ago. Only my curiosity in this, and whatever abilities her new students might bring, interest me now.”
She could be lying, but if so he can’t see what the purpose would be yet. It’s hard to remind himself again that he’s talking to someone who’s smarter than him, and far craftier than he’s ever had a reason to try to be. “So what happens now? You recruit me into your investigation?”
“No, not unless you would like to join it. Now we simply have a better understanding of each other, and can more effectively work together. This is what you wanted when you came to my room last night, yes?”
Red doesn’t trust for a
moment
that this is her entire reason for sharing this, but he nods, still feeling like he’s struggling to keep his head above water. “Where you told me you can’t trust or respect people with partitions.”
“I’ve been biased by my experiences with Rowan and some others,” she admits. “I’m not claiming to trust you now. But I’m willing to extend some if you are.”
“Give me a minute.” Red closes his eyes and imagines the table from his dream.
Okay guys, huddle up. We need to talk.
Future Red and Past Red show up at either side of the table, or rather, he imagines they do, and he does his best to model their perspectives as best he can with his partition up.
This is a horrible idea,
Past Red says.
We’re here to learn to be a better psychic, not unearth some conspiracy.
But we did want to form better relationships with the others,
Red points out.
She’s not asking us to help her or anything.
Future Red shakes his head.
She made us complicit by telling you what she plans. If you don’t report her now, we could get in trouble later if it’s discovered we knew. There’s nothing we gain out of this.
But maybe we could,
Red thinks, and senses agreement from Past Red at the idea of fulfilling his previous goals. Future Red is more wary, but reluctantly agrees as well, and Red opens his eyes to see Rei patiently watching him.
“I want to help Satori and Jason with my idea, not just work on this one with you,” he says.
“Really? You’re turning this into a negotiation?” Rei shakes her head. “You make it seem like you have leverage. Would I have given you all that information if I feared you using it against me?”
“No,” Red says. “But this isn’t blackmail. You’re getting a lot more out of us working together, and I’m just trying to make things more equitable.”
Rei considers him a moment, then nods. “Very well.”
“You should help us too.”
Her grin is brief. “Don’t push your luck, Verres.”
He grins back and shrugs. “Just saying, I’m pretty sure we’ll learn a lot from it, and you would be a huge help.”
“I’ve got my own projects to tend to. But you’re free to pursue both hypotheses as long as this one has priority.”
He holds a hand out, and after a moment she takes it. They shake, and walk side by side into the gym’s air conditioned lobby.
So we’re really doing this, huh?
Future Red sighs.
You’re getting blamed for this if everything goes sideways.
Works for me. If anyone asks I’ll just say I was spying on Rei’s activities for Sabrina.
There’s no way that would work.
Well you’d better hope so, because it’ll be your problem.
Rei leads them up to the administrative offices, where they find Tetsuo at Sabrina’s desk. The Gym Second looks up from his computer with a raised brow as they enter, then pauses whatever video he’s watching (sounds like a gym battle) and turns his attention to them.
“Hello Rei, Red. Was wondering how long it would take. What do you need?”
Rei looks at Red, and after a moment it’s clear she expects him to speak. Which is fair enough, since it was originally his request, but also feels unfair given the fact that she’s getting something out of the venue choice. He ensures his shield is secure and takes a breath. “Would it be okay if we put a sign on the cafeteria entrances? Something like, ‘Ongoing psychic experiment occuring inside, anyone entering is subject to unannounced emotional reading?”
Tetsuo frowns, leaning back in Sabrina’s chair slightly. “Just emotional merger?” Red isn’t sure if the Second is simply confirming, or wondering why they would need a specific place for that. He just nods, and Tetsuo rubs his neck. “Well, we sell nearly at-cost so it’s not like it’s a significant income stream, but I’m still hesitant to risk discouraging people from eating. Hungry trainers are less focused trainers. How important is this?”
“It’s… uh…” Red is aware of Rei still looking steadily at him, making it clear that this may have been her idea but it’s his concern. “It’s mostly a matter of principle,” Red says, struggling not to mumble.
“Hm.” Tetsuo taps his fingers on the table as he glances at Rei, then back at Red with measuring eyes. “We can set it between meal times, and put warnings up today so people can plan around it tomorrow and onward. I’m worried that people will continue to think it’s happening even after the signs go down, though.”
Red considers this a moment. “We can sit in an obvious place? So everyone can see us, and once we’re gone it’s more clear the experiment is over.” Red glances at Rei to check if she’s okay with that, then back at Tetsuo.
“Yeah, could work. Alright, you have my permission. Hope it’s helpful; most people who go in will probably be dark or psychics capable of shielding, but you may get a few people who see it as a thrill, so don’t be surprised if that influences what you end up with.”
“Right,” Red sighs. Having principles sucks sometimes. “Thanks.”
Tetsuo waves a hand as he turns back to his computer. “No problem.” Red has already turned toward the door when the Second starts his video again, then says, “Oh Verres, what’s your take on all this?”
Red turns back as the monitor is rotated to face him, and feels his face go blank as his curiosity is replaced by a stew of conflicting emotions.
Various scenes play out on the screen from different camera angles, trainers and their pokemon in the middle of some battles, and he quickly recognizes Blue dressed in the Vermilion Gym uniform, as well as others; Glen and Elaine are there, as well as Lizzy, Taro, and Chie, along with perhaps a dozen others whose names Red can’t remember or whom he never met.
It quickly becomes clear that the trainers are all involved in the same group battle, but not like any Red has seen before. Their surroundings aren’t a traditional pokemon arena, but a much wider area with what seems to be a rough ring of various objects, from boulders to tree trunks to the concrete barricades used during the storm.
“Figured he might head here next. Any idea if he’s planning to spread stuff like this to other gyms?”
It’s a natural question to ask. They started their journey together, were on the news together after catching the abra, and it’s not like they made some official announcement of why they split up. Or that they’re not talking anymore. He’s not sure what Blue tells others when the subject comes up, but for his part…
“I don’t really talk to him about trainer stuff anymore,” Red says. The camera shifts to show an overhead view, and Red can see now that one group of trainers form a small outward facing ring around a cluster of pokedolls in the middle of the battle area, while the rest are spread out around them in a wider ring facing in. “Been trying to stay focused on my psychic training and research.”
“Right. Figured with how much time you spend here that might change eventually.” He turns the screen back and intently studies whatever is happening on it. “Good luck with the experiments.”
“Thanks.” Red heads for the door, and Rei follows silently at his side.
“You really are a terrible liar,” she eventually murmurs as they walk through the halls.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your face, when Mr. Oak showed up on screen. Why the animosity? Didn’t you two grow up together?”
Red knows his shield was up the whole time, and he didn’t feel even a tentative probing. If she gathered that much just from his face, he really does need to learn to lie better. “We used to be friends,” Red says as they step into the elevator. He presses the bottom button first before correctly hitting the ground floor’s, distracted by thoughts of simpler times that feel particularly distant right now. “A long time ago.”
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No matter how many times they do this, it still feels real.
The sound of overlapping commands, the cries of pokemon attacking and being attacked, the explosive noise of pokeballs opening to send out new combatants… it all blends together to send a thrill through Blue’s body, quickening his pulse despite the cool lens of his battle calm that helps him observe the ebb and flow of the battle.
It doesn’t have the life or death edge to it that actual incidents in the wild would, but Blue still feels every loss on his team keenly, still feels compelled to win at all costs… which, as part of the attacking team, means striking at the pokedolls their opponents are clustered around.
The six defenders are doing a good job of not just keeping their ring secure so no stray attacks go through, but defeating the attackers efficiently, swapping places with quick, coordinated movements to ensure that each trainer is using the best counter available to one the attacking trainers are using no matter where in the circle they are. Case in point, as soon as Blue’s opponent sees his wartortle come out, he quickly shuffles two spaces to the right and sends his sandslash to help a teammate as his own position is taken by another trainer with a lombre.
Blue smothers a curse and orders an Ice Beam, knowing that the Grass/Water type would be able to take more of them than Maturin would its retaliating Grass attacks. If this were a normal match it would be easy to just swap himself, either to a different one of his own pokemon or with one of his teammates… but it’s far from that.
The battle is meant to mimic the attrition actual defenders face in Tier 2 or 3 incidents (while still maintaining even teams so neither is overwhelmed), and Glen’s solution was to give his own team only three pokemon each to the attackers’ full six. To balance that Blue suggested attackers not be able to coordinate with each other or swap their pokemon unless they were about to faint, just as if they were real wild pokemon on a rampage…
With one exception.
Glen agreed to the exception without knowing what it was, and just before the match Blue told his team to bring at least one flying or ground pokemon, then save them for last.
As Maturin desperately tries to avoid the green glow of the lombre’s Absorb, Blue raises her ball with one hand and his whistle to his lips with the other before blowing a single long, sharp, unwavering note.
Both defenders and attackers pause for a heartbeat, and then six red beams connect with six pokemon. Blue reclips Maturin and grabs another ball, movements matching his teammates so that all six new pokemon appear almost simultaneously.
The defensive team has only a moment to recognize that they’re now facing a mix of exclusively flying and ground pokemon, and then Glen is yelling out his own counter order to coordinate their response. Blue can’t hear it over his next whistled command to Zephyr, but the defensive pokemon are quickly swapped out for Water and Ice types.
The attackers are already acting, however, and their pokemon start kicking up dirt, multiple sand attacks creating a haze that the defenders struggle to aim through. Beams of frost-forming light pierce the localized sandstorm until one nails a fearow, which is withdrawn before it hits the ground and replaced with a diglett that immediately begins adding to the mass sand attack. It helps that all the types strong against either Flying or Ground attacks are weak to Ground or Flying ones respectively, and that the only type that can hit back against both hard, Ice, is fairly rare… their opponents only have two, though most water pokemon are taught at least one as well.
Blue wipes sweat from above one eye, gaze jumping constantly to spot any early sign of change in the defenders’ strategy. This is the critical moment of the battle, and they would either win or lose by how well the defenders can deal with the sudden shift.
It takes nearly twenty seconds before a wave of water suddenly gushes out to the side of the cloud, instantly clearing all the sand and dirt coming in from a third of the circle of attackers. Twin beams of light spear out and hit a sandshrew and pidgeotto, and the lack of renewed sand and dirt coming from those directions gives the defenders an opening.
Blue has to suppress the urge to shout out a command to the others, judging this to be outside the limits of the allowed offensive coordination. Three of his trainers still move on their own to try and cover the breach, but not the ones on the far side who can’t see it, and what looks like the full might of the defenders start pushing through the opening to quickly overwhelm them.
Blue doesn’t go to try and fight them; the only chance the offense has now is that the defense will leave one side exposed, and they can swoop in for a quick hit on one of the pokedolls. He blows another command to Zephyr instead, and his pidgeotto follows him around to the other side, away from the defenders that have breached the sandstorm.
The two remaining attackers on the “back side” have realized something is wrong when Blue and Zephyr join them, but there’s no time for them to figure out what; one more sharp whistle followed by two brief notes, and Zephyr sends a whirlwind over the field strong enough to clear all the remaining sand…
…only to reveal Glen’s snorlax, his trainer standing by Blue’s goal, ready to defend it. His hair and skin are covered in sand and dirt, but he quickly wipes his facemask clean, and Blue can see his smile as he sees what’s waiting for him.
Blue grins back, then attacks with his teammates in one last desperate bid to overwhelm the snorlax before Glen’s allies come.
As soon as the battle ends, Blue’s calm leaves him. He feels it trickling away, wishing it would stay just a little while longer… at least until he finishes dealing with the media.
Even as unofficial training exercises, the group battles would probably have gathered some interest on their own; outside the Rangers’ practice incidents, it’s rare for so many trainers to battle together at once, and the spectacle of it would probably have drawn crowds no matter what, even this far outside the city. But thanks to both Blue’s own fame and the widely broadcast genesis of the new format, by their third practice battle the media had been ready and waiting at the end, and by the fifth they were there at the start, recording everything.
On the one hand there’s an obvious benefit to having so much added screen time and prestige surrounding his pet project. What he’s doing could revolutionize the way gyms operate the world over, and it’s good not just to have the matches recorded for posterity, but also to normalize the idea as early as possible. The more time he spends answering questions and talking about his vision, the better… and the interviewers seem happy to let him go on until his throat gets sore.
On the other hand, each post-battle interview takes time away from him and his trainers. Even during their smaller private battles, Blue enjoyed spending time after each match he participated in or observed going over what happened, doling out feedback both teasing and serious, reviewing strategies and tactics from every angle. It helped improve bonds between the trainers, and gave him a wider understanding of how other trainers think about battles.
The first few group battles ended the same way, the trainers unwinding together as they talked and teased and laughed about the match, all while establishing strong feedback norms both within and between the battling teams. Blue started the very first battle debrief with Aiko’s ritual, and it became a staple of each, no less bittersweet no matter how many times he went through it.
Having that all recorded is probably good too, but it also feels like an intrusion, and tonight is worse than ever; the two teams are practically mobbed as soon as the last pokemon is withdrawn, and Blue has to jog over to intercept the reporters as they hesitate at the circular dip in the ground where all the dirt was kicked up. Once their attention is drawn to him they start fanning out and focusing their cameras and extending microphones.
“How did that battle go, Blue?”
“Are you disappointed your side lost?”
“What inspired this battle’s setup?”
It’s times like this Blue misses Leaf most. He raises his hands to quiet them, trying to think of how he can diplomatically ask them to back off. If he just asks them for privacy it would just make some of them that much more curious as to what they talk about…
And then his watch chimes with an incoming message. He taps its screen to read it, and his pulse, which had just finished slowing from the end of the match, kicks back into high gear as hope surges through him. He turns to the media with an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry, I know you’ve come all this way in the hopes of another interview, but I’ve just been summoned by Leader Surge. If you’re willing to wait, you can meet me outside the gym in a couple hours, and I’ll likely have more to talk about than I do now.”
“What’s the meeting about, Blue?”
“Was this scheduled, or did you just get the invitation?”
He holds both hands up again to quiet them. “It was just sent, and I imagine it has something to do with the footage you all have been broadcasting; maybe he wants to criticize my performance in person, so thanks for that.” He’s smiling as he says it, and the crowd chuckles. “I don’t know for sure what we’ll talk about of course, but I hope it has some relevance to these exercises, and am happy to discuss it more later.”
The news folk seem reluctantly satisfied with that, and once Blue turns away from the few remaining shouted questions he feels relief when even those quickly stop and everyone mobilizes to change venue.
“Nice to have some privacy,” Glen murmurs as Blue returns to the trainers. “There really a meeting with Surge?”
“Yep,” Blue says as the others gather around, and smiles. “But it’s not for an hour.”
The group laughs, and Blue turns to them. Twelve trainers in total, seven boys and five girls, badges ranging from four at the top end to zero at the lowest, ages twelve to sixteen. Not the best he’s trained or fought with, but the best that would make this commitment with him, that would trust him… and all of them faced Zapdos’s attack. Blue’s spent over a month training intensely with them all while simultaneously working to develop these mock-incident battles, and if Surge’s invitation is really about adopting the scenarios officially, maybe it’ll finally have paid off.
“That said, we’ll still have to cut this short for me to get there on time, so let’s go straight into it,” Blue says to the expectant ring of faces. It makes him sad to skip the ritual, and for a moment the old bitterness at being Dark flares up before he pushes it away again by reminding himself of the advantages. “Good job to the defense. The improvised Surf wave was inspired, and I think it would work just as well against wild pokemon. Whose idea was it?”
Glen, along with the rest of his team, look at Lizzy and Chron, who glance at each other then raise their hands with sheepishly proud smiles. Blue smiles back and nods at them. “Next match the two of you are going to be on opposite teams. Who wants to swap with one of them?”
“I will,” Elaine says, brushing some hair out of her face and tying it back with the rest of her bun. The auburn curls have gotten long enough to reach her shoulders now, and no matter how tight she ties it some strands keep managing to escape.
“Why?” Blue asks, curious rather than challenging.
“We’ll be status heavy if he comes, and have too many sweepers if she does. Those are my specialties.” She smiles slightly. “Plus, it would be nice to win a match once in a while.”
There are a round of “ooo”s mixed with scattered laughter, Blue’s among it. It’s true that his team has been losing lately, mostly because he suspects Glen is just a better strategist than him. The gap is closing though, and Blue nods. “Good luck with that. If we win the next one, we’ll know who the dead weight was.”
The group’s reaction is even stronger this time, and Elaine grins wide as she flicks her hair back and puts a hand on her hip. “It’s a poor trainer that blames their ‘mon instead of themselves.”
Blue winces as everyone laughs again at his own words thrown back at him. A response comes to mind, but he’d rather end things on a self-deprecating note, and it’s good to see Elaine engage in banter like this.
The storm changed all of them in some way, but Elaine more than others. Aiko’s death seemed to take something out of the girl’s bright-eyed enthusiasm, replaced it with a quieter self-confidence that led, among other things, to her being willing to speak against her friends far more often. There’s still some of the old Elaine left, however, particularly when it’s just her, Glen, and Blue.
He still remembers the kiss she gave him before they split up, rain falling around them and buildings burning above. The memory makes him uncomfortable, and thankfully she hasn’t brought it up or done anything like it since.
“On your own head be it,” he says with mock-severity, then turns to the group again. “So, what did we learn from that match?”
“Flying and Ground combo is bullshit,” someone mutters to another round of laughter.
“You guys countered it well enough,” Taro says, and others on Blue’s team nod. “Oh, I also learned to keep moving when sight is limited.”
“Dangerous in a real fight,” his sister disagrees. “Might get hit without pokemon between you and the enemy.”
“Not to be done lightly, then,” Blue says, as he turns the topic over in his thoughts. “Should we be practicing a move like that in training, if it’s too dangerous to use outside of it?”
The group is silent a moment before another of Blue’s team speaks up. “The team that’s imitating wild pokemon should.” MG is a year older than Blue, but her clothes make her look younger; long sleeves that nearly cover her hands, a wide black hat that covers her hair, and generally enough layers of dark cloth to make her seem like she’s wearing an outfit that’s too big for her. At first he thought she might have a skin condition that makes her avoid sunlight, and he still hasn’t ruled it out, but when he asked her about it she insisted that she just likes layers. “Though it might not be that easy. Nyx and Vortumna would probably try to stay with me if I tried to go in another direction from them.”
“You might want to train that out of them,” Blue says, thinking of the way her murkrow and eevee can fight so well as a team. “If you ever need them to stay in one place while you do something elsewhere…”
She shakes her head. “I can use other pokemon for that. I’d rather their default be to stay with me.”
Blue nods, letting the topic go. When she first started showing up to practice battles he thought she was too shy to be part of the core group he was forming, even worse than Elaine used to be for speaking up for herself. But while she is shy most of the time, she often switches to confident and assertive when it comes to discussing her pokemon or battling, and she’s definitely smart enough to deserve her spot.
All of his trainers are. He’s proud of both teams, and while a steady, stubborn, stupid part of him misses what used to be, he’s had time to grieve, and move on. These days he keeps his gaze steady on the present and future.
“True, and most scenarios are a bit defense-favored anyway,” Glen adds to something Blue missed while woolgathering.
“Including this one?” Blue asks with a smile, which starts an argument about whether it’s true or not. The discussion stays largely positive, given Glen was leading the defense when he made the comment, and after a minute Blue decides to leave them to it, and summons his bike after a round of goodbyes. He’s already wearing his pads; it’s part of his standard trainer gear now, ever since he had to throw himself to the side to avoid a boulder that flew past his pokemon.
When Blue arrives at the gym, the media is already set up outside. He’s surprised to see the crowd has grown; most reporters wouldn’t let their rivals in on a new story like this. When he gets close enough to make out specifics, however, the reason is obvious, and he feels foolish for thinking the world revolves around him.
Leader Surge is a head taller than the tallest reporter, and imposingly built, with shoulders so broad that Blue often feels like he should have trouble going through doors. His strong, commanding voice is distinct even when speaking at a normal pitch, and as Blue approaches the secondary crowd of civilians gathered around the reporters he can finally make out some of what’s going on.
“…very closely with the mayor to integrate new plans into reconstruction. Pewter, Celadon, Saffron, and Fuschia have already reached out to adopt some of the defensive measures into their city design, but there’s a lot more we could do if we really pushed for it.”
“Are you talking about walls?” a reporter asks as Blue stops at the edge of the crowd to listen.
“No, the mayor and I agree that any form of restriction on movement could be as much a liability as a benefit, especially in the event that a full evacuation is necessary. But what I hope to see in Vermilion are automated shutters for every window and door that can be deployed city-wide within minutes, smaller bunkers built into basements beneath every residence, and those buildings most affected,” he says as he points to the burnt husks being torn down in the distance, “Will be rebuilt with state-of-the-art fireproofing. The mayor and I both share a lifelong commitment to a common purpose: to make Vermilion City the safest in the world.”
The crowd around the reporters break into applause and cheers, and Blue claps along with them as the media starts shouting more questions that Surge gives some unheard response to before he turns to the gate. Blue starts squeezing through the crowd to follow him, waving at the few reporters that spot him and switch to shouting questions at him instead until he’s through the gym entrance and jogging up behind his Leader.
The tall blond turns and smiles as he sees Blue approach. “You’re a bit early. Did you hear about the press release?”
“No sir, came straight from group debrief.”
“Good man. Head to my office, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Blue nods and breaks off toward the elevator. Vermilion Gym’s non-training rooms are as utilitarian as it comes, and the first time he was summoned to it he expected Surge’s office to be no different. Instead he found himself in a room that looks less like a simple meeting and administrative space, and more like a Ranger HQ coordination room. There’s a desk in the corner with a computer and some filing cabinets, but most of the floorspace is dominated by a round holotable ringed with chairs.
When he enters it now, he finds the gym’s Second and Third present and watching a static holograph of the city, its buildings and streets highlighted in various colors.
“Hello, Blue,” Sabra says in her customary low drawl as she manipulates the hologram to rotate it. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You’re not avoiding me to get out of training assignments, are you?”
Blue straightens his shoulders and bows his head and neck. “I’m sorry, Second, of course not. I’ve just been busy with—”
“I know. Hard to miss when it’s all over the news.” She jerks her head to a monitor on the wall, which shows some reporter still talking outside the gym. Her lips quirk as her half-lidded eyes turn to his. “I’m partially teasing you, but also reminding you that your gym duties don’t end because of special assignments. Message me your availability for the week by tomorrow morning.”
Blue bows again, this time including his upper torso. “Yes ma’am.” Blue interacted with Sabra a handful of times outside of classes, back when she was the Third. After the storm she stopped teaching as many once the new Third, Aigerim, took over for most of her duties. Blue hasn’t spent quite all of his time with his own group since joining the gym, and has gotten to know other members fairly well over the past two months, but Sabra is an exception who feels more a stranger now than less.
Aigerim is a near total mystery. He fought her during his challenge matches, but she didn’t speak beyond what was necessary, and like Sabra he hasn’t interacted with her since joining up. He remembers hearing that she’s not a particularly strong trainer, but more focused on other things; she was apparently studying city planning and infrastructure before either Surge convinced her to join his gym, or she became motivated to study pokemon battles.
That knowledge keeps Blue from being surprised when she suddenly turns to him. “Maybe he’ll see it,” Aigerim taps the edge of the table with her knuckles. “We’re considering where a new hospital should go to replace the one destroyed in the attack. Any suggestions?”
Blue steps forward slowly, eyes on the holographic model, and after just a moment he recognizes the part they’re focused on. He’s not likely to forget the part of the city where Aiko died.
“What’s wrong with the original location?” he asks, and is pleased to hear that his voice sounds casual despite the sudden dryness in his throat, the tightness in his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he see Sabra watching him, but he dismisses the thoughts associated with that and just focuses on Aigerim.
“That should be part of your answer,” she says, rotating the map and zooming in to the hospital campus. “Unless that
is
your answer.”
“No,” Blue says, and swallows. “Zoom back out?”
She does so, and Blue tries to focus past the upsurge of confusion and pain, frustration and anger, grief and betrayal. The hospitals are highlighted a certain color, and he can see a spot that’s more central between the other hospitals around the one that had collapsed (with Aiko inside it (and Red out)).
“There, maybe?” Blue points, almost feeling like he’s just reacting at random rather than spend more time thinking about it. But no, it’s the clear spot that’s closest to the middle of all the hospitals around it…
Aigerim tsks, and turns the holo back in another direction. “With all these open streets to the east and north… no thank you. We want to avoid it being overrun. Let them build a shopping mall there or something.”
Sabra snorts, and Blue focuses a bit more now that he knows what the criteria they’re looking for are. He reconsiders the hospital plaza and realizes the issue… “The foundation is probably not as sound as it used to be. You want a place between these hospitals where the ground is still secure, the sight-lines are good without being open to rampage, and that means… here?” He points.
Aigerim smiles and zooms the map back out. “See? He sees it.”
Sabra shakes her head. “Wasn’t disagreeing with you, Aig. S’politics, that’s all… they’ll never let it be built there.”
“People don’t want a hospital nearby?” Blue asks, confused enough that the other feelings aren’t as distracting. “Why?”
“Not the people living there, the people living elsewhere. New hospital means new need for stores, offices, apartments… huge boost to the local land value. Incidents like this are always an opportunity for some to make more money, and Surge is trying to get the mayor to cut into all the dickering, but with an election coming—”
She’s interrupted by the door opening to reveal Leader Surge, and… Blue searches his memory for where he knows the face of the second man from, then finds it by imagining him as a talking head. Hiro Iha is one of the top Indigo League administrators, most recently famous for pushing back against the idea of limiting pokemon attacks in league matches, particularly those without spectators.
Hope rises in Blue. If they’re here to talk about the gym’s official adoption of scenario battles, having a league official that seems generally in favor of realism seems promising…
And then a second one walks in, and Blue recognizes her immediately. Yuna Khatri’s first act after joining the regulatory body was to do a full inspection of each gym’s trainer strength evaluation systems, which led to her pushing for more transparency and equality between gyms in both Kanto and Johto. She got the regional spotlight again last year when she officially censured Leader Giovanni for how much time he spends away from his gym.
It’s harder to predict what her reaction to his proposal of group challenge matches would have been, but she strikes him as someone interested in conformity between the gyms. He suddenly wishes he had more time to prepare for this, or at least thought of league judgement as a possibility so he could prepare for it. In retrospect, he just assumed that if Surge wanted it to happen, it would.
Sabra turns the holo off as Leader Surge moves to the head of the table. “Thank you for coming, everyone. This is Mr. Iha and Mrs. Khatri from the league council, and they’ll be joining our discussion.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Blue says, smiling and bowing to the league officials before he sits. “I’ve followed your actions on the council with great interest.”
“Oh?” Mr. Iha asks after inclining his head back as he pulls out his own chair and lowers himself onto it. “What in particular?”
Blue expected some skepticism, and is glad to have at least one specific thing to cite. “Most recently, the arguments you made for retaining severe poisons in not just Elite matches, but also gym battles, showed a level of trust in trainer discretion that I appreciate. I would love to talk to you more about it later.”
Mr. Iha raises a brow, but nods with a slight smile. “Perhaps we can, another night; we have other obligations after this one.”
“That would be great.” Blue turns to mention something of Mrs. Khatri’s too, but Surge starts speaking, and he sits.
“We’re here to talk about your scenarios, and whether they’re a justified method of delivering badges. Mr. Iha and Mrs. Khatri are here to advise me on the decision.”
“Advising you, sir?” Sabra asks, irreverence so subtle that Blue almost misses the emphasis on the second word. Blue can understand the sentiment, even if her attitude (in front of non-gym members, no less) is as surprising as ever; the only Leader that Blue can think of who might care less what others think of how he runs his gym is Giovanni (and maybe Blaine, but he doesn’t really count).
Surge gives her a
look
. “My decision will be made based on what I believe is best for our city and gym, and the trainers who come to us, as always. But I still value their wider perspective and any insights and recommendations they may have, and thus ask you all to do your best to answer their questions. Now, given our guests’ time constraints, I think we should cut to the chase and—”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” Blue says. “But I’d like to note that Glen should be here too. He’s been working as hard as I have on these scenarios, and he deserves recognition for it as well.”
Surge’s brow furrows, but he nods. “Consider it noted. I would ask for him to join us, but…” He turns to Mr. Iha, who is checking his watch with a mild frown.
“He has an abra set for the gym,” Blue presses. “It wouldn’t take more than maybe five minutes for him to arrive.”
“Are you requesting his presence for his sake?” Mrs. Khatri asks, gaze meeting Blue’s. “Or does he have knowledge you lack?”
Blue feels his neck flush, and struggles to keep his expression passive and pleasant as he tries to think of a way to avoid sounding ignorant while still getting Glen here. “I can answer any questions you might have, but Glen suggested many of the ideas and was part of the planning. I thought having him here to explain his own thoughts, or his side of any disagreements, might give the fullest picture.”
Mr. Iha is the one that responds with a shake of his head. “Such information sounds more relevant to how the gym may decide to adopt and implement these scenarios, and not our interests at this time. We shall make do with what we have.”
“Will it satisfy you if he’s invited to future meetings on this topic, and I commend him when I next see him?” Surge asks Blue.
Future meetings
is rather encouraging, though Blue would have preferred the extra support of having Glen in the room. Still, he can accept the bone Surge is throwing him. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. On to the scenarios themselves, then.” Surge leans back in his chair and opens a palm to the League officials.
Mr. Iha is the first to speak. “We all watched the battle that the media broadcast tonight, but some elements to the scenario, or previous ones, are not made clear by observation. What were the rules and balance priorities?”
Blue settles back in his own chair and runs over his thoughts once again. This part he’s long been prepared for. “I think some context is necessary. Our first step when we started this over a month ago was to form teams by average experience and skill, followed by consideration of their available pokemon, since pokemon are the most variable; if we need to tweak a team into better balance, making them use some of their weaker or stronger pokemon is an easy way to adjust things. Before even working on any scenarios, we spent a few days doing practice battles, first in twos, then threes, then fours, and so on, to ensure we had a good understanding of each trainer’s capabilities and their synergy in working together.”
“Can you explain what you mean by synergy?” Aigerim asks. Blue hadn’t expected a question from anyone besides the league officials, let alone her, but neither seems to object to it.
“Sure. Most trainers, no matter how good, have certain things they’re particularly skilled at.” Blue thinks of Elaine’s comparison to game characters, but decides not to bring up that frame. “For some it’s their battle command system, for others it’s their moment to moment tactics and reaction time, for others it’s their overall strategy, or their ability to adapt to the unpredictable, or how well trained their pokemon are, or a dozen other things. Get someone with good tactics and another with good strategy together, and they can pull off some great things. Two trainers who are really unpredictable could get in each other’s way, and often do, but if they’re matched with others who think along the same lines their improvisation looks almost coordinated.” Blue shrugs. “It’s hard to tell ahead of time, but you can really see it when you watch people battle together often enough.”
Aigerim nods without following up with any more questions. He wonders if she was genuinely curious about what he meant, or just checking to see if his experience and perception of it matched hers.
“Is that also when you started setting different rules for both sides, or did that come after?” Mr. Iha asks, setting things back on track.
“After,” Blue says. “At first we tried keeping things as even as possible on both sides, but they just felt like six on six battles where the objective didn’t really matter until most of the trainers were out of pokemon anyway. Glen also brought up the idea of making the battles more reflective of actual incidents by changing how much coordination the team representing the wild pokemon in the scenario are allowed, which we tried and found really fun—”
“Fun?” Mrs. Khatri interrupts, brow raised. “Was that an important metric in your design philosophy?”
Blue frowns for just a moment before clearing his expression. He was waiting for her to speak out, he’s more frustrated with himself for his choice of words. “Didn’t mean it was
just
fun. It added another layer to the planning and fighting that we weren’t used to, helped us grow stronger.”
“Restrictions often force people to become creative,” Sabra asserts with a nod. “But wouldn’t this also restrict the ability of both teams to work together? Even swapping positions, only one team would ever get the full benefit of the exercise.”
Blue shrugs. “Even if we assume only one side is having some interesting restriction, which I don’t think was true in today’s scenario for example, in the end it’s a tradeoff. We decided that making the scenarios more realistic is way more valuable than just deciding who the best combination of six trainers are. It’s not like we’re training to put down a trainer uprising, or hunt teams of well coordinated renegades.”
Surge seems to have something to say to that, but restrains himself as Mr. Iha says, “Let’s speak more about today’s match. What do you think could have improved it?”
Blue’s mind races as he tries one last time to find something. He expected a question like this, and spent most of the trip here trying to figure out what he could say.
The problem is he can’t think of anything. Unlike the first few engagements, the setup seems to reflect a realistic incident, or part of one. The teams, and more importantly the rules applied to both, seemed balanced enough that either side could reasonably have won, though it would take a few more tests to make sure.
Damn it, why couldn’t Surge have done this after one of the other matches, when he could have listed specific mistakes and described how he planned to correct them? Instead he’s going to end up sounding overconfident…
But no, there’s also a value in trusting his own assessment and standing firmly behind it. Surge may have spotted things he would change out of preference, or different priorities than what Blue has been considering. The only thing to do is stand behind what he’s worked for.
“I think it was solid,” Blue says at last. “More features could be added, though we’ll run it another time or two to make sure of what we’ve got so far. But at its core… I know this sounds self-serving, but I would respect anyone who was able to win a badge from this kind of match if it were held against Leader Surge and his own team of trainers.”
Sabra smiles as Surge raises a brow, but Mr. Iha is frowning. “I believe we’ve reached a point of disagreement. Each individual, you say, including trainers who just fought what was essentially a normal trainer battle? Perhaps the defenders would deserve a badge, as they had to make do with half as many pokemon, but if the offense won, you would award a badge to someone that had such an advantage?”
“I would,” Blue says, trying to keep his tone mild despite the anger stirring in his chest. “Because clearly it
wasn’t
as big an advantage as you’re implying. Or do you think my trainers were just that incompetent?”
Woops.
That last word was a bit transparent. He keeps his gaze on Mr. Iha as he sees Surge steeple his hands under his chin in his periphery. The league official’s lips thin, and Blue tries to think of a politically safe response if he actually says yes.
Sabra saves him by speaking up. “We haven’t decided yet how we might run these scenarios; we may always take the role of the ‘attackers,’ for example. And remember that even the attackers in this battle had opponents that were able to swap pokemon while they were not, until the end.”
“My point was not that they are not capable,” Mr. Iha says, which is probably the closest thing to an apology that Blue will get. “The true issue is whether that capability is demonstrated through the matches. As you say, the attackers were unable to change their pokemon, but that is exactly the sort of skill that is crucial for a trainer.”
“Yeah, it is,” Blue concedes. “But there are seven other badges that trainers can use to demonstrate that particular skill in. This was one potential scenario for
one badge
. I don’t think the league is lowering its bar by having it focus on other skills.”
“One badge, for now,” Mrs. Khatri says, turning everyone’s attention to her. “But our job entails taking the wider view, and the longer one. If other gyms decide to implement similar systems, perhaps that would not be so bad. But say the second or third such breaks from tradition are each a little broader than this one, and the fourth gym decides to hand badges out by, say, acts of extreme service to the community, or non-battle training skill, or the fulfillment of the leader’s personally prized virtue. Commendable as those things may be, they are not what the pokemon league is designed for. Indigo is one of the most well respected in the world, our champions recognized across the globe for their skill. Disagreements about what makes someone worthy of a badge can very well make it harder to avoid conflict between gyms, or between gyms and the league, or between our league and foreign ones.”
The room is quiet for a moment. This was
not
one of the ideas Blue had prepared for, at worst he thought to face arguments for tradition for its own sake… and the problem is he actually agrees with her, to an extent. He doesn’t want badges to become seen as meaningless, and he particularly doesn’t want the Indigo League to lose prestige… especially considering he plans to be leading it as soon as he can.
The silence builds, and Blue realizes he has to say something… and if he can’t rely on preparation, he has to at least speak from his heart. “I wish I could dismiss your concerns, but unfortunately I think you’re right to have them. My only response is that I trust our region, from the trainers to the leaders to the league officials such as yourselves, to ensure that doesn’t happen… and in the meantime, we should act to improve where and when we can, even if it requires fundamental change. I think these scenarios make my peers and myself better trainers, and I think this gym will better serve its trainers and its city by officially adopting them.” He sees Mr. Iha about to speak, and predicts the response. “For awarding gym badges, in particular. Training people with them is good, but it’s not enough. As long as the Mastery Challenge is a one-on-one standard trainer match, that’s what most who come here will focus on.”
“Well said,” Surge puts in, speaking for the first time since the beginning. He turns to the two league officials. “I understand your concerns, and appreciate your time in discussing this with us. You can rest assured that I do not intend to have my gym’s prestige deteriorate by any means.”
Mr. Iha looks like he wants to say something to that, then checks his watch. Mrs. Khatri gets to her feet and bows her head, and after a moment he does the same, followed by the rest of them. “Thank you for the discussion, everyone. Leader, please keep us abreast of any decisions you make on this.”
“I will.” Surge waits until they leave, then turns to Blue as he sits back down, prompting the others to take their seats again too. “Well… that didn’t go so badly.”
Blue smiles, both in relief and at the idea of Surge worrying about that too. “Seems more true now that you said it than a moment ago. Were you worried I wouldn’t be able to explain things, or that they would be more resistant?”
“Some of both,” Sabra says. “And you kept your temper better than I expected.” Aigerim nods.
He blinks. “Was that something you were worried about?”
“A little. Heard you could be hot headed, when someone gave you cause to be.”
“That’s…” He catches himself as he notices the trap, and the way he feels heat moving through him again. Where did she hear that? Not from his trainers, surely?
Maybe from people who were at the hospital that day.
The anger rises further, mixed with a confusing and painful mess of emotions, and he takes a moment to push them down. It doesn’t have to have been the hospital. Maybe they heard about what happened with the rangers leading the absol hunt. Or one of a dozen other times he got pissed at someone in public. “…probably fair,” he admits, though part of him (a big, four legged, fire breathing part) continues to insist otherwise. “I’m working on it.”
“Evidently,” Surge says, fingers tapping the table as he studies Blue. “If we are to try this experiment, and you end up getting your badge, would you leave the gym to pursue your journey?”
Blue is quiet a moment, not because he needs the time to consider his response; it’s one of the questions he predicted he would be asked weeks ago, and has already searched both his feelings on the issue and what he imagines the Leader would want to hear most so he could give a response that best satisfies both. He hesitates before answering, however, because he knows that responding too quickly would make his answer seem less credible and thought out.
“I would make sure all my people get theirs too,” Blue says. “Not just those that will be continuing their journey with me, but also the ones that I’ve trained with, whether they want to stay or not, and whether the format lets us earn them six at a time, or by groups of four, or three, or whatever. And then, once everyone has made it through, yes, I would continue my ambition of challenging the rest of the league.”
“I see. Regrettable, but I understand… just as I hope you’ll understand, then, when I say that you won’t be looped into our discussions about the scenarios we construct.”
Blue blinks. “What do you… why not?”
It’s a stupid question, but Surge is already answering. “You’ll be the first opponent, of course, you and however many others are involved in the scenario. We’ll continue discussing the ones you engage in and how you construct them, but the ones we make will have to be kept close to the vest to avoid any unfair advantage. And afterward…”
Afterward Blue would be gone. He wouldn’t ever actually help construct the scenarios
with
the gym, wouldn’t actually be part of the process of turning it into an official league activity.
Oh, people will remember that it was his idea, of course, and will remember that he was practicing it with his friends for a while. But it’s not the same, for all they might know the gym would have been working on it from the start, and his own practice was just to prepare.
The anger comes, then, but he’s too pragmatic for it to do much but make him look down, hands clenching his knees.
“I’m sorry. I know—”
“No,” Blue says. “I get it. It’s my choice, to leave after. I can change my mind, if I really want to.” He sighs, looks up. “One last question of my own? The media will be waiting outside. What can I tell them?”
Leader Surge spreads his hands. “Whatever you want, as long as it’s true. The goal is not to take your due credit from you.”
Blue nods, then rises to his feet and briefly bows. “Thank you, Leader.” He nods to the Second and Third, who nod back.
“Thank
you
, Mr. Oak. Dismissed.”
By the end of the second month anniversary of the Zapdos attack, Vermilion City has largely recovered… visually, at least. All the broken windows have been replaced, and most of the stores are unshuttered and back in business. The main exception are the dozen cranes that still dot the cityscape where the burnt buildings are being repaired. His gaze stays on them as he mounts Daisy’s swellow and they take off, circling the city once to gain altitude and then flying due west.
It’s been over a week since the meeting, and things have continued more or less as usual, with a couple exceptions: first, he and Glen go to speak with Sabra and Aigerim after each match, sometimes with Surge present, and second, Blue spent more time at the gym on Sabra’s orders, dropping his visits with Gramps in order to fulfill his duties in training with and teaching more than just the group he’s been doing scenarios with.
Now that he knows his time at Vermilion is starting to come to a close, his time at the gym and among the city streets make him realize how much he’s going to miss it all. But as the city falls away behind them, land swiftly replaced by water, Blue feels something loosen in him too. Vermilion holds bad memories as well as good, memories with weight, and his time at the gym reminded him of those too. Aiko is part of it all, in the gym’s central yard, and its training rooms, and its dining hall, memories of her hidden in every nook and cranny, ready to pop out without warning, and in those moments he always felt renewed grief, and anger at Red not just for his decision, but for running away afterward.
Not that Blue is one to talk. He can recognize that he’s avoided facing them himself, now that he’s doing so again little by little, thanks to Sabra. He wonders if she noticed, and occasionally thought of asking her, but he’s still not sure if he’s ready for whatever conversation that might lead to. For now he’s just focused on getting through it all a day at a time, though he has been reaching out to Leaf more often. Whatever painful memories he’s facing, he knows that living where she is must be at least as bad.
“Awfully quiet back there, bro.” Daisy’s voice is clear in his earpiece despite the wind, and he feels her hand find his where it clutches the saddle handle for a brief squeeze. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Blue shakes himself out of his melancholy as best he can. “Sorry, just thinking about today’s scenario. What’s new and exciting with you?”
“I don’t know how exciting it is for others, but new… I’ve got Moonlight able to do five consistent Metronomes now, none too impressive. Decided to try teaching a snorlax to swim—stop laughing, do you have any idea how much air they can hold?—hmm, what else… broke up with my girlfriend, found ano—”
“What!” Blue flicks her leg. “I didn’t know you were dating anyone. Who was she?”
“You don’t know her, and ‘is she’ is fine, she’s not dead,” Daisy teases, then goes silent. Blue takes a breath, and by the time he lets it out his sister’s hand is back on his. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he says, not wanting to talk about it. “So you found another already? Who is
she?”
“A coordinator from Kalos. She’s only in town for a few weeks, but she bought a couple abra while here so visiting will be easy. What about you, drawing any puppy-love eyes from all those trainers you’re working with?”
Blue thinks of Elaine’s kiss, and after a moment just says, “Nah.”
Daisy is quiet a moment, and eventually sighs. “I’m sorry, again. I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear, I’m just an idiot.”
“Huh?” Blue realizes he was quiet for too long, and she must have thought she upset him. He replays what she said and can’t find any reference to Aiko. “Why?”
“I didn’t remind you of Red?”
Oh. The abra thing. “No,” he says, voice flat.
“Ah. Okay.”
She doesn’t believe him. Blue considers telling her he was too busy thinking of Elaine to think of Red, then rejects that idea and just pokes her in the ribs through her thick jacket. “Seriously.”
“I believe you.”
Blue rolls his eyes and lets it go, glad she’s not nudging him to make up with Red again, at least. He spends the next few minutes looking out over the ocean as the setting sun sends ripples of light across its waves. The rocking from her swellow’s wing movements make it hard to take pictures unless he times it with a glide, but he didn’t bring a wrist strap and doesn’t want to risk dropping his phone. Though come to think of it, her pokemon could probably catch it if he does…
He’s just about to ask what she thinks when Daisy speaks first. “Blue, can you promise me something?”
“Depends what it is,” he says, already wary.
“Just… let him have tonight? Don’t bring up what he did. I get it, I do, but—”
“You don’t get it,” he says, anger bursting up in a scalding wave. “It wasn’t you he came for.”
She’s quiet for a minute, then says, “You’re such an idiot sometimes, you know that? You think he never did that for me?”
“It’s different. It wasn’t killing him then.” The words churn acid in his stomach, the very act of saying them out loud makes them more real.
“And it wouldn’t be killing him now if he hadn’t then. You’re just intent on protecting him, and I get why, but all he was doing was the same thing you asked Red to—”
Blue reaches up and switches off his earpiece, face a mask as he presses his forehead against her back none too gently and closes his eyes. He’s already tried explaining to her the difference between what Gramps did and what Red didn’t do. And she wasn’t there, after, didn’t hear the way he was justifying it. Blue’s not in the mood to hash over it all again.
Daisy pats his hand, then squeezes it, then pinches it. He pinches back, hard, and she leaves him alone after that. He told his gym leadership that he was working on his anger, and that includes against annoying older siblings. All things considered, he thinks he’s handling things rather well.
A couple hours later they’re home, which is already full of neighbors, friends, and researchers from the lab, all happy to toast to the Professor’s health. The place feels so strange, after so long away, and not just because it’s decorated for the celebration and crowded. Blue plays the part of the cheerful grandson, but in truth he feels a fraud; all these people so happy to see Gramps healthy again would look at Blue with considerably less friendliness if he hadn’t made it through the storm.
His grandfather does seem his old self, at least, holding court with his stories, arguing in high spirits with Uncle Samson, laughing uproariously at the pictures his coworkers took depicting how they taped pictures of his face onto a series of mannequins and set them up around the office, each with various speech bubbles relaying his most common phrases or admonishments.
There are two big cakes, one with a standard “Welcome back!” written over it with all his employees’ signatures in icing over the surface, and a second that gets delivered in the middle of the party. Its surface is covered in a custom depiction of the professor, Blue, and Daisy standing side by side with two steelix between them. This is only discernible from context, as the art isn’t particularly good, but that’s understandable considering it’s done in frosting and was made by two of the children that had been evacuated from the arena that night. Daisy reads the letter that comes with it aloud, which makes numerous people teary eyed, and results in applause that cause the Professor to wipe at his eyes and excuse himself briefly. Blue has to struggle to accept his portion of the praise with a smile, all the while thinking of Aiko, and how few people will ever know how she did something far braver than him, and didn’t survive for her own cake or applause.
Once that’s over Blue takes the opportunity to locate his grandfather’s doctor (who has had a few drinks by this point) and pull him aside to ask him straight how bad it would be if Gramps is exposed to Pressure again. The older man gives a despairing sort of shrug, as if knowing that they aren’t speaking about an unlikely hypothetical. “Your grandfather is rather unique in the combination of the age he’s reached and the amount of Pressure exposure he’s had. It’s hard to tell how much of the harm is caused from the initial exposure opposed to the duration, but on the optimistic side? Another hour could take three months to recover from. On the not so optimistic side, he could be down for a year.” Seeing Blue’s horrified expression, the doctor nods. “On top of that, your sister said he passed out within forty minutes of first feeling the Pressure. The medication is getting less effective, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it lasts half as long next time.”
Blue eventually finds himself on a couch in the corner of the living room, staring into his soda as the conversation ebbs and flows around him, lost in thoughts of the future. Despite what Daisy said, once everyone leaves he’s going to need to talk to Gramps about what happened again. Every time he visited over the past two months, watching the Professor steadily recover his health, it had been to talk about other things, the older man firmly guiding conversations away from anything serious unless they were related to Blue’s goals. Now they would have to finish the talk they had that first morning after the storm.
Daisy kicks his foot as she walks by, and he looks up to see her giving him a curious look. He shakes his head, and she frowns but doesn’t pry. “Raymond is here, you know. Think he wanted to talk to you at some point.”
Blue smiles despite his mood. Ray is one of the two trainers who set off with Daisy from Pallet Town during her own Journey. The other, Clara, died a few years ago, and the two have remained close, which means he used to come by often to visit both his old professor and Daisy. He spent a lot of time coaching Blue’s pokeball throwing… though those memories are a bit ruined by Red being there too.
It’s the first time since his own journey that they’ve spoken, and Blue actually enjoys himself for a while as he talks about his adventures. He should have suspected what was coming, and when Ray starts talking about Clara and how hard it was for them to lose her, Blue feels a sudden sense of betrayal that he has to force down for long enough to make the appropriate social responses, including promising to call Ray if he ever wants someone to talk to about Aiko. Afterward he excuses himself to lie in his room for a while, feeling the anger at Daisy pace around in his chest and send ripples of heat through him until he realizes she may
not
have pushed Raymond to say all that, and it finally fades to a dull and painful ache.
Guests start to trickle out after midnight, the remaining ones helping clean up as the party begins to wind down. Blue is shoo’d away from helping wash dishes by one of his neighbors, and wanders the house looking for something useful to do, only to fail utterly and end up listlessly picking up half full plastic cups and dirty plates from all sorts of unlikely places around the house.
When the last guest has finally left, Blue heads to his grandfather’s office, expecting him to already be catching up on the work he wasn’t able to do from the hospital. Instead he sounds like he’s speaking with someone, and when Blue hears who it is a mix of emotions he can’t quite place run through him.
“…would have just made things awkward,” Red says, and it takes a moment to recognize the voice is coming from his grandfather’s computer, rather than Red having arrived at some point while Blue was busy.
“Nonsense, Red, you’re always welcome here. This thing with Blue will pass as soon as you both speak to each other more.”
Red is silent, and Blue feels a moment of unwanted kinship with his old journeymate. Gramps doesn’t understand; as long as neither of them have changed their minds, speaking to each other could only make things worse. “Anyway, I should get back to it,” Red says. “Just wanted to say I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“I appreciate it, Red, and the call. What are you working on now, anyway? I noticed you registering a number of psychic pokemon lately, “
“Oh, yeah, it’s a new project by Sabrina. I’m, uh, not supposed to talk about it yet, but I’ll share more when I can; it’s pretty exciting, actually.”
Professor Oak tsks. “You’re not making me less curious, you know. I may just ask around and see what I can learn on my own.”
“Hey, yeah you should do that, maybe you’ll find out more than me!”
Gramps chuckles. “Goodnight, Red.”
“Goodnight, Professor.”
Blue waits a full minute, both to disguise the fact that he was listening and to let his emotions settle down. Eventually he knocks on the door. “Come in,” Gramps says, and Blue enters, aiming straight for one of the comfy chairs that make up the Professor’s home office. “Not tired yet?”
“Nah. Could say the same for you, though. Shouldn’t you still be getting lots of rest?”
“Just after this email,” his grandfather promises, tapping away at his keyboard with his eyes on the screen. “Did you hear about the wingsuit prototype, using the flying particles?”
“Yeah, Bernard told me about it after dinner.” Blue examines his grandfather in the bright office light, the lines on that familiar face, and the hair that seems more salt than pepper every time he sees him. A terrible love seizes his heart and squeezes, and he has to blink rapidly and clear his throat before asking, “Enjoy the party?”
“Very much. It was nice to have an excuse to see everyone again.” The professor taps a few more times, then clicks, then reaches up and turns off his monitor before standing to tidy up some things. “So what do you want to talk about, Blue?”
He smiles slightly. “What, a doting grandson can’t just come to spend time with his grandfather?”
Gramps laughs. “Alright, fair enough. But if you don’t bring up something to talk about soon, I warn you I will, and then you won’t be able to get a word in edgewise.”
“Empty threat. You’ve already nearly talked yourself hoarse tonight, start yapping away any more and you’ll lose it completely.”
“Hmm. Nothing a squeeze of potion wouldn’t fix.”
“Yuck.” Blue takes a breath, then lets it out. “Gramps, I…”
“I know, Blue.”
He closes his eyes. “You don’t. I’m trying to say something new.”
Professor Oak stops, then comes to sit in the chair next to him. “I’m sorry, Blue. I’m listening.”
“Gramps, I can’t… I can’t do this again. I can’t go into another storm, not until I know you feel confident enough in me not to come too. I know it will get in the way of my ambitions, but I need you to know, so you don’t come anyway.”
The professor watches him with a slightly furrowed brow. “Alright,” he says slowly. “If that’s what you want, I understand, of course… and I’ll trust you. But… is it what you want, Blue? What about your promise?”
Blue’s eyes widen. “What… are you talking about?” he asks, trying far too late to look puzzled. Did Red tell him?
That fucking coward—
His grandfather sighs. “Right, I suppose it’s a bit late for that.” He shifts in his seat to more fully face Blue, expression grave but tranquil. “How much do you remember of that time, after your parents died?”
Blue shrugs, gaze down. “Bits and pieces. Sadness. How unfair it all was. Feeling lost. Being… angry. A lot of that.”
“I suppose that makes sense, though you showed very little of it. Very little of anything, in fact… except the anger. After your parents died, you were… inconsolable isn’t the right word. It wasn’t like Red after Tom was killed, you kept on going about your life as if it was mostly normal. You cried, yes, but mostly you were angry, as you say.”
“Why are you telling me this, Gramps?” He doesn’t like dredging up these memories, if not for his curiosity about where his grandfather is trying to go with it would probably have made some excuse and walked away already.
Professor Oak sighs again, clasping his hands over his knee and looking suddenly older as he stares into his lap. “It was maybe a week after it happened, you’d just started therapy and had spent the night at Red’s… Tom and Laura were downstairs talking to me after they dropped you off, and Red spent some time with you upstairs while we talked about how you were doing. I remember Laura being worried about you when I expressed my own concerns, mostly because we didn’t know
why
you weren’t expressing more sadness. After Red came down and everyone left… it was late, so I thought you were sleeping… I didn’t mean to pry, but when I walked by your bedroom toward mine, I heard you talking. I thought you were on the phone with Red or Daisy, but it wasn’t a conversation. Or at least not that kind.” His grandfather’s eyes are so sad Blue can barely look at them. “You were making a promise to your parents.”
Blue just stares at him. He can’t remember this at all, the earliest he could remember thinking of his promise was after Red’s dad died…
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” Blue says, blinking. “But… I did make that promise again, later. And I remember that.”
Gramps nods. “Well, I knew, then, that when you got older you would try. That you would throw yourself into the teeth of the world, to get as strong as possible, to take them down. When you finally told me about your ambition, I was relieved. I knew you wouldn’t try to do it alone, to hide it and pretend to just be after a normal championship. That’s what I was most afraid of… well, I was still a little afraid of it after, if I’m being honest. That if I tried to keep you home longer, to wait until you were older, you would just grab a pokemon and go. But that night… that was when I stopped responding to incidents that would expose me to Pressure. It was already starting to debilitate me, and I knew I had to preserve as much time with it as I could for Daisy, and then for you.”
Blue reaches out and takes his grandfather’s hand, jaw working as he breathes in and out. “I used to think you were a coward,” he whispers, not looking at his grandfather. “When I was younger. I thought you should go after them. Capture them. Kill them.” He looks up, hand squeezing. “I didn’t think that for long, I understood after Moltres hit Viridian.”
His grandfather smiles and raises Blue’s hand for a kiss, then clasps both hands around his. “I told you all this just to make sure you understand… there’s nothing you did that made me choose what I did rashly. I was prepared for this for years. If you decide to give up that promise, which I know must mean a lot to you… I don’t regret being the cause of that, exactly. You
are
too young, particularly if you want to be more than a cog in the machine. But I want to make sure you’re doing it for reasons you can respect yourself for, and not out of some form of coercion that concern for me has forced onto you.”
Blue swallows the lump in his throat, trying to think through the confusion he feels. “I… I don’t know what to think, Gramps. Part of me knows it was just a childish promise, totally naive and idiotic. I know I shouldn’t hold myself to something just because I said it when I was younger, no matter how much I meant it.” Red has said a lot on that topic, Blue can almost hear his voice before dismissing the apparition with a rush of words. “I don’t know how I’ll actually act the next time I have an opportunity to face them, maybe I’ll be able to resist and maybe not, but… whatever I choose, I won’t do it because of the promise.”
Gramps watches him a moment, then slowly nods. “I understand. And… I said I would trust you, but to be clear, you’re not just saying this because you want to keep me from assuming you’re there next time and going?”
“I thought about it,” Blue says, and shakes his head. “But no, this is me.” He’s not sure if that would actually be true, if Gramps hadn’t told him that story about himself, hadn’t helped him realize just how far back the (objectively) ridiculous promise went.
“Well, then.” His grandfather squeezes his hand again, long and hard. “I know I say this a lot, but… I’m very proud of you, Blue. I always have been, and decisions like this are why.”
Blue nods, bites his lip. “I think they’re going to take the scenarios from me.”
Gramps raises a brow, and bless him, doesn’t miss a beat. “Don’t they have to, eventually?”
“Yeah, but once they do, it’ll be out of my hands. It’s mine, mine and Glen’s, and then…”
“I understand. But you have higher heights to climb, and a pain like this will be necessary, time and again. It’s good practice, for when you’ll be giving up something quite a bit more dear to you for your true goal.”
Blue nods, and his thoughts sway back again as his eyes suddenly burn. “Do you think they… ” His words fade with his breath, and he swallows hard as the true, deep fear comes boiling out. “Mom and Dad, would they be… mad at me, for breaking my…?”
He barely gets the last word out before his grandfather has pulled him into a tight hug, and he clings to him until all his tears are gone.
The next day, as he’s on his way back to Vermilion City, Sabra sends him a message: they would no longer discuss his practice scenarios afterward, and the first group badge challenge would be in a week.
A followup message simply states that the battleground would be within the city.
If you have found a spelling error, please, notify me by selecting that text and pressing
Ctrl+Enter
. Thank you!
My brain feels wobbly around this, which tells me there’s something more to it that I’m not grasping right.
I’ve always thought of trigger warnings and safe spaces in college campuses as obviously important-if-done-properly, but widely blown out of context and misunderstood and exaggerated by detractors in order to talk down to millennials or find a new avenue to attack “PC culture.” I haven’t been in school for about five years, so it’s never really affected me, but my sympathies have always been vaguely with the people asking for what I consider to be justified uses for triggers (to prepare students for traumatic content in lessons) and safe spaces (to allow discussion of voices that normally self-censor due to fear or anxiety).
This event seems to fit into neither of those. It’s a professor, apparently innocently, relaying facts, and people getting upset and leaving the class as a result of their own political beliefs (as opposed to walking out because the environment was not “safe,” since presumably, no one was heckling people for walking out until they started to do so).
What makes this interesting of course is that the politics of it are flipped around from the stereotypes. So presumably, “PC” liberals would be hypocritical to mock the people walking out, but only if they don’t view trigger warnings and safe spaces as applying the way I described: if they do only consider them as meant for traumatic material or oppressed minorities, then they’re not being hypocritical in mocking people for reacting in a way that they themselves are often mocked for supposedly condoning, since they would consider that mockery to be aimed at a strawman that they are watching occur in real-time, but from the “opposition.” In other words, gleeful mockery at seeing people who normally might make fun of them for doing the exact thing the people leaving the rooms are doing is kind of understandable. Kind of like seeing a bully run home crying to their mother after the bully has repeatedly used the “crybaby” insult on them.
(Whether they’re being rude, or whether it’s the best reaction to have, is a different matter, of course.)
On the flip side of this, there are potentially conservatives who are NOT okay with trigger warnings of any kind, and NOT okay with safe spaces of any kind. Hopefully none of those people are making excuses for the people who walked out (in the interests of not being hypocritical), but if they’re attacking them for being representative of how “PC” and “pampered” college kids are these days, then they’re still strawmanning, because again, the usually proposed uses of trigger warnings and safe spaces would not apply to this circumstance. So once again, I find my sympathies aligning with the liberals ever-so-slightly more than I do the conservatives, assuming no one is being hypocritical (for the hypocrites, obviously, my sympathy is minimal).
Now, maybe I’m misunderstanding what the real use of safe spaces and trigger warnings have been about. Maybe I believe in the “ideals,” but in the trenches of the war these ideas are fighting in, people are pushing for safe spaces for ANY topic, or trigger warnings for ANY topic, that might offend anyone and, as the detractors insist, simply serve as an excuse to further distance themselves from ideas they dislike, and entrench themselves in intellectual bubbles.
I don’t doubt that some people might in fact want that, but I tend to view those who do as in the extremes: maybe that’s a mistake. Since I’m not in the trenches, I don’t know.
But for now, I’m going to hold onto the ideal, and examine this circumstance (at last) through the lens of what I hope might do the most possible good:
Do the people who walked out of this class deserve a “safe space?”
The uncharitable view, of course, is that they simply walked out because they didn’t want to listen to someone talk about things they considered “obviously wrong” or “offensive” to their notions of what humans were, where they came from, and how their religious beliefs and racial identity tied into their ego and sense of self.
So assuming the professor acted professionally, which seems to be the case just from the article, most people I think would say no, on both sides of the aisle. This is, as I said, the classic strawman of this position, made all the more contentious because it’s being actualized by the political culture that tends to most often be against “PC” culture.
But from the perspective of the kids who left, do THEY feel like they had to leave because they were unable to speak their mind free of ridicule or peer pressure?
And that, I don’t know. But it’s possible. On most college campuses, even in Texas, conservatives can in fact be a minority that feels “unsafe” airing their political or religious views for fear of the ridicule it’ll bring.
So if I’m being charitable, which I’d like to be, maybe these students really do need a safe space to talk about their beliefs about the origin of mankind without being mocked or feeling pressured into accepting the views of those around them, so they can really articulate what they believe and why, and maybe be more open to having their views challenged and changed.
And of course maybe there was a mix of both such students who walked out of the class. Apparently some stayed behind to argue, in any case.
Ok, the wobblyness has mostly faded, now that I’ve written all that out and feel a bit more secure in what I think and why. If anyone wants to let me know if I’ve missed something, please do.
If confirmation bias had an image, it would be something like this:
How many black dots do you see in there? If you’re like most people. chances are you see 1, maybe 2. Until you move your eyes. And then you see another 1, maybe 2. And the first ones you saw are gone.
There are 12 black dots in that image. At most you can probably only see a fraction of them at a time. And yet your mind convinces you that it can see the whole image perfectly… so much so that it helpfully fills out the grey intersections where the other dots are, leaving them empty. Don’t mind them. Nothing to see there.
Our minds are so good at pattern recognition they will
ignore data about reality
to complete the patterns they perceive. And if you’re one of the rare people who can see all 12 at once, don’t worry:
there are plenty of other things that will fool you instead.↗︎︎
If your brain can trick you into only seeing one or two of the dots on this image at the same time, you can rest assured it can trick you into thinking you know more than you actually do about data that isn’t even all in front of you at the same time, let alone data that isn’t all the data in the wo
rld about that topic.
That’s the trickiest half of confirmation bias. Not just focusing on data that confirms what you believe, but ignoring evidence that goes against what you believe, so thoroughly that something in your mind filters it from your senses or memory before it even reaches “you.”
There’s nothing wrong with having a belief without having all the data concerning it. We’re imperfect beings, and can’t go through life having 0% confidence in things just because of unknown unknowns.
But believing something isn’t the same as being 100% or even 90% confident that it’s true. You can believe in something and acknowledge that you’re only 70% confident in it, or 53.8% confident, as long as you know of things that would increase or decrease your confidence if brought to your attention.
But most people don’t think that way. They don’t talk about their beliefs in probabilities. Even if they acknowledge that they “might be wrong,” they’re confident that what they think is true. And research has shown people to be overconfident in their beliefs
again↗︎︎
and
again↗︎︎
and
again↗︎︎
.
Thanks to empiricism and reason, we do have good reasons to believe certain scientific and philosophical ideas. They’ve been vigorously tested and used to make correct predictions about the world. They’ve been used to change things in our external, shared reality. It’s okay to be confident in things like “I exist” and “things in the world can be measured.”
But things like political beliefs? Beliefs about people you’ve never met? Beliefs about systems you’ve never studied?
Lower your confidence in all of those. All of them.
When you’ve reached the point where you know what you value (Equality, Justice, Health, etc) but are not quite positive about what the right things to do to achieve the optimal balance of those values in the real world are, you’re a bit closer to understanding what you think you know and why you think you know it.
If you’ve reached solipsism, dial it back. That way lies madness, and insufferable, pointless arguments.
The Power of Guilt
“Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutterball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.” -Stephen King
Inside Out was a movie about a young girl named Riley who has five anthropomorphized emotions: Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear. The emotions each played an important role in keeping Riley safe and happy, though it took the plot of the movie to teach everyone what function Sadness served: to signal to others that you are not okay, that you are not happy with things as they are, that you
need help.
Sometimes it’s an emotion that tells
you
that, so you become motivated to change things.
Surprising as it may be to some, this is not an obvious thing. There are many people who do not understand it, and even understanding it, have trouble integrating it into their behavior and worldview. One group of such people are children or teenagers who experience grief and don’t receive the proper support. They can often act in destructive ways, to themselves and others, until they receive help processing their own emotions and the changes in their lives. Another group are adults who were handed too much responsibility at too young an age, and, later in life, have trouble expressing sadness or hurt. This is especially true when the people causing them distress are simultaneously those that need them to be fine. Others are adults who were conditioned at a young age against showing any weakness or vulnerability, either as a method to control them or a misguided attempt to strengthen them, and never shook off that conditioning.
Like any emotion, sadness can be overtuned or undertuned to the point of dysfunction. But the reason the movie was valuable is that it shined a spotlight on an emotion many people don’t understand as well as they do Joy or Anger or Fear, an emotion that can make them inherently uncomfortable to talk about or express.
If I were to write the sequel to Inside Out, it would be about Riley growing into a teenager with a host of new emotions, and the focus of the plot would be learning about Guilt.
Like Sadness, Guilt is an emotion that causes
discomfort
. We actively try to avoid actions that we know will cause it, and subconsciously try to explain our actions or thoughts in a favorable light to assuage it, a process misnomously referred to as “rationalization.” When Guilt is too active, when people are conditioned to feel it too much from too many things, it can lead to self-flagellation and undeserved repentance that limits growth and makes happiness seem itself a poison.
But without Guilt, we end up with a world of dangerously static people. Guilt, properly felt and understood, leads to change. Guilt, properly acknowledged and reacted to, leads to growth.
What Do I think I Know, and Why Do I Think I Know it?
When I was too young to understand rational justifications for behavior, Guilt was the emotion that led to the most memorable moments of personal growth. When I was at summer camp we used to throw crab apples at each other for fun. One that I threw accidentally hit a girl near the eye. Her wails led to an intense sensation of guilt that did far more to deter me from repeating the action than any punishments the camp counselors devised. When future games of throwing crab apples commenced, I found something better to do with my time. Well, probably not better, but less likely to hurt others.
That was an accident. Once in elementary school, I hurt someone out of cold, calculated anger. The PE teacher randomly divided us into two teams and sent my group to the field first. When we switched, I ended up at the back of the line for kicking the ball. Someone had to be there, and that day it was me. It had been a long, hot 30 minute wait to get my turn to kick, and I was counting down the minutes before I knew the bell would ring. Finally, with moments to spare, it was my turn. I positioned myself, watched the bright red ball come bouncing toward me, and just as I prepared myself to kick it, one of my classmates ran in front of me and, laughing like a loon, sent it sailing over the field.
The bell rang before the ball could be returned, and as we walked back toward the school buildings, my eyes locked on the back of the ball-kicker’s head. My “righteous” rage thinned to a laser point, and I strode up to him from behind, tapped his shoulder, and sucker-punched him in the face as hard as I could.
I can’t remember if I got any satisfaction in seeing him curled up on the ground and screaming in pain. I only remember the guilt afterward, as I promised myself I would never do that again.
And I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I never hurt someone again.
My older brother used to beat me fairly often when we were young. Our relationship got a lot better after I moved out for college, and better still after he left for the military, but while I was young he would hit me for all manner of things, sometimes in frightening rages, other times just as a playful form of expressing annoyance.
It wasn’t until my best friend broke down in tears and told me he wanted me to stop hitting him that I realized I’d adopted my brother’s behavior. Not in anger, just “playful” punches on the arm or slaps upside the head. It was like someone had shined a light on a dark corner of my mind, illuminating machinery I hadn’t even known was there. I began to cry too, and promised him I would stop. And I did.
I cried again years later while reading Ender’s Game for the first time.
“I’m just like Peter,”
Ender thinks at the end of the first chapter, crying over the boy he beat.
“Take away my monitor, and I’m just like Peter.”
Becoming my older brother was my greatest fear as a child.
Hurting people isn’t the only thing to be guilty about, of course. I used to steal all the time as a child. Magic card packs from toy stores, food from supermarkets. Eventually I got caught, threatened with jail, fingerprinted, and released without a trip to the police station. I felt miserable the whole ride home. My mother’s recriminations stopped at “next time don’t get caught,” but my own continued all the way to my bedroom. While there, I lay on the covers and stared at the ceiling. I knew I had to fight my urge to steal, kill it completely dead, before it landed me in more trouble. So I identified each and every one of the irrational thoughts I’d been repeating to avoid Guilt at stealing, my “rationalizations,” and discarded them.
It’s not fair that we’re poor and can’t afford things.
If everyone who was poor stole society would collapse, and I’m not literally starving to death. Discard.
I’m stealing from large stores and national companies, not individuals. They won’t even notice the loss.
Individual people work at these stores and rely on them doing well to maintain their job or get better pay. Discard.
I’m very kind and generous to others. It balances out.
Helping others does not justify unrelated actions that harm others. Discard.
By the time I left my room that evening, I had resolved never to shoplift again. The community service and special classes I had to attend were superfluous: my desires for self preservation, and guilt over the people I was hurting, were strong enough to fuel change, and I was thankfully rational enough to leverage them into the right changes to my thinking patterns to be effective. The urges to steal were still there, but they were easier to resist every time I did, until they ceased almost completely. I haven’t shoplifted since.
All this isn’t to say I’m perfect. I got into a fight a couple years ago and hurt someone more than was justified by the circumstances. I still occasionally fill my water cup with soda from the fountains at fast food places. Guilt only works as a mechanism for change when it’s genuinely connected to an action, and that disconnect between actions that are intellectually recognized as wrong, but don’t emotionally result in guilt, is what confuses so many people who struggle with change, either in themselves or others.
How Does This Knowledge Help?
Besides the value in understanding guilt’s role in helping us grow, there’s also the value in understanding what its absence in others signals.
In my line of work, and often through my extended social circle, one of the hardest challenges I see people struggle with is emotional abuse. Because it isn’t as overt as physical abuse, and because by its very nature it turns one’s own thoughts and feelings against them, it’s important to understand how valuable guilt is to changing someone’s behavior and helping them grow, so that you can also identify why those that lack guilt, won’t.
Narcissists exist. They can be parents. They can be siblings. They can be friends. Whether it’s due mostly to biology or social factors, this reality has to be confronted and addressed at some point in many people’s lives. Narcissists aren’t sociopaths, or psychopaths. Just people who cannot help but primarily see the world in terms of their own wants and needs. And of course people can fall on a spectrum for narcissism. But those at the extreme end can be frighteningly hard to know how to deal with… especially if they’re someone close to you.
In systemic therapy, all behavior is examined through the system it’s a part of, even if it’s uncomfortable to do so. When someone emotionally abuses their spouse, we ask “What is that spouse doing that’s allowing that behavior to continue?” Not because we’re blaming the spouse for being abused, but because everything people do communicates something to those around them, and either reinforces or punishes the actions of those around them. If you can’t make someone want to change (and you often can’t), sometimes you have to change what happens if they don’t.
If there was a quick and simple one-size-fits-all solution to getting people to change negative behaviors, the world would look like a very different place. People are complicated, and different enough from each other that, even with generally applicable incentives and behavior models, finding just the right lever to pull or button to push can be the work of hours of intensive exploration and analysis.
But over time we’ve generally learned what doesn’t work, and that knowledge is worth spreading. The word “enabling” is tossed around fairly often, and is an important concept to understand when it comes to battling addiction. But people don’t just enable each other’s alcoholism or gambling obsessions. People also enable each other’s selfishness or cruelty, usually because we don’t realize how we’re doing it.
And that’s where the presence or lack of guilt is so important.
Shame is an external form of guilt. If someone is acting selfishly, or callously, or dishonestly, shame done right can shock them into better self-awareness. It’s an extrinsic motivation, an outside incentive that can help lead to change even if the person doesn’t want it. It’s not the ideal mechanism, but it can be a vital starting point.
Unfortunately, as a tool, shame’s natural state is a mallet. It’s hard to wield with the precision necessary to constructively affect behavior. It’s also far too often wielded in the name of ego rather than compassion.
Shaming someone for their religious beliefs (or lack of them), their sexuality, their hobbies or interests, or because they reflect poorly on the shamer, are all done far more often than the “constructive” forms of shaming. It’s this widespread destructiveness that’s given “shame” and “guilt” such negative connotations, where it’s considered wrong by many to impose your beliefs or morals on another’s actions.
Let’s focus on that distinction here:
Destructive shaming
frames the issue as outside the person’s control. It often manifests in contempt, shouting, and belittling. It tends to either incite self-loathing or defensiveness, neither of which lead to positive changes.
Examples: “You always do this. You never do that. Why do you do that? Why are you like that? Are you lazy/stupid? You’re a horrible person. You’re pathetic.”
Constructive shaming
focuses on appeals to the actor’s better nature, and their stated or ostensible values and desires to not harm others. It manifests in frank but calm language, is surrounded by support, and followed by a positive goal.
Examples: “I want to make sure you know how much this is hurting me/them. I know you don’t want that. What do you think might be causing this? Is there anything I can do to help?”
Constructive shaming is not a magic bullet. People who repeatedly act in their own interest at the expense of others, or at the expense of themselves, have spent years learning to “rationalize” and justify their actions, and, at a more advanced level, learn to cycle through self-recrimination as a method of assuaging guilt.
Enablers are often sought out at this point. The guilty party will admit their shameful acts to people who are “safe,” friends or family that they know will offer empty platitudes as support, like “You’re a good person” and “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be happy.”
Telling someone they’re a good person when they made an honest mistake is helpful. Telling them they’re a good person when they repeatedly do things “good people” don’t is not.
Telling someone they deserve to be happy is important when they keep putting other people’s desires over their own. Telling them they deserve to be happy when they repeatedly put their own desires first at the expense of others is not.
And yet this is what makes up a lot of a friend-group’s or family’s interactions when someone expresses guilt. They want to help. They want to signal support. These are admirable desires, but they have to be measured against history and desired outcomes.
If a friend calls you to berate themselves over cheating on their significant other while simultaneously fishing for support in how unhappy they are with their SO, recognize that distinction between support and enabling.
If a sibling laughs about how they can’t remember their “crazy hijinks” of the night before because of how blackout drunk they got, laugh with them if you want to, but see if that laughter is covering some deeper issue.
People often hide their own concerns for their safety and wellbeing, or their fear of judgement/shame by others, in humor or a casual assurance that everything is fine. Expressing guilt becomes a form of guilty pleasure, a signal to attract comfort from others, and receiving comfort and absolution from others makes it easier to continue the same behavior.
The first step in changing that behavior is often changing the responses to it. Every part of a system has some affect on the other parts of the system, and if you can’t directly change the behavior of Part A, you can try to alter it through the behavior of Part B, or through the response of Part B through Part C.
The Takeaway
When trying to change your own behavior, lean into guilt. Focus on it, remember it, and ask others to provide the external shaming of your future self if necessary. Don’t let the guilt consume you: use it as strength and motivation to become the best version of yourself.
When trying to change someone else’s behavior… well, that’s where things get complicated. Always try to change people’s behavior through kindness and understanding first. When that fails, “tough love” is sometimes necessary, assuming you have the right relationship with them and temperament to ensure it’s done properly.
But sometimes love isn’t enough.
Idealistic Me wants to believe that everyone can change, when they’re ready and if they have the proper support. Pragmatic Me recognizes that, time, effort, and resources are limited, and that if someone does not want to change, sacrificing good people’s time and effort and value to enable bad actions is not just irrational, but immoral.
Even the worst human in history might change and grow and become a better person with a thousand years of life to live. Unfortunately, for now we only have a handful of decades to work with, and for many, that’s just not enough.
To make things worse, there are many ways society pressures people to persist in helping those that abuse them and others: “they’re family,” or “true love is unconditional,” or “friends are meant to support each other.” These too can be the tools of an abuser, to turn someone’s guilt against themselves and keep them trapped in servitude.
For those that cannot be guilted, cannot be shamed, who wear their selfishness on their sleeve or repeatedly promise change without demonstrating it, often hiding behind tears and dramatic acts of attention-seeking self-destruction, the best option is often to simply cut them out like a cancer.
And this is always easier said than done, a bitter path to take, full of its own facets of guilt that need to be examined, acknowledged, and in this case, often discarded.
But that’s another post.
In the meantime, recognize how important guilt is to change your own behavior, when you need to. There’s a certain point where
not
judging yourself,
not
beating yourself up over your mistakes, is just as wrong as putting yourself into a self-hate spiral.
Until you can put the behaviors behind you, the ones that make you harm other people, the ones that make you harm yourself, you shouldn’t forgive yourself for the pain you cause.
Become a better person first. Use whatever tools you can, including guilt, to get there. And once you’ve got a handle on it, then forgive your past self, because you’re not that person anymore.
And at the same time, recognize how important a lack of guilt in someone else is as a signal that they’re not ready to change .
Don’t let guilt become a cage you lock yourself in, and don’t let others who lack guilt use your love for them against you. Narcissists and emotional abusers don’t need to trap you in their own dysfunction: they
know exactly how to take guilt and make into a prison that you’ll build for yourself, deflecting any shame aimed at them and handing it back to you, brick by brick.
